Héctor Germán Oesterheld
(Buenos Aires, 1919-around 1977) Argentine comic scriptwriter.With drawings by Francisco Solano and Alberto Breccia, he created El Eternauta, a masterpiece of Latin American comics that continues to be republished in several languages and has thousands of followers in America and Europe.
With a degree in geology, Oesterheld began writing scripts and adventure stories for comics from 1950.He became known with Alan and Crazy and later popularized dozens of characters such as Ray Kitt (1951), Bull Rocket (1952), Sergeant Kirk (1952), Tarpon (1953), Uma-Uma (1953), White Dragon (1955), Scout River (1956), Ticonderonga (1957), Ernie Pike (1957), Joe Zonda (1958), Mort Cinder (1962), Artemio (1970) and Argón the Justice (1970 ), among others.
He founded the Frontera publishing house and edited the magazines Hora Cero Monthual and Frontera Monthual, but it was undoubtedly El Eternauta , his masterpiece, the script that made the writer an obligatory reference in the Argentine comic.The comic began to be published in 1957 with drawings by Francisco Solano López.Afterwards the author modified some details of the script and, with Breccia's strokes, El Eternauta appeared in the magazine Gente.After a period of interruption due to editorial problems, the series reappeared in the 1970s in the Skorpio publication and, again, with Solano as a cartoonist.
Committed to democratic ideals and the fight against dictatorial regimes Oesterheld sympathized with the Montonero movement and was one of the prominent members of the Argentine intelligentsia against the military government.Hiding for months to flee from Videla's men, on April 27, 1977, he was kidnapped in La Plata by the military police.It is believed that he was later transferred to the Campo de Mayo and La Tablada detention centers, where he was tortured and, finally, shot somewhere in the town of Mercedes.
Under the Argentine dictatorship, he was claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people, Oesterheld's widow, Elsa Sánchez Beis, lost her entire family.Her husband, her four daughters (Estela, Marina, Diana and Beatriz), her two sons-in-law (Diana and Estela's husbands) and her two grandchildren (the babies Diana and Marina were expecting) disappeared without leaving any trace.Of the nine, he was only able to recover and bury Beatriz's body.
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