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| Alberto Breccia | |
|---|---|
 Alberto Breccia, right, pictured with a helper at his workshop (1953) | |
| Born | (1919-04-15)April 15, 1919 |
| Died | November 10, 1993(1993-11-10) (aged 74) Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Area | |
| Pseudonym | El Viejo (The Old Man) |
Notable works | Mort Cinder Perramus The Eternaut 1969 Adaptations ofLovecraft'sCthulhu Mythos |
| Children | Enrique Breccia Patricia Breccia Cristina Breccia |
| Signature | |
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Alberto Breccia (April 15, 1919 – November 10, 1993) was aUruguayan-bornArgentine artist and cartoonist. His sonEnrique Breccia and daughterPatricia Breccia are also comic book artists.
Comic book authorFrank Miller considers Breccia as one of his personal mentors,[1] even declaring that (regarding modernity in comics): "it all started with Breccia".[2]
Born inMontevideo, Uruguay, Breccia moved with his parents toBuenos Aires, Argentina, when he was three years old. After leaving school, Breccia worked in a tripe packing plant and in 1938 he got a job for the magazineEl Resero, where he wrote articles and drew the covers.
He began to work professionally in 1939, when he joined the publishing house Manuel Láinez. He worked on magazines such asTit-Bits,Rataplán andEl Gorrión where he createdcomic strips such asMariquita Terremoto,Kid Río Grande,El Vengador (based on a popular novel), and other adaptations.
During the 1950s he became an honorary member of the "Group of Venice" that consisted of expatriateItalian artists such asHugo Pratt,Ivo Pavone,Horacio Lalia,Faustinelli andOngaro.[3] Other honorary members wereFrancisco Solano López,Carlo Cruz andArturo Perez del Castillo. With Hugo Pratt, he started thePan-American School of Art in Buenos Aires. In 1957 he joined publisherEditorial Frontera, under the direction ofHéctor Germán Oesterheld, where he created severalErnie Pike stories. In 1958 Breccia's seriesSherlock Time ran in the comic magazineHora Cero Extra, with scripts by Oesterheld.
In 1960 he began to work for European publishers via a Buenos Aires-based art agency: forBritish publishing houseFleetway he drew a fewwesterns and war stories. This period did not last long. His sonEnrique Breccia would also draw a few war stories for Fleetway in the late 1960s, such asSpy 13.
Breccia and Oesterheld collaborated to produce one of the most important comic strips in history,Mort Cinder, in 1962.[3] The face of the immortal Cinder is modeled after Breccia's assistant, Horacio Lalia, and the appearance of his companion, theantique dealer Ezra Winston, is actually Breccia's own. Cinder and Winston's strip began on July 26, 1962, in issue Nº 714 ofMisterix magazine, and ran until 1964 .
In 1968 Breccia was joined by his son,Enrique, in a project to draw the comic biography ofChe, the life ofChe Guevara, again with a script provided by Oesterheld.
In 1969 Oesterheld wrote a reboot ofEl Eternauta, for the Argentinian magazineGente. Breccia drew the story with a decidedly experimental style, resorting to diverse techniques. Theresulting work was anything but conventional and moving away from the commercial. Breccia refused to modify its style, which added to the tone of the script, and was much different fromFrancisco Solano López original.
During the seventies, Breccia makes major graphic innovations in black and white and color with series likeUn tal Daneri andChi ha paura delle fiabe?, written byCarlos Trillo. On the last one, asatire based onBrothers Grimm's tales, he plays with texture, mixingcollage,acrylic andwatercolor. This technique will be used later in the eighties by American and British authors such asBill Sienkiewicz andDave McKean.
Other stories include:Cthulhu Mythos,Buscavidas (text by Carlos Trillo), aHistoria grafica del Chile andPerramus, inspired by the work of the poetJuan Sasturain a pamphlet against thedictatorship in Argentina.
Breccia died in Buenos Aires in 1993.
