This is a translated version of the articles.
Remembering the greats is always good, but we can’t forget the new artists and authors that
stand in the shoulders of giants to keep horror comics going. And we can’t
forget that horror isn’t limited to American comics either. That’ why this week I will
talk a little about one of my favorite current authors, the Argentine Salvador
Sanz.
Born in
Buenos Airres (which is not the capital of Brazil, by the way) in 1975, Salvador
Sanz graduated at the Manuel Belgrano National School of Fine Arts, but also
studied animation at the Animation School in Argentina. His work started to be
known in Argentina in the 1990s, where he was part of the independent magazine called
Catzole as a co-editor and author, along with his colegues Julio Azamor and J.J.
Rovella. His work soon became popular and it didn’t take long for Sanz to
started publish his comics in other places like Spain and Latin America,
specially Brazil. Outside Argentina, Sanz is most known for his regular
stories at Fierro Magazine. As of today, Salvador Sanz collects a series of
awards from several countries in South America and Europe and including the
United States.
Sanz also
works with animation. He worked on Mercano el Marciano, a TV show from Ayar B.
and Juan Antin, created El Inivisor and directed Gorgonas, which in 2006 won
the award for best animated short at San Diego Comic Con. His most known work in comics are
Ex-Abrupto Magazine, Sudamérika, Ángela Della Morte, Legión (2006),
Nocturno (2007) e Desfigurado (2007).
Unlike most
recent authors that focus on a more stylized type of art (not that there's any problem with that) Salvador Sanz’ strongest suit is his detailed images that navigates closer to realism, frequently mixing
elements from the real world with “impossible objects”, like in Legión (Legion) and Noturno (Nocturnal). His stories are mostly influenced by H.P.
Lovecraft, while his art has some traces of Moebius – with dark
twist. Sanz also mentioned works like Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano
López’ El Eternauta and European authors like Enki Bilan as other big
influences.
In his stories, Sanz navigates through horror, fantasy and sci-fi
with really interesting plots. Ángela Della Morte takes place in a future where
the title character works at Sibelluis labs with an unusual job: to trick her own
body simulating death to release your soul, which can take the body of people “without souls”.
Noturno takes us to a surreal and sinister trip where people have a strange connection
to a weird world. Legión explores the end of the world through characters
associated with art and plays with the transcendental aspect many times attributed
to artistic expressions. All very good stuff. One of his
most recent comics, El Esqueleto, takes place in a future where a virus
contaminate all cattle in the world and
turned humans into cannibal monsters. Only the vegetarians didn’t get
contaminated and keep fighting for survival. The title character is one of
them. Recently, he illustrated an edition of H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu.
If you like
horror I strongly recommend that you look for Salvador Sanz' works. I like them
all, but I have Legión as my favorite (I actually gave a lecture about horror using
this comic as a case study years ago). This particular comic was published in United States as "Legion" by IDW back in 2007.
Rafael Algures is a Bachelor of Philosophy specialized in Neurosciences of Language. He is also a copywriter, content and science writer, and a comic book creator. His latest work, “Gutter of Horror: Transition”, is available at Amazon – digital and paperback.
Further
Reading: Legion (Spanish Edition), Salvador Sanz