Horacio Altuna, legendary Argentine cartoonist born in Córdoba (1941), master of graphic eroticism and a world winner of the ninth art, is one of the greatest authors of international comics, for more than four decades. He is part of a golden generation in Argentinian comic art that includes artists such as José Muñoz, Enrique Breccia, Juan Giménez and Domingo "Cacho" Mandrafina.
Fig.1. Horacio Altuna (1941)
Prodigious Narrative Talent
The self-taught Altuna first trained as a comics reader in Argentina in the 1950s, a historic period in the evolution of comics worldwide, largely thanks to the prodigious narrative talent of Héctor Germán Oesterheld who became a teacher for all Argentinian cartoonists. In 1965, Altuna made his debut and two years later a longstanding cooperation with the publishing house Colomba in Buenos Aires began. For them he created the characters 'Big Norman' (with writer Robin Wood), 'Hilario Corvalan' (with Sergio Almendre), 'Los Cuzados' and 'Kabul ' (with Hector German Oesterheld).
Fig.2. Héctor Germán Oesterheld (1919-1977)
Huge Success
Simultaneously, he worked for the publishers Quinterno, Abril, Atlantida and the Fleetway group in London. In 1975, he created the series 'El Loco Chavez' with the writer Carlos Trillo in the daily Clarin. The strip was a huge success, and was adapted for TV and published in Spain and France. Altuna became secretary of the Argentinian Comic Association and taught graphics at the School of Arts in Buenos Aires.
Artistic Ceiling
Reaching his artistic ceiling and the dictatorial stranglehold his country was in, made him decide to move to Spain in 1982. He settled in the Catalan town of Sitges to work in the comics published by Toutain and for other French and Italian publishers. Thus, he began to develop his own stories, such as Ficcionario, Chances and Hot L.A.
Fig.3.
Italian Playboy
In 1989, at the age of 49, after he had broken off all relations with French publishers due to a copyright conflict, and loosing his job, he started to work for the Italian Playboy. They sold the same material to Spain and other countries. They gave him a nice financial deal where he received $5000 to $7000 for each page of comics. It was fun, but he stopped doing it out of exhaustion after 12 years. While his main focus in the 1990s were erotic comics, he also produced the family comic 'Familia Tipo' in El Periódico and later in the Argentinian daily El Nene Montano.
Fig.4.
Erotic Narrative
In an interview with Gabriel Zarate in 2020 Altuna described his views on eroticism as follows, 'Eroticism is always in the head, there are ways and procedures to narrate eroticism, I have not reflected on the mechanisms, I know that I try to draw what I imagine. There are authors like Milo Manara who approach it in one way, Serpieri in a different way, they have a different line to make eroticism, but the truth is that I never thought about the device to get to make an erotic comic, I did it, simply.'
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Fig.5a.
Fig.6. Voyeur
Fig.7. The Distracted
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Fig.9. Gato
Fig.10. Voyeur
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Fig.11a.
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In the extended Premium version you can find out more about Altuna's specific style and influences, a detailed description of a series of standout erotic tableaux presented in elongated, rectangular compositions, and many other alluring examples of his erotic work.
Click HERE for the virtuoso erotica of the Argentinian comic art genius El Tomi
Sources: twitter.com, nonozeroblog.blogspot.com, lambiek.net, wikipedia.org, ellectordehistorietas.blogspot.com , eslahoradelastortas.com
