#claudio ramirez

[thecomicsnexus]

Cazador

[thecomicsnexus]

El libro del Cazador

EL LIBRO DEL CAZADOR APRIL 1996 BY JORGE LUCAS, CLAUDIO RAMÍREZ, ARIEL OLIVETTI AND MAURO CASCIOLI

SYNOPSIS

In 1536, famine was commonplace in the recently founded Buenos Aires, and some men resorted to cannibalism to survive. A group of men accused of this practice left town with their leader, the son of a German mercenary who came with one of the Juan Díaz De Solís expeditions (also grandson of Vlad Tepes, the human impaler). Together this man and his people started attacking natives’ villages, but at a certain point, he decided that they shouldn’t eat human flesh ever again. This rule wasn’t met with much agreement among his men, who thought the food the natives were eating wasn’t enough for them.

The leader would mark the natives with a cross to the forehead and then execute them, but one day he heard one of the natives speak about a hill full of silver and food. They decided to keep him alive so he could take them there. Several days passed and that hill never came up, so they decided to torture him and kill him. After doing that, they felt a supernatural force attacking them, followed by a rain of spears that killed everyone... but the leader.

When the leader wakes up, he is in bondage and a group of “warlocks?” tell him that he is in the land of the dead and he is going to be punished. They call him “Cazador”, they mark him with an inverted cross to the forehead and then his body is possessed by the spirits of the hill. He then learns that his mother was one of them, and he would be cursed to never being able to die (until they let him).

In 1544, Cazador has been butchering “white people”, but his hunt would end one day, as he would get captured and taken to a mission. That night, he feels something wrong is going on and he meets Melkor, a demon that used to govern hell until he was dethroned. Now he is gathering an army to take these lands. Cazador wouldn’t agree to his terms, so Melkor buries him alive for centuries. He eventually escaped and stayed in that church.

In present day (1992 or 1995), Melkor finally comes back with an army (he casually had confrontations with Cazador, but those were lesser stories), zombies start attacking everything in the city and a wild tornado is taking lives.

Cazador fights Balrog (Melkor’s favourite demon), and then has to rescue his stuffed bear from two zombies. He tries to go to sleep, but the police, assuming Cazador is behind all the crazy anomalies in the city, attack him and take him prisoner.

In prison, however, Cazador decides to escape and nobody can stop him. Now the final fight is approaching and Balrog betrays Melkor, allied to the lords of the abyss (as Melkor’s action are considered forbidden).

Cazador goes back to his mission and rides on “Adolf” his plane, and releases an H bomb over Buenos Aires’ downtown area (more precisely Plaza de Mayo). This puts an end to Melkor’s army, but no the demon himself. Cazador finally gets revenge over him and kills him (sending him to hell). Despite putting an end to the menace, he killed thousands of civilians. But he couldn’t care less.

REVIEW

In case you were wondering... yes, this is the same Ariel Olivetti you know.

This book was my introduction to Cazador in 1996 and it was never clear to me when it was published as the art has marks for 1992 and 1993. Turns out this book is a reworking of the first 7 issues that came out in black and white. It’s not the exact art as some things were added.

Some things may be too politically incorrect (mostly in the art), but to be honest, this comic-book was the zeitgeist of Argentine society in the nineties. The way people act and talk (and whatever you see written in the walls) was pretty much taken from reality. Perhaps one of the most obvious signs is the anti-antisemitism present for most of the book. This was an Argentinian problem (and perhaps still is), especially in the early nineties. Other things can be explained, for example, Cazador seems to have swastikas on many things, but he was created as a loser, so he fought on many wars, always on the losing side. Imagine Wolverine fighting in every fight, but always losing.

Apart from typical Argentine slang and essence, I would say most of it is “young people talk”. As a teenager I can validate that this is how we used to talk among friends.

Putting offensive material apart (and you will surely find something to be rightfully offended about throughout the series), this is the second origin the character got (he had another but it was more superhero-like and clearly for a different character, a new yorker). That first story was published in an anthology series called “Arkham” in 1990.

The most attractive thing about this book is the art. Each of these artists have qualities that will remind you of artists like Simon Bisley. But I can also find traces of Mignola and the irreverence of Tank Girl. Olivetti’s technique was different in these issues than the one he have these days, so it isn’t so easy to identify (perhaps the artist that stands out the most among them is Lucas, but is a bit more Mignola).

Now, is this new-reader-friendly? It was in 1996.But there are so many side jokes in the background (and casual dialogues), that you just won’t get most of the jokes, unless you lived through the nineties. I don’t think it was ever the idea of making these stories last forever. Not considering how the Argentinian comic book industry was at the time. You had cult classics, but the most popular stories were in comic-strips and would remain in a permanent status quo, that means you didn’t really need to go back decades to track a story (there is continuity though, but the whole experiment lasted less than a decade). Technically, you could bring back the character these days and do modern jokes (there were talks about a movie, but I haven’t heard any news from Olivetti about it).

This book in black and white is nice, but Cazador comics were easy to spot because of their coloring and digital effects. Even this story was partially colored for another book.

I give this book a score of 8, ¡carajo!

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[metalcomx]

Cazador - Jorge Lucas, Ariel Olivetti, Claudio Ramirez, Mauro Cascioli

[odysseyofamouse-blog]

Mountain school by Claudio Ramirez on Flickr.