Una aventura nueva con sabor argentino: quadrinhos e identidade nacional na revista Suplemento Semanal Hora Cero (1957-1959)

Abstract

The present work intends to discuss the contributions of the publishing Frontera in the argentine’s press. The Frontera’s magazine created and participated in a moment of ecstasy in the 1950sAt that time, the comics, in the country, was passing through the comics “golden age”, where there was a great quality of art and an amount of lectores. Frontera’s intervention in the period respects some aspects of operation: a space of artistic autonomy and the criticism against the American characters. With this context and seeing the documents produced by the publishing, we seek to understand the strategies taken by the editor, Héctor Oesterheld, that contributed to the existence and success of the editorial project. Using Cultural History and Book History, we discuss the materiality and organization of the printed material at the same time of the distribution and the magazine’s reading. The discussion is guided by the Comics Studies, which discuss the organization of codes and symbols in the narrative structure. The documents represented by the magazines, interviews and advertisements, guide the interpretation of the comics as a product of mass media, and Frontera's magazines represent the relationship between popular culture and politics. An example of the reading policy democratization in the country at the end of the 1950s among the Buenos Aires citizens. The discussions in the period contribute to the stories development of narrative as Nahuel Barros and Ernie Pike – gauchesca and war, respectively. The problem surrounding comic strips is a process to achieve historical discussions at a period through a mass culture view.