Black and white classic – review of the comic “Mort Cinder”

Mort Cinder is considered one of the best Argentine comics. Alberto Breccia has the status of a master among authors and lovers of drawing stories. Somehow, however, his work was not available on the Polish market before. Now, thanks to Non Stop Comics, this gap has been filled.

 

A man with many lives

The comic tells the story of Ezra Wilson, an antiquarian from Chelsea, who, through a mysterious combination of events, meets Mort Cinder on his way – a man who has lived for millennia and has died many times over the centuries. In the following episodes, we get to know episodes from his turbulent fate. The title character shows Wilson (and readers) the backstage of the events in which he participated – from the construction of the Tower of Babel, through the Battle of Thermopylae, to the catastrophe of the slave ship sailing from Africa and the escape from an American prison in the 1920s.

The structure of the plot is not continuous, and the individual parts are only connected by the characters of the series’ protagonists. The screenwriter Héctor Germán Oesterheld, however, made sure that each successive story was a separate whole interesting for the readers. Although we learn little about Cinder himself, his adventures are intriguing and engaging enough that this understatement would not be a serious drawback. The structure of most of the chapters is based on a similar pattern – in an antiquarian bookstore there is an object that somehow relates to the life of Mort Cinder, and the latter begins to tell another fragment of his biography. Oesterheld, however, avoided routine by varying the times and places of action, and thus – the species used. In addition to horror elements, there are also motifs taken from a war story, a crime story, science fiction. Thanks to these diversions, reading the next installments of the series does not become boring, despite the large, by today’s standards, amount of text accompanying the drawings. Although the content conveyed by words and images does not duplicate, a kind of “literary nature” of the narrative is clearly noticeable characteristic of old comics. In this respect, Mort Cinder, unfortunately, has aged a bit.

Timeless drawings

It is a completely different matter with the graphic layer, which is the most impressive element of this comic book. The black and white illustrations in the Morta Cinder continue to make an amazing impression after more than five decades. Alberto Breccia was a master with mascara and was not afraid to experiment with non-standard tools, for example using a toothbrush in his work. The Argentine artist made a fantastic use of chiaroscuro and contrasts. He also chose the dominant color and the number of details in the drawing and the method of framing in order to best present the mood of the scene and the emotions of the characters. No wonder that both Frank Miller and Mike Mignola mention his work among their inspirations. Especially in the Sin City graphic layerit is easy to see the similarities to the drawings from Mort Cinder . Breccia’s comic book was originally published in magazines – probably because it lacks spreads or full-page illustrations, which would be a waste of limited and valuable space. Nevertheless, it is worth stopping at some pages and looking at the frames showing the artistry of the Argentinean master who has mastered the chosen form to perfection.

A solid album worth knowing

The Polish collective edition looks very good. As befits Alberto Breccia’s debut on our market, the volume was printed on thick, matte paper and bound in a hard cover. The album also includes additional materials. On the last pages there are extensive afterword with information about its author, biographies of both comic book authors, as well as a fragment of the script of a never-drawn episode. They allow us to better understand the Mort Cinder phenomenon and the backstage of its formation.

Mort Cinder is quite a piece of quite enjoyable reading. The plot of the comic is a fantastic adventure story with elements of many different genres. However, real joy comes from reading phenomenal drawings. In addition, the work of Alberto Breccia is an important component of the world’s history of comics, which is another argument to familiarize yourself with this item. In short, it’s a must-read for fans of the medium.