La herencia de Hugo Pratt en la novela gráfica argentina
abstract
This essay focuses on the Argentinian experience that the Venetian comic writer Hugo Pratt had during the period post-Second World War. Referring to the Italian immigration onto Argentina that took place between the 1940s and the 1950s, it gives particular attention to the peculiar characteristics of Pratt’s experience, stressing the fact that it’s different from that of any other Italian emigrant. Further analysis concerns what the trip meant to Hugo Pratt and the importance of literature and visual arts in his artistic formation. Moreover, this essay attempts to explore the period of time Pratt spent in Argentina, his literary experiences and the comic strips he published while being there. Comic strips that, although being quite unknown by the European public, laid the foundations to the creation of the popular graphic novel Corto Maltese. The examination of the narrative structure belonging to the comic strips Pratt created during the Argentinian period of his career aims to identify the production techniques and the literary sources.
Keywords: Comic • Argentina • Graphic novel • Migration • Literature