Ernie Pike - Publishing History

Publishing History

The comic was first published in Hora Cero magazine, of the "Frontera" publishing company. After several years, Hugo Pratt left for Europe, while Oesterheld stayed in Argentina. Hugo Pratt republished Ernie Pike in Italy and other European countries under his sole name. Oesterheld continued the comic with other Argentine artists, like Alberto Breccia and Francisco Solano López, among others. The character was moved to other Frontera magazines, such as "Hora Cero Extra", the weekly supplement of Hora Cero, or "Colección batallas inolvidables" (Spanish: Unforgettable battles collection). This last one was created after the success of Ernie Pike, and was focused on war comics. The Ernie Pike run in Frontera is considered part of the golden age of Argentine comics. By the decade of 1960 most pencilers of Frontera were being hired by the British Fleetway, but Oesterheld kept using new pencilers such as José Muñoz. Frontera would eventually go into bankruptcy.

Oesterheld worked again with Ernie Pike in the 1970 decade, in the "Top Maxi Historietas" comic book published by Cielosur Editora. The approach was slightly changed in this new run: instead of World War II, the stories were about the ongoing Vietnam War. The stories kept the same style as before, but Pike was now involved with the events as they took place, thus becoming an active character of the stories instead of just the narrator. The stories were also more critical of the involvement of the US in the war, in line with the new politically radical views that Oesterheld was developing. Oesterheld would work later with many strips in the Skorpio comic book, but Ernie Pike would last only for a single story. This story, penciled by Solano López, worked again with WWII, but from a new angle: it was a story set in current times, about people having a dispute about things that took place during the war.

There was a brief recreation of the character by other authors during the Falklands War. Ricardo Barreiro wrote "La batalla de las Malvinas" (Spanish: The battle of the Malvinas), penciled by Alberto Macagno, Carlos Pedrazzini, Marcelo Pérez and César Medrano. This story lasted for 7 issues of the magazine Fierro, ending inconclusively. Ernie Pike was included as a guest-star, placed in Patagonia as an aged war veteran, watching the events unfolding.

Several volumes of Ernie Pike by Oesterheld-Pratt - along others of Sergeant Kirk - were reprinted in 2006 for the "Nueva Biblioteca Clarín de la Historieta" collection published by Clarín newspaper. Previously, Ancares Editora had reprinted the volumes by Oesterheld-Breccia in 2002.