Ruben Sosa, 1941-2007



The Argentinian artist and educator Ruben Sosa died September 7, according to blog and web site reports. Like many American artists of his generation like Joe Kubert, Sosa drew on the streets of his hometown in chalk and with other homemade materials. He began as an assistant on projects from Eugenio Zoppi and Hector Oesterheld in the late 1950s. A friend to most of the great artists of his generation with a connection to his homeland Argentina or his adopted home Italy, including Alberto Breccia, Solano Lopez and Hugo Pratt, Sosa remained less well known despite being widely published all over the world, including American publishers Skywald, Charlton and DC. Publications in South America for which he was known were Hora Cero and Frontera. Among the magazines through which he published in Italy were Alter Alter and Corto Maltese. He may have been best known in comics circles for his work on the series Ernie Pike, Mortimer, and Eternauta (which may have been illustrations accompanying text).

Stationed in Buenos Aires for several years (if I'm scanning this correctly, he talks of a laid back, artist's lifestyle he enjoyed there), Sosa moved to Italy in 1976 after attending the Lucca Festival. In addition to his comics work, he also worked as an illustrator and art director for publicity firms and at least two daily newspapers. Sosa found some additional work as an actor in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. It was during this time and for a period afterwards that Sosa became more serious about painting. Sosa would eventually be invited to join the Birmingham Watercolour Society, which he considered an added honor because he lived far from Birmingham. A selection of his paintings were collected in the book Hierro Oxido.

In 1986, Sosa founded the Studio Arti Visive in the Northern Italy town of Brescia, where he taught a variety of arts technique including cartooning and magazine illustration. Among his students, according to their own profiles at Lambiek.net, were Andrea Mutti and Giancarlo Olivares.

The ActuaBD.com report indicates that some attention may be paid to Ruben Sosa's career at the 2008 Angouleme Festival through the desires of friend and festival president Jose Munoz.
 
posted 2:22 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives