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Rating: Che: an adventure within an adventure.
There are books that carry with them an aura of "mystery and legend" that's passed down for years.
The story of this "Che" illustrated by Alberto and Enrique Breccia and scripted by Héctor German Oesterheld (who, let's remember, was assassinated in Argentina in 1977 by the military dictatorship) already resembles an adventure within an adventure, a frenetic journey through a thousand travails before its repeated publication.
Published in Argentina in 1968 – a little over a year after Commander Che Guevara's death – it immediately met with great public success. Ten years later, with the rise of General J.R. Videla who deposed Isabelita Perón, the heroic deeds and legendary figure of Che Guevara (with his subversive and idealistic charge) were banned and suppressed by the Argentine military regime.
Alberto Breccia recalls: "suddenly reading or owning that book became extremely risky. All the original panels and all unsold copies were burned."
The first publisher, guilty of having published the work, was brutally murdered, and the same fate befell the great Oesterheld under circumstances never fully clarified.
Alberto Breccia and his family were also subject to severe threats. The story goes that, gripped by the terror of owning even a single copy of the troublesome book, Breccia himself disposed of all copies of the publication.
All but one.
A copy that Alberto, in an almost symbolic gesture, buried in his garden, in honor of the "Death of the Ideal" and forgot about it for years.
In the long years that followed, the Breccia family managed to escape the dictatorship by moving to Spain, and only then did the old Alberto (seven years later) remember the surviving copy buried in the garden of his old house. He returned to his homeland, unearthed, and daringly smuggled the copy and handed the precious book to a Spanish publisher who managed to revive a work unique in its kind: the comic biography of the last great idealist hero of the 20th century.
Vibrant and intense panels, with suffering and material black and white, instinctive and wild strokes (like the deeds of the character it portrayed) that perhaps fall a little short due to the excessive verbosity of the screenplay (however, we are in 1968!), at times too technical and biographical but overall provide us a fairly comprehensive account of the Argentine commander's feats, now elevated to Ultimate Icon of every Revolution, with meticulous and careful reports that reconstruct dates, years, and curiosities of his life.
Strange fate of this book then, which was realized almost simultaneously with the panels of "l'Eternauta", the extraordinary saga (created by the same authors) of a time traveler who suffers an alien invasion in contemporary Argentina - an explicit metaphor for the colonization of South America by the United States including the barbaric occupation by the military regime of the entire nation.
I just want to quote a poetic and poignant panel text, which encompasses the famous letter from Che to his children before returning to fight in the Congo and perhaps binds the Che's exploits to the book's own story with a double red thread:
"Dear Hildita, Aleidita, Camilo, Celia, and Ernesto: when you read this letter, I will no longer be with you. You will hardly remember me and perhaps the youngest won't remember me at all. Your father has lived according to his ideas, has respected his convictions. Grow up as good revolutionaries. You will have to study a lot to master the technique that allows you to dominate nature. Remember that the revolution is the most important thing and that each of us, alone, is worth nothing. And above all, always be able, deep down in your conscience, to feel the suffering of any injustice inflicted on anyone anywhere in the world. This is the best quality of a revolutionary. Hasta siempre, my children, I hope to see you again. I kiss and hug you, Papa."
Unforgettable Che.
A must-read book.
Truly.
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