Carlos Nine's style can't be classified. His comics and other artworks are filled with strange and deformed characters, human shaped objects and gelatinous structures. His disturbing and grotesque oeuvre was never meant for a mainstream audience, but did earn him wide critical praise. He was active in several artistic fields, including illustration, comic art, painting, sculpting, animation, writing and painting murals. After his studies in Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, he decided to become a professional painter and illustrator, inspired by classical masters like Francisco Goya, Diego Velázquez and Hieronymus Bosch. He soon became an international acclaimed illustrator with a neo-figurative art style, whose work is published in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the States, Europe, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Narratively, he worked in the tradition of Boris Vian and the Argentinian writer Roberto Arlt. His comics work is especially popular in France.
'El Cachuso Rantifuso' (Humi, 21 July 1983).
Nine's early comic stories appeared in the magazines Humi, for which he created the features 'Humberto y Garrapié' and 'El Cachuso Rantifuso' in 1983-1984. He was a notable cover artist and illustrator for the Argentinian political satirical magazine Humor between 1983 and 1990. Other magazines that contained early comics by Nine were Fierro (Argentina), L'Écho des Savanes (France) and Il Griffo (Italy). The first book collections of his work were released in Europe, however. 'Chronicas de la Pampa Vasca' appeared in Spain in 1990, while his publications with French publishers are 'Meurtres et Chatiments' (Albin Michel, 1991), 'Fantagas' (Delcourt, 1995), 'Le Canard Qui Amait Les Poules' (Albin Michel, 2000), 'Gesta Dei' (Amok, 2000), 'Oh Merde, Les Lapins!' (Les Rêveurs, 2002) the 'Pampa' trilogy (with Jorge Zentner, Dargaud, 2003-2005), 'Fantagas 2' (Les Rêveurs, 2007) and 'Keko Le Magicien' (Rackham, 2009). He also provided the illustrations for the 8th 'Donjon Monster' album by Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim in 2004. He additionally released a couple of art books containing illustrations. 'Prints of the West' (Rackham, 2004) was a collection of parodies of the old American far west, and the "metatextual investigation" 'Tropikal Mambo' (Les Rêveurs, 2016) contained fantasy drawings and fine art.
'Pibegelatina'.
In Taiwan, Nine published 'Much Ado About Nothing' (Grimm Press, 1995), 'Swan Lake' (Grimm Press, 1999) and 'Match Seller' (Grimm Press, 2006). Strangely enough, the Argentinian public had to wait for an album until 1995, when Colihue released 'Eko el Mago'. His second Argentinian album was 'El Libro del Fantasma'(1999). Also in 1999, the publisher Sudamericana released 'Cuentos del Zorro', an album scripted by Gustavo Roldan, and in 2002 came 'Sol de Noche' in cooperation with Elsa Isabel Bornemann for Santillana USA Publishing Company.
'Fantagas'.
Carlos Nine has held several exhibitions in Argentina (Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Rosario, Mendoza and Bariloche), Italy (Treviso, Lucca, Rome, Milan, Lecce and Bologna), Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla), Belgium (Brussels), Norway (Bergen) and France (Poitiers and Angoulême). His illustrations and comic stories have appeared in several magazines and papers from his home country and abroad, including Le Monde (Paris), The New Yorker (USA), Noticías, and the Buenos Aires newspapers La Nacíon and Clarín. A collection of some of these stories was released under the title 'Gesta Dei' in France (Amok, 2001) and in Argentina (El Yeite Ilustrado, 2003).
Nine contributed to the anthologies and collective albums like the 'Little Lit Book' in Art Spiegelman's Raw Junior Collection (Harper Collins, 2003) and 'Le Tour du Monde en Bande Dessinée' (Delcourt, 2010). He has also provided illustrations to children's books in his home country. In 2012, Carlos Nine was awarded the Konex Platinum Award as the most outstanding Argentinian illustrator of his time. It was only one of the many international awards and recognitions he had received during his career. At the French Angoulême Comics Festival of 2001, he won the prize for best foreign book with 'Le Canard qui Aimait les Poules', a satirical book starring Saubon, an obscene Marxist duck and victim of a "post-industrial era in full decline". Carlos Nine passed away in Olivos, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, on 16 July 2016, at the age of 72. His son, Lucas Nine, is also active as a comic artist.
'Tropikal Mambo'.