Francisco Solano Lopez was one of the best Argentinian comic artists, whose work has been published all over the world. He started his career in the early 1950s with Columbia publishers in Buenos Aires. His early work includes 'Perico y Guillerma'. He then began an association with Abril publishers, where he illustrated a comic adaptation of Jack London's 'Friso Kid'. For this publisher he also illustrated several series written by the legendary scriptwriter Hector German Oesterheld, such as 'Bull Rocket' for the magazine Misterix, 'Pablo Maran' and 'Uma-Uma'.
Solano Lopez co-founded Frontera publishers with Oesterheld, and alternated on the artwork of the 'Ernie Pike' series with Hugo Pratt, Jorge Moliterni and José Muñoz. The team launched Hora Cero magazine and produced serials like 'Rolo el marciano adoptivo' and 'El Héroe'. In 1957 Solano Lopez began his most notable collaboration with Oesterheld, making the science fiction saga 'El Eternauta' for Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal.
Starting in 1959, Solano Lopez was active for the British market, mainly with comics for the Fleetway agency. He illustrated many series for boys adventure weeklies such as Valiant and Lion, including 'Adam Eterno', 'Kelly's Eye', 'Janus Stark' and 'Master of the Marsh'. He was also present in Buster with more comical series like 'Galaxus' and 'Pete's Pocket Army', and in Score 'n' Roar with the soccer comic 'Nipper'.
Kelly's Eye
In 1968 he returned to Buenos Aires for a first time, resuming work on some of his older series ('Ernie Pike', 'El Eternauta II') and starting new, such as the science fiction saga 'Slot-Barr', written by Ricardo Barrero. Because of the political turmoil in his home country, Solano Lopez had to go into exile on several occasions, since his work often featured themes of themes of corruption and repression. During these exiles, he produced work like the dark detective series 'Evaristo', that was written by Carlos Sampayo and published as 'Deep City in the USA in 1986. With his son Gabriel, he worked on the despairing works 'Historias Tristes' and the graphic novel 'Ana'.
When politics settled down, he ventured into the field of erotic comics in the 1990s, creating the perverse saga 'El Instituto' ('Young Witches' in the USA). Other big hits were 'El Prostíbulo del Terror', also with a story by Barreiro (and the two sequels about the erotic story of Lilian & Agatha), and 'Sexy Symphonies', a full-color series without words for the magazine Kiss Comix. He also drew an adaptation of the classic horror movie 'Freaks', adapted by Jim Woodring for the Fantagraphics imprint Monster Comics. In 2001 he returned once again to 'El Eternauta', this time in collaboration with Pablo Maiztegui. Solano has received the First Prize for the Best Erotic Author in the Barcelona Erotic Salon and the Diario de Aviso's Prize for the 'Best Realistic Cartoonist'. Solano López died on 12 August 2011 from a cerebral hemorrhage.
