Skorpio magazine Argentina

Skorpio magazine

Argentina

Skorpio was a monthly Argentinian comic book magazine (revista) published by 'Ediciones Record' from July 1974 to January 1996 (No. 235). 

Its subtitle, el mundo de la gran historieta (literally, 'the world of the big cartoon') indicated that Skorpio had a wide scope in terms of the genres of comics that appeared in its pages.

(An Italian edition of Skorpio debuted in 1977; I don't know if it's still being published as of 2021.)

Among the serialized comics appearing in Skorpio in its early years (i.e., during the 1970s) were western strips, like 'Loco' Sexton; sci-fi, such as 'Yo, Ciborg'; the police thriller 'Precinto 56'; the occult adventure 'Nekrodamus'; and the imaginative 'Hor', about a barbarian warrior who adventured across time and space (often accompanied by nubile young women dressed in leather bikinis).

'Skorpio', a detective / secret agent character, himself was a recurring feature in the magazine.

Skorpio also ran some comics set in World War 2. Particularly impressive was as de pique ('Ace of Spades'), about the crew of an American B-17 'Flying Fortress' bomber in action during World War 2.

Most of the content published during the 70s was in black and white, with the occasional color section.

The artists who supplied comics for Skorpio were some of the most talented in South America (and, arguably, the world) and included such familiar names as Alberto Breccia, Hugo Pratt, Horacio Altuna, and Juan Antonio Giménez (whose work on as de pique is amazing), among others. Their draftsmanship is impressive and equal to that of the best of the illustrations in the Warren and Skywald magazines of the same era.

A free online repository of Skorpio issues from the 1970s, which can be downloaded as pdf files, is available at this link. If you are fluent in Spanish, it's worth your while to check out those old issues.

For those whose main language is English, well, it's perhaps unrealistic to expect that any of the comics from Skorpio ever will be reprinted in translated versions for the U.S. market. 

But then, the success of the English-language version of the Argentinian comic strip 'The Eternaut' (El Eternauta), which was published in 2015 by Fantagraphics (and quickly went out of print), certainly indicates that there is an audience out there for Argentinian comics of the postwar era..........so 'never say never' ?!