Caught Between Manga and the Graphic Novel: Two Cartoonists' Trajectories in Contemporary Argentinian “National Comics”

Abstract

What do Ignacio Minaverry and Ciro Berliac’s trajectories say about comics in contemporary Argentina? By crossreferencing their body of work with the discourses surrounding them, this article explores both as a blueprint for two different positioning strategies within the comics field. Growing up in thee arly 1990s, they were both brought up in a time of daunting change, as the remains of a once-mighty national comic industry finally disappeared and a nascent (imported) comic book shop circuit exposed them to new graphic narratives, such as manga. After publishing what was labeled as the “first Argentinian manga”, Minaverry “edited” his own biography/bibliography and phased out any overt “mangaesque” traits in his cartooning in order to fit into a field increasingly geared towards the graphic novel, and was rewarded for it. In contrast, Berliac publicly “transitioned” from cartoonist to “mangaka” in defiance of what he understood was the chauvinist establishment of Argentinean “national comics” in a (successful) bid to gain notoriety. As conclusion, contrasting both trajectories reveals the importance of the discursive and material tensions between "national" and foreign in a peripheral comics field, playing a hefty role in its mechanics of gatekeeping and the distribution of symbolic capital.