Exhibition 'José Muñoz'

With their hard-boiled stories about private detective and ex-policeman Alack Sinner, featuring stark black-and-white contrasts, Argentine comics artist José Muñoz (b. 1942) and his compatriot, author Carlos Sampayo (b. 1943), set a milestone in the history of comics. After emigrating to Spain in the early 1970s, Muñoz, who was educated in Buenos Aires, met Sampayo in Barcelona: He too had left Argentina for political reasons, as the country was suffering under a series of military dictatorships at the time. Together, they created the anti-hero Alack Sinner, who at first glance seems to embody all the clichés of his kind, as he is violent, melancholic, lonely and addicted to alcohol. However, the series, which began in 1975 and continued for decades, goes far beyond the typical boundaries of the genre. It interweaves classic crime fiction with pointed social criticism (aimed at racism and corruption, for example) and refers to events such as the wars in Vietnam and the Gulf, as well as the attack on the World Trade Center’s twin towers. In 1975, the first episode, ‘The Webster Case’, appeared in the Italian magazine ‘alterlinus’. Bound by friendship, the Sampayo/Muñoz duo then published in ‘Charlie Mensuel’ until 1979 and afterwards in ‘à suivre’ until 2000. While Sinner, unlike other comic-book heroes, ages and changes both externally and internally, Muñoz’s drawing style remains consistently and uncompromisingly black and white: Fields of black ink fill quickly drawn outlines, with no hatching or shades of grey. The characters oscillate between almost realistic depictions and grotesque caricatures – a tense interplay between nightmare and reality.

Alongside the ‘Alack Sinner’ series, the duo produced albums such as ‘Joe’s Bar’ and ‘Sophie Going South’, which, peppered with laconic humour, take readers to the bars and streets of large US cities and confront them with racial hatred, criminality, drugs, love and death. Muñoz’s later, sensitively told stories about the vast landscapes of the Pampas, and his love of tango and jazz (see ‘La Pampa y Buenos Aires’, ‘Carlos Gardel’ and ‘Billie Holiday’) reflect a longing for the way of life in multiculturally vibrant Buenos Aires.

Alongside his comics, Muñoz, winner of the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival among other awards, has illustrated books by authors such as Albert Camus. He now lives and works as a freelance artist in Milan. In an extensive retrospective on this versatile and influential comics artist, Cartoonmuseum Basel presents original drawings from his comic classics, preliminary sketches, illustrations, portrait works and recent independent works in colour.