El Cazador’s first issue was release on October 1992. It was about a character identified with the anti-hero profile, with a grotesque look, brute personality and common use of argentinian slang and bad language (you can read more of the character’s biography at the end of the article). Its first seven issues were black and white; in 1995 it started to be released in colors and the comic, edited by La Urraca, had its golden age, which lasted until 1999.
El Cazador returned in November 2000, edited by Mauro Cascioli. Without many changes, and with a well-kept graphic style and bigger format, the stories follow the same tone as the previous age until its last issue, on December 22nd, 2001.
In June 2010, Jorge Lucas and Claudio Ramírez publish the comic’s fourth age.
The Movie
In 2015, Jorge Lucas announced he was writing the script for a movie and that it would be directed by Marcelo Leguiza and Georgina Zanardi and to be produced by Mutazion and Mondo Lila studios.
The movie would follow an independent approach and, according to its
official Facebook page, it will have the “
support from technician friends, fans of El Cazador”.
“It will be done as an independent movie as to prevent any changes/adaptations requested from producers who do not understand the character, which would end up on the character losing its essence”; reasons which killed previous attempts to create movies or short films. “This is why we’ll try to finance the movie through crowdfunding, collective financing and the support from fans and friends”, Lucas states. “The script and supervision from its creator and the wide experience in and outside the indie world of its two directors, which are used to start and finance their movies under any conditions, make possible that the Cazador’s movie becomes a reality”, Lucas claimed in a statement to the site CulturaGeek.
The team behind the movie confirmed that they’ve found the man that will be wearing the mask of the most irreverent and iconic character from Argentinian comics: Luis “La Masa” Montanari, better known as “La Masa”, fighter from the children’s TV show “100% Lucha” (a “lucha libre” show) will be El Cazador.
The teaser trailer is currently being filmed and 2 official images of El Cazador have been released through their Facebook page, you can check them below:
Biography
El Cazador descens from a family of fierce and ancient German cavalry soldiers which lived as mercenaries. His grandfather was one of the generals and torturers under Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes. His father spawn him during a trip to América, while his mother was an Indian woman from a local cannibal tribe, and took the baby with him back to Germany. The arrival of El Cazador to Argentina goes back to 1530 when, still as a common mortal, arrives to the Río de la Plata as part of an expedition with Juan Díaz de Solís searching for treasures. After creating some riots on the forts, he is expelled along with a band or rebelds accused of slaughter and cannibalism, gaining the nickname "El Cazador de Almas” (“The Souls Hunter”). He spends weeks destroying and pillaging the local settlements to survive, at the same time as he ruthlessly tortures the Indians crossing his path.
The Cazador deeds reach an end when he’s made prisoner of a shamans’ tribe who burn and mark an inverted cross in his forehead (the Christian cross he defended so much), forcing demonic spirits to possess him, affecting him with what they consider the worst punishment for a living being: immortality. El Cazador escapes, kills and devours his own followers, and throws himself from a cliff to escape from the demons that haunt him, only to discover he hasn’t died from the fall. From that moment, El Cazador will die many times before enemies that oversize him in strength, but will resurrect some hours later.
After many years, El Cazador takes shelter on an abandoned church outside Buenos Aires through illegal occupation (once in a while he’s visited by furious priests who try to kick him out). Before this, he had travel throughout the world and had fought in many wars (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Malvinas), always for the losing side. Once his adventures in the comic begin, he’s confronted by different fictitious characters like the Werewolf, Dracula, aliens and all sorts of demons. Among these demons, his main enemies are Balrog and most of all, Melkor, Lord Of Darkness, who was banished from its reign and seeks to rule the Earth once a while.
In some issues, the Cazador’s past is shown, where he meets important historic or literature figures (he collaborates in the creation of the Frankenstein monster, neglected kills Austria’s Archduke, kills Lady Di to sell pictures of the “crash” afterwards). There are issues featuring other important characters from Argentinian comics like Hijitus, Patoruzú, Isidoro, Sherlock Time, Nippur de Lagash and Gilgamesh el inmortal. Among the “real” characters that have appeared in the comic we can distinguish Maradona (a big friend of El Cazador), Fidel Castro, Argentina’s former president Carlos Saúl Menem, Susana gimenez (actress) and Mike Tyson. We also need to mention a strong presence of german, greek and irish myths in some issues, like those appearing in Lugh (father of Irish hero Cuchulain), Hercules, Odin and Thor.