Javier Suppa

Deborah makes a living by drawing the skin of her clients. One night, her housemate invites her boyfriend and friend to their house. Sitting in the armchair, they consume the series of the moment, Gain of Clones, until, suddenly, the signal is cut off and the screen is dyed red while subliminal images float. No one remembers what happened the last two minutes. The answer will be in the enigmatic presence of giant cats that will later invade the city.

Lava (2019), the animated film Ayar Blasco presented at the 34th edition of the Mar del Plata Film Festival, left many subplots unresolved in a sci-fi narrative in which an alien civilization dominated the planet through technological devices. This incompleteness, which could then be attributed to the director’s aesthetics, always free and prone to absurdity, was actually a pause that now, four years later, is resumed. The protagonist continues to be Débora, a somewhat insecure tattoo artist who ends up involved in the resistance when a new batch of invaders threatens to wipe out every single record of the human race. With the childlike strokes and the uncontrollably innocent humor characteristic of him, Blasco continues to shape his own epic, a hallucinated version of El Eternauta, with click beetles and all.

Checo and Once are two difficult teenagers who live and survive in Buenos Aires after a nuclear explosion with which the film begins. It turns the world to ashes, bringing incomprehensible social changes. But for Checo and Once, who are used to an uncertain existence, not much changes in this post-apocalyptic world.

The Argentine comic strip is one of the few manifestations of Argentine national art that has transcended borders, driven by the silent talent of its main authors. Solano López, Brescia, Trillo, Altuna, Oesterheld, and Fontanarrosa are some of the names that have given an indelible identity to the Argentine stroke.