El Guerrero del Antifaz

El Guerrero del Antifaz (The Masked Warrior) is a classic work of Spanish comics, created by Manuel Gago García for Editorial Valenciana and first published in 1944.

Alongside Roberto Alcázar y Pedrín, it was the most popular and influential series of the 1940s, and one of the longest-running in the history of Spanish comics, with a total of 668 pamphlet-sized issues over 21 years.

Publication history

Antecedents

According to the author's own statements, he took inspiration from the 1934 novel Los cien caballeros de Isabel la Católica by Rafael Pérez y Pérez.

After reading it he produced a comic titled El juramento sagrado, which can be considered the germ of the future Guerrero del Antifaz—a name apparently taken from a contemporary film. This comic was published by Editorial Valenciana in 1943, when the author had not yet turned seventeen.

Original series (1944–1966)

Although some sources dated the start of publication to October 1943, later research pushed the date back a year, fixing the launch of El Guerrero del Antifaz pamphlets by Editorial Valenciana in October 1944. It quickly became the most famous Spanish comic-book hero to date (later surpassed in popularity—and sales—only by El Capitán Trueno). Print runs in the 1950s exceeded 200,000 copies.

It was published in adventure booklet format—initially sixteen pages (later twelve, with smaller artwork)—in landscape orientation and black and white. In addition to writing the scripts—assisted by his brother Pablo Gago and his brother-in-law Pedro Quesada—Gago handled the artwork alone up to issue 420, when he handed the pencils to Matías Alonso, who drew the series through issue 503.