Juan Arancio (1931-2019)

Argentinean comic artist and painter, Juan Arancio, died of respiratory failure at a hospital in his home town of Santa Fe on March 1, 2019, aged 87. In the UK he is best known for his work on 'Shako', the early 2000AD strip which pitted a CIA hunter, Jake Falmuth, against a polar bear with a taste for human flesh that has swallowed a deadly germ-filled capsule. Arancio's opening episode to the strip set the tone, as Shako sinks his teeth into the pilot of a downed US military plane and bites his head off. 

In the tradition of Action's 'Hook Jaw', 'Shako' was created by Pat Mills and John Wagner as an idea potentially for the debut issue of 2000AD, but shelved it until issue 20, with Arancio producing the art for the first four issues.

Juan Arancio was born in Santa Fe, Argentina, on August 24, 1931, and remained a resident of that city his whole life. Self-taught, he won a competition organised by a local daily newspaper with one of his childhood creations, 'El Gaucho Saverio'.

Debuting in 1950, Arancio became famous as an illustrator and artist working from his own scripts for comics such as Privateering Pete, Trinchera, Puño de Hierro, Poncho Negro and Vida Escolar; he also produced westerns for Interval, El Tony and Anteojito y Clarin. At the same time, he adapted classic novels by Héctor Pedro Blomberg, Lucio V. Mansilla, Alberto Vaccarezza, Emilio Salgari, Julio Verne, H. Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Defoe, Jorge Luis Borges; amongst the novels he adapted were Cadazdores de Ballenas, Misterios de la Jungla Negra, El Quijote, La Conquista del Desierto, Una Excursión a los Indios Ranqueles, Dick Turpin and, on numerous occasions, Martin Fierro, the famous Argentinian gaucho. One of his adaptations originally published by Editorial Colmegna in Santa Fe won an award in Philadelphia.

Arancio worked with Hector Oesterheld on ‘Patria Vieja’ for Hora Cero in 1960, following the departure of Carlos Roume, and on ‘Santos Bravo for Hora Cero Extro (1961).

Outside of his native country, as well as ‘Shako’ (1977), Arancio drew the western ‘Timber Lee’ (1978-80) for Scorpio Editorial (Milan, Italy) and for Walt Disney Studios (USA). His illustrations appeared in Europe, Asia, South Africa, Australia, Rhodesia, Canada, the Dominican Republic and New Zealand. He also illustrated a version of Don Segundo Sombra for Japan.

He has won numerous awards and prizes, dating back to 1954 when a painting won a prize from the Museo Municipal de Artes Visuales. He was awarded the Distinción Bienal at Lucca in 1976 and was appointed a Ciudadano Ilustre de la Ciudad de Santa Fe [Illustrious citizen of the city of Santa Fe] in 1991.

Since the early 1980s, Arancio had concentrated on painting  and exhibitions of his work have been produced in Spain, Germany, Sicily, Canada and the USA. His oil paintings hang in the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, the Museo Provincial de Artes Visuales and elsewhere.