Dr. MORTIS
THE SINISTER DOCTOR MORTIS IS A CHILEAN CHARACTER FROM RADIO THEATER, TELEVISION, COMIC BOOKS, AND NOVELS, CREATED BY WRITER AND ACTOR JUAN MARINO CABELLO IN THE 1940S. DOCTOR MORTIS IS THE CENTRAL FIGURE OF A LITERARY AND GRAPHIC UNIVERSE CREATED BY MARINO, FRAMED WITHIN THE GENRES OF HORROR, SUSPENSE, MYSTERY, CRIME, AND SCIENCE FICTION.
TRAYECTORY
BEGINNINGS IN RADIO THEATER
Originally, the character was created for broadcast on Chilean radio in the 1940s. Juan Marino recounted that the birth of the sinister Doctor Mortis occurred after hearing, via shortwave, actor Boris Karloff (the iconic interpreter of Frankenstein) narrating horror stories on the BBC in London.
Doctor Mortis was born in a radio station in Punta Arenas at the end of 1945. Around that time, his terrifying stories began to be transmitted by Radio Ejército in Chile and Radio Polar in Argentina.
The first script, written by Marino, was designed to last a month, with several 60-minute episodes broadcast five times a week on Radio Ejército of Punta Arenas. The original cast included brothers Adolfo and Enrique Wegman, Vicente Miranda, María Bukovic, Eduvina Korn, and Eva Martinic—Marino's wife—who not only acted but also co-authored some of the episodes.
This radio theater, broadcast over the years on successive stations (notably Radio Portales of Santiago), became a nightly companion for generations of Chileans who have never forgotten its characteristic introduction: it began with the ominous opening of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, followed by the presentation of the night's host—Doctor Mortis himself, voiced by Marino—who emitted a chilling laugh. Then came the narration of a story, dramatized by a remarkable cast of actors with effective sound design. In these dramatizations, Doctor Mortis usually narrated in the third person, though he sometimes appeared as the protagonist.
In 1954, Marino moved to Santiago and began a second period of Doctor Mortis at Radio Nacional. Over the years, the radio show was broadcast on multiple stations, including Radio Minería, Portales, Cooperativa, Agricultura, Nacional, Yungay, Nuevo Mundo, Pacífico, and España, with transmissions continuing until the early 1980s.
The leap to comics
Thanks to the success of the radio show, Marino brought Doctor Mortis to comics in 1967, publishing through Zig-Zag, Chile's largest publishing house at the time. At Zig-Zag, Marino also created other notable works such as Jungla and El Jinete Fantasma.
The comic series reached 105 issues during its run at Zig-Zag (later Quimantú), and more than 70 in its second stage with Dilapsa, concluding in 1977.
The character also briefly appeared on television, when the radio show was broadcast for a year by the Catholic University's TV channel, until its transmissions were interrupted following the 1973 coup d'état.
Resurgence in new formats
Mortis remained inactive for several years until writer and editor Miguel Ferrada (editor of Locke & Key in Chile) revived the character through new graphic novel stories. Among them are In Absentia Mortis (various authors, directed by Miguel Ferrada, Felipe Benavides, and Carlos Reyes), In Nomine Mortis (various authors directed by Ferrada), and Mortis: Eterno Retorno (Miguel Ferrada, Italo Ahumada). The latter is considered a landmark of Chilean horror comics, with four editions published in Chile and translations in the U.S., Denmark, Italy, and France. The newspaper La Tercera recognized it as one of the "10 great contemporary Chilean graphic novels."
