Less simplistic is the graphic story Chile o muerte, published in Mexico by the publishing house Diógenes. A story of Chile constructed as a collage of photos, drawings, propaganda leaflets and quotes from different sources (unidentified, for “security reasons”) that justify a slogan of revenge that has to be repeated many times before it catches on in the conscience: “today’s defeated, tomorrow’s victors”.

Writer and editor German Marin composes Chile o muerte en el exilio with the archive of photographer Armindo Cardoso, who during the years of the Popular Unity was graphic director of the socialist weekly Chile Hoy, collaborator of the Quiman-tu publishing house and of film projects by Patricio Guzman and Costa-Gavras. On September 11, 1973, Cardoso buries his negatives and takes refuge in an embassy, which takes him out of the country and soon after he also rescues the photographs with which Germán Marín assembles Chile o muerte. In this work, the Popular Unity and the military coup appear both in the context of Chilean and Latin American history. The union of archive images with documentary photos, political slogans and advertising messages, figures, verses and speeches creates a visual book in which the commitment does not exclude an irony that can also be found as involuntary sarcasm in the numerous deserted scenes of Chile yesterday and today.