A murdered Argentinian writer's comic finds a new audience - and far-right haters

[Judi Lynn]

Héctor Oesterheld and his family were murdered under the military dictatorship. As Netflix adapts his beloved El Eternauta, his literary legacy is dragged into the culture wars

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Tue 3 Oct 2023 05.30 EDT

The story tells of a masked figure who joins an isolated band to mount a seemingly hopeless resistance against sinister forces which have seized control of planet Earth.

The eponymous hero of Héctor Oesterheld’s comic serial El Eternauta – the traveller through eternity – fights in a world where humans have been turned against each other, and grapples with his own doubts that individuals can make any difference in the face of inhuman horrors.

When it first appeared in 1957, El Eternauta was a work of uncanny speculative fiction published at the high point of Argentina’s gold age of comic books; by the time Oesterheld and his family had been murdered the armed forces in late 1970s, it seemed more like a grim allegory for the country.

At home, Oesterheld has long been a revered symbol of artistic resilience under oppression, and 66 years after its publication, El Eternauta remains one of Argentina’s most-loved graphic novels.

Now, his works are reaching a wider audience with critically acclaimed English-language translations of El Eternauta and Oesterheld’s biographies of Eva Perón and Che Guevara, while filming for a Netflix series based on El Eternauta recently began in Buenos Aires. The series features the Argentinian mega-star Ricardo Darín in the leading role and has a tentative 2024 release date.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/03/hector-oesterheld-el-eternauta-netflix-argentina-culture-wars