The series I'm talking about is El Eternauta, created in 1957 by Hector German Oesterheld (writer) and Francisco Solano Lopez (artist) in Argentina, where no one has less than seven syllables in their name. The story starts with Oesterheld himself, chilling in his studio one night, when a time traveler materializes in his chair and tells him the most insane alien invasion story ever -- it involves eldritch atrocities, a snowfall that killed half the world, humanoids with 11 fingers in each hand, and giant bugs that try to hump you.
Hector German Oesterheld / Francisco Solano Lopez
Not recommended if you're afraid of bugs. Or super-recommended, if you like seeing them machine gunned to death.
Oesterheld finished the series in 1959 and moved on to do other things, such as a comic book biography of Che Guevara, a horror/sci-fi/mystery series called Mort Cinder, and his wife. (Just saying -- dude had four daughters.) By the time Argentina fell into one of those pesky CIA-backed dictatorships in 1976, Oesterheld was 57 years old and had every excuse to wind down his career and spend the rest of his days making cameos in telenovelas, like a Latino Stan Lee. Instead, he brought back El Eternauta, only with a few changes: The setting moved to a totalitarian future, and the protagonist became a revolutionary leader who urged the people to rise up against the dicta- uhh, alien invaders. The Argentinian military wasn't fooled by this subtle symbolism, though, and they started asking around for Oesterheld, so they could have a little chat with him (the kind that involves pliers and your testicles). Oesterheld went into hiding, but kept writing the comic.
419 Comments