Comics Alternative

This week on The Comics Alternative podcast, Derek and Andy W. get back into the regular swing of things by discussing three recent titles, one book and two single issues. They begin with something that was published late last year, Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López’s The Eternaut (Fantagraphics). This is a legendary text, and not just within the realm of comics history. The Eternaut is a post-apocalyptic tale of alien invasion, originally serialized in the Argentinian weekly, Hora Cero Semanal, between 1957 and 1959. It was revised and expanded in 1969 and 1975, respectively, and it’s notable for its politically informed subtext. Many have read Oesterheld’s text allegorically in light of Argentina’s history of dictatorship, its Dirty War, and United States imperialism. Indeed, the writer was “disappeared” in 1977, making The Eternaut even more of a poignant read. Although the collected series, originally titled El Eternauta, has been translated in a variety of different languages, it wasn’t