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

[Judi Lynn]

1. This article seems to indicate things are getting far hotter far faster than you'd expect, sadly:

~ snip ~

But the fragile consensus regarding the dictatorship and its crimes runs the risk of being shattered by a swell of support for the pro-dictatorship, anti-abortion, extreme capitalist agenda of Milei and Villarruel, who repeat like a mantra that they are waging a new battle against “cultural Marxism”.

Villarruel, who has frequently visited former military officers imprisoned for crimes against humanity, has repeatedly trolled victims of the dictatorship, including the Oesterheld family, repeating unsubstantiated allegations of terrorism.

Villarruel says she seeks justice for victims of terrorism, claiming that former guerrillas have gone unpunished for thousands of murders committed in the 1970s.

The facts contradict her. According to the military, 687 people were killed by leftwing guerrillas. More than 500 people were charged with terrorism in court between 1971 and 1989. An additional 8,625 suspects were imprisoned, some for up to nine years, under state of siege rules between 1974 and 1983.

That is without counting those who never faced trial before they were murdered by the dictatorship. Human rights groups put the number at 30,000, of which 8,629 have been identified by name so far.

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