El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond: Graphic Narrative in Argentina and Brazil [Hardcover]

El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyondexamines the graphic narrative tradition in the two South American countries that have produced the medium’s most significant and copious output. Argentine graphic narrative emerged in the 1980s, awakened by Héctor Oesterheld’s groundbreaking 1950s serialEl Eternauta. After Oesterheld was “disappeared” under the military dictatorship,El Eternautabecame one of the most important cultural texts of turbulent mid-twentieth-century Argentina. Today its story, set in motion by an extraterrestrial invasion of Buenos Aires, is read as a parable foretelling the “invasion” of Argentine society by a murderous tyranny. Because ofEl Eternauta, graphic narrative became a major platform for the country’s cultural redemocratization. In contrast, Brazil, which returned to democracy in 1985 after decades of dictatorship, produced considerably less analysis of the period of repression in its graphic narratives. In Brazil, serious graphic narratives such as Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’sDaytripper, which explores issues of modernity, globalization, and cross-cultural identity, developed only in recent decades, reflecting Brazilian society’s current and ongoing challenges.

Besides discussingEl EternautaandDaytripper, David William Foster utilizes case studies of influential works—such as Alberto Breccia and Juan Sasturain’sPerramusseries, Angélica Freitas and Odyr Bernardi’sGuadalupe, and others—to compare the role of graphic narratives in the cultures of both countries, highlighting the importance of Argentina and Brazil as anchors of the production of world-class graphic narrative.