The Hidden Utopia: Strategies for Nationalizing the Science Fiction Adventure in El Eternauta (1957-1959) by Héctor G. Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López

Abstract

This article explores the reasons that led the Argentine comic book El Eternauta, created by Héctor German Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López, to become a success during its original publication in Hora Cero Semanal (1957-1959), as well as in subsequent reprints, until becoming into a “classic” of Argentine fiction. The article analyzes Oesterheld’s work at the magazine Más Allá (1953-1957) and his beginnings as a short story writer, comic book scriptwriter, and disseminator of scientific knowledge in commercial publishing houses and, later, in his own company, Frontera. The author’s professional profile was the emergence condition of a particular form of Argentine comics, where cultural industry conventions and an individual creative project were effectively combined. This article sustains the hypothesis that, in El Eternauta, behind the dystopian scene, the utopia of an Argentinean life with prospects of progress emerges as subtext, defined by male sociability and the harmony of a nuclear family, the handling of technical-scientific knowledge that covers the broad spectrum of academia, industry, and amateurism, and the bonds of solidarity and philanthropy that mobilize the actions of the resistance. Thus, the dystopia allows that idealized and positive representation of the life in common to emerge in a position of risk and threat.