Description
Book SynopsisEl Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond examines 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 serial El Eternauta. After Oesterheld was “disappeared” under the military dictatorship, El Eternauta became 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 of El 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
Trade Review
Foster demonstrates how graphic narratives, through a combination of graphic visuals and literary texts, are the medium for the telling of human stories, for they succeed in transforming everyday situations into visual works of art. * Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Literature *
It is always a joy to consume criticism by a comics aficionado and scholar like Foster, who does not lose his edge with time; if anything, his work has become more sophisticated, evidencing a protracted view of Latin America's comics industry. * Hispanic Review *
El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond is successful in exposing readers to a body of graphic narrative that is often ignored by U.S. readers. Foster has provided a useful foundation from which scholars can begin to build more detailed and developed histories of graphic naratives in Argentina and Brazil. * Luso-Brazilian Review *
[El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond] is written in clear language and it is an enjoyable read which proves to be entirely accessible to specialist and non-specialist readers alike. * Hispanic Research Journal *
El Eternauta, Daytipper, and Beyond constitutes an important contribution to the English-language bibliography on comic-book production in Latin America…This book is a valuable ally for scholars who want...further research into Latin American contemporary cultural production, and specifically for those working on Latin American or Global graphic narrative. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *
Table of Contents
- Preface
- I. Argentina and the Forging of a Tradition of Graphic Narrative: Military Tyranny and Redemocratization
- 1. Masculinity as Privileged Human Agency in H. G. Oesterheld’s El Eternauta
- 2. The Bar as Theatrical Heterotopia: José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo’s El Bar de Joe
- 3. Resisting Tyranny: The Perramus Figure of Alberto Breccia and Juan Sasturain
- 4. The Lion in Winter: Carlos Sampayo and Francisco Solano López’s Police Commissioner Evaristo
- 5. News Bulletins from the Gender Wars: Patricia Breccia’s Sin novedad en el frente
- II. Brazil: Graphic Narrative as Postmodern and Globalized Consciousness
- 6. Of Death and the Road: Rafael Grampá’s Mesmo Delivery
- 7. The Unbearable Weight of Being: Daniel Galera and Rafael Coutinho’s Cachalote
- 8. Copacabana and Other Hellish Fantasies: Sandro Lobo and Odyr Berdardi’s Copacabana
- 9. Days of Death: Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’s Daytripper as Existential Journey
- 10. Women’s Wondrous Powers versus the Telluric Gods in Angélica Freitas and Odyr Bernardi’s Guadalupe
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
