The Aesthetic and Political Economy of Betrayal in Oesterheld's Two Versions of The Eternaut I

ABSTRACT:This essay aims to think about how two versions of the same comic strip, The Eternaut I (1957–1959), written by H. G. Oesterheld and illustrated by Francisco Solano López, and the version written by the same author but with illustrations by Alberto Breccia (1969), radically modify the relationship between aesthetics and politics in comics. A movement toward an avant-garde aesthetic that does not respond to requirements established by the comic market, the sharpening of metagraphic and metanarrative elements, and the introduction of the theme of betrayal as a critique of the imperialist and subaltern relationship between Latin America and the United States, bring about a political radicalization of the narration, as much on a linguistic as on a graphic level, opening a new phase in the history of Argentine comics, if not that of comics on a broader level.