The Eternaut 1969

The Eternaut 1969 by Héctor Germán Oesterheld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When a deadly glowing snow falls, Juan Salvo and his friends must band together to survive. But what or who created a snow that is deadly to the touch?

I read Mort Cinder a while back and was blown away so I'm all in on Fantagraphics' Alberto Breccio Library. While I didn't like this one quite as much as Mort Cinder, it's still some great stuff.

The Eternaut 1969 is a retelling of an earlier Eternaut saga by Oesterheld and another artist. I haven't read the earlier version so I can't compare the two. Anyway, this reminds me of a lot of post apocalyptic fiction, like Earth Abides or pretty much any book featuring a pandemic. Juan and his friends have to venture out into their former city in home made hazard suits to keep even a flake of the deadly snow from touching and killing them.

The political climate this was written in is apparent with mistrust of the Argentinian government and the United States and the Russians selling out South America to the invading aliens, the source of the snow. Oesterheld was eventually rounded up with other dissidents and killed in the late 1970s.

The story has a scary, paranoid feel and the alien bugs look Lovecraftian at times. Breccio's art is rougher and less accessible than it Mort Cinder but he does great job conveying the frantic desperation of the survivors. Much like in Mort Cinder, he uses traditional comics methods plus charcoal, collages, and some techniques I can't quite identify.

The ending is like something out of the Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt. It really makes me want to read the earlier, much longer Eternaut saga if I can find the hardcover for a reasonable price. It is, alas, out of print.

The Eternaut 1969 makes for some great pandemic reading. Four out of five terror glands.

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