Scarce Argentinean Anti-Authoritarian Sci-Fi Comic El Eternauta in Origina Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal, 1958 to 1959

Héctor Germán Oesterheld

Archive

El Eternauta featured in three Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal issues, placing them within the original weekly Frontera run that first introduced Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López’s landmark Argentine science fiction narrative. Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal. Buenos Aires: Editorial Frontera, 1958 to 1959. Three oblong octavo weekly comics in original pictorial wrappers, Spanish text. Illustrated throughout in black and white on newsprint, with orange and black cover designs.

Notably, this archive includes one of the few Hora Cero issues with a cover illustration pertaining to El Eternauta. The cover image on the October 8, 1958 issue depicts on of the “Manos,” the enigmatic alien overseers of the invasion in El Eternauta, rendered in the dramatic pulp style typical of Hora Cero covers. This scarce archive includes:

[1] Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal. No. 45. Buenos Aires: Editorial Frontera, Julio 9, 1958. Cover price $1.80, with cover art featuring two men in a confrontation, one holding a pistol. Interior includes serialized comic pages ending “continuará.”

[2] Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal. No. 58. Buenos Aires: Editorial Frontera, Octubre 8, 1958. Cover price $1.80, with cover imagery centered on a large skull form and a male head emerging against a dark ground. Interior pages include Sgt. Kirk, credited to Oesterheld and H. Pratt, with Native American and frontier conflict scenes.

[3] Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal. No. 78. Buenos Aires: Editorial Frontera, Febrero 25, 1959. Cover price $2.50, with signed cover art of a Native American figure in profile holding a weapon. Interior includes Sgt. Kirk pages and other serialized adventure strips.

Interior pages in these issues include installments of El Eternauta under the recurring banner “Una cita con el futuro,” with Francisco Solano López’s stark black and white artwork depicting armored survivors, ruined urban infrastructure, military engagements, and alien invasion scenes unfolding across Buenos Aires. Serialized episodes preserve the strip’s original weekly continuity, including captions summarizing prior installments and concluding teasers directing readers to forthcoming Frontera Extra numbers, documenting the story in its first mass-market publication context alongside Sgt. Kirk and other Frontera adventure series.

Editorial Frontera, founded by Héctor Germán Oesterheld with his brother Jorge, became the central publishing site for the Argentine comics renaissance of the late 1950s, bringing together Oesterheld, Solano López, Hugo Pratt, Alberto Breccia, and Arturo del Castillo. El Eternauta later became Oesterheld’s defining work, its Buenos Aires invasion plot and collective hero structure gaining deeper political resonance after Oesterheld’s forced disappearance during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Light toning, edge wear, and expected newsprint fragility; staples intact; interiors complete and legible. Overall good condition.

Item #23103

Price: $2,400.00