The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld

There’s a treasure trove of Spanish-language comics south of the border lost to Englishonly readers. Mary Beth McAndrews Washington, DC Héctor Germán Oesterheld. These stories span from the past, present, and future, and all try to explore how humans interact with one another in such a violent and turbulent world. Kon has a way of making small snapshots of life both whimsical and relatable, from the beauty of falling in love to the awkwardness of sexual arousal.

But the characters at the center of each story are what keep you reading. This is a collection of his early work, remember, and while Kon was a genius, not every story he created was a home run. Despite this feeling, not every short story in the anthology is striking, and some are honestly a little boring. The one theme consistent throughout these stories is Kon’s attempt to develop and articulate his stance on the increasingly technology-focused world around him. In other stories, such as “Carve,” Kon’s close relationship with Akira’s creator, Katsuhiro Ōtomo, is apparent as he addresses the concept of human consciousness and how the boundaries of human consciousness can be pushed to the breaking point.

The story “Horseplay” particularly addresses the culture around baseball and how obsession with the sport, its players, and fame can drive one crazy to the point of violence. In this anthology, you can see this genius developing, particularly in how he thought about obsession. Reading Dream Fossil is to retrospectively watch Kon grow into the artist who created such dark, gritty, and emotional pieces of work that stand out not just to anime fans but to film lovers in general. Finally, all of those short stories have been collected and can be read in one place. The anthology is a collection of short manga that were written by Kon and published in a series of magazines in the 1980s, including the award-winning “Toriko,” written in 1984. Despite his passing in 2010, fans can still get more of his work in the newly published anthology Dream Fossil. WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 71 films question how we perceive reality, criticize how we consume pop culture, and give us a glimpse into his dream world. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld