Fantagraphics collects the graphic novel Perramus ― winner of an Amnesty International prize ― in English for the first time. This graphic novel follows the existential odyssey of a political dissident. When he voluntarily loses his memory, he's dubbed "Perramus" from the brand of his raincoat. During his absurdist travels, he teams up with the gruff Cannelloni; a foreign aviator dubbed "The Enemy" by despot Mr. Whitesnow; and the blind author "Borges" (based on the real-life literary figure), who comes to be a guide. This motley crew journeys to outlandish locales where they encounter a variety of eccentric characters ― including a director of trailers for films that will never exist; a guerilla fbeforce of circus folk, clowns, and puppeteers; a tin-pot dictator with a vast fortune built on an empire of excrement; and Ronald Reagan. This highly anticipated collection is an act of resistance in and of itself ― it was created while Argentina's military dictatorship was still in power. Perramus is a cartooning tour de force, with a revolutionary message that remains vital to this day.

El 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 in its graphic narratives. In Brazil, serious graphic narratives such as Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’s Daytripper, which explores issues of modernity, globalization, and cross-cultural identity, developed only in recent decades, reflecting Brazilian society’s current and ongoing challenges. Besides discussing El Eternauta and Daytripper, David William Foster utilizes case studies of influential works—such as Alberto Breccia and Juan Sasturain’s Perramus series, Angélica Freitas and Odyr Bernardi’s Guadalupe, and others—to compare the role of graphic narratives in the cultures of both countries, highlighting the importance of Argentina and Brazil as anchors of the production of world-class graphic narrative.

This volume discusses the role of comics in the formation of a modern sense of nationhood in Latin America and the rise of a collective Latino identity in the USA. It is one of the first attempts - in English and from a cultural studies perspective - to cover Latin/o American comics with a fully continental scope. Specific cases include cultural powerhouses like Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, as well as the production of lesser-known industries, like Chile, Cuba, and Peru.

Jorge Luis Borges is, undeniably, Argentina's best-known and most influential writer. In addition to scholarly studies of his work, his emblematic figure continues to appear on book covers and carrier bags, in biographies, plaques and statues, photographs and interviews, as well as cartoons and city tours. The Making of Jorge Luis Borges as an Argentine Cultural Icon argues that the ideas and expectations that Argentine people have placed upon the author - thus constructing the icon - are also those that allow them to define their cultural identity. The book examines these intertwined processes by analysing the image of Borges in biographies, photographs, comic strips and urban spaces and the socio-political, historical and cultural contexts in which they were produced. The study seeks not to reveal a Borgesian essence but, rather, to expose the complexity of the ongoing mechanisms which construct Borges the icon. Despite the vast amount of biographical and critical work about the writer that has been produced in Argentina and abroad, The Making of Jorge Luis Borges as an Argentine Cultural Icon is the first in-depth, comprehensive examination of the construction of the author as an Argentine cultural icon.

This is a psychedelically drawn, boldly political retelling of the 1950s graphic novel The Eternaut, whose imagery is still used as a symbol of resistance in Latin America to this day. The 1950s version of The Eternaut, a seminal Argentine work, is drawn in F. Solano Lopez’s clean, orderly comics art style. In the 1969 reboot, the darker tone is reflected in Breccia's Expressionist art. In The Eternaut 1969, the great world powers have forsaken South America to alien invaders, and POV character Juan Salvo, along with his friend Professor Favalli, metalworker Franco, and neighbor Susanna, join the resistance in Buenos Aires with the knowledge that the outside world will not come to their aid. Through the lenses of these timeless characters, the politically prescient creators ask readers to consider the implications of global domination by the "great powers" before it’s too late.