The Eternaut is the talk of Argentina. The new science fiction epic, directed by Bruno Stagnaro and starring Ricardo Darín, has received universal acclaim, becoming both the most-watched series on Netflix in the country and the most-watched non English-language series worldwide. Since its premiere on April 30, the Argentine production has been streamed more than 10 million times, ranking in the top ten most-viewed in countries ranging from Brazil to India.

But The Eternaut isn’t just drawing interest from television viewers. Argentine readers are also flocking to the series’ source material — a collection of comics by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. At this year’s Buenos Aires Book Fair, which opened on April 24, the collection’s publisher, Editorial Planeta, has already sold in excess of 1500 copies — an impressive number for a graphic novel whose most inexpensive edition sells for AR$27,700 (US$23) or a little less than one tenth of the country’s minimum monthly salary. 

“Since we republished it in 2022, El Eternauta has always been a strong seller,” Santiago Satz, head of communications for the multinational Grupo Planeta, told the Herald. “It’s an iconic comic in Argentina and around the world. Now, with the series being the most viewed on Netflix, sales have obviously increased. Readers who may not have known about its story are now drawn to it because of the series.” 

Satz noted that Editorial Planeta has had to restock its supply “constantly.”

“As a publishing house, we are proud to publish such a classic work of literature,” he continued. “It’s been the best seller at Prensa Planeta’s book fair by far.”

In 2015, Fantagraphics published the first English-language edition of The Eternaut, with a translation by Eric Mena and an afterword by Juan Caballero, a professor of Hispanic studies. That edition is currently out of print, although a Fantagraphics representative recently told the New York Times that it is considering a reissue.

Written by Oesterheld and illustrated Solano López, El Eternauta first ran serially in Hora Cero Semanal, a comic magazine, from 1957 to 1959. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic Buenos Aires, as a small group of survivors tries to make sense of a mysterious and cataclysmic event.