developed-responsibility
- +

Author Topic: International Comics topic  (Read 23758 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline tilliban

  • VIP Uploaders
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 978
  • Karma: 5
    • FIFTIES HORROR!
International Comics topic
« on: March 21, 2012, 01:49:20 PM »
And think of this: italian comics' publications are even worse, and they are tabloid size or more. Ugh. :)

The horror, the horror!
Keep up the fine work, vaillant, good to have you with us!


=======================

I've split this into a new International Comics topic to allow scanners to talk about their scanners while the international crowd can enjoy their own topic here.

-Yoc
« Last Edit: March 22, 2012, 02:48:36 PM by Yoc »
Pre-code horror aficionado and propagator of ACE comic books.
I run a number of websites about pre-code horror. Please follow the links.

Digital Comic Museum

International Comics topic
« on: March 21, 2012, 01:49:20 PM »

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
International Comics topic
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2012, 02:39:30 PM »
@Tilliban: thank you. :)
Are you from Germany?

A little off-topic, but I’d like to try to post an example: this is an episode of "I ragazzi di Piazza Cinquecento" ("The Boys of Piazza Cinquecento"), a sort of italian-style "Little Wise Guys" adventure set in the streets of post-war ravaged Italy, from "Il Vittorioso", the first italian comics' publication not relying on foreign productions. It was published by A.V.E., a catholic publisher which wasn’t excessively bothered by the fascist regime because not directly involved in politics. Although early years of "Il Vittorioso" hosted a great deal of nationalism (including "Romano il legionario", a sort of italian counterpart to military-flavored comic books), what’s interesting is that this story, from 1945, features partisans from the italian resistance movements.

And of course, no superheroes. :)

P.S. Scan is from a bound volume, magazine is tabloid size.

Offline tilliban

  • VIP Uploaders
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 978
  • Karma: 5
    • FIFTIES HORROR!
International Comics topic
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2012, 03:49:06 AM »
@vaillant: That's right, sundancetrance and tilliban are the German branch of DCM.
We are precode horror fans and try to hunt down missing books.

I know about "Il Vittorioso". Italy has a long and great comic culture.
Personally I'm an admirer of that funny genius - Jacovitti.
(the Italian Bill Elder...)
 ;D
Pre-code horror aficionado and propagator of ACE comic books.
I run a number of websites about pre-code horror. Please follow the links.

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
International Comics topic
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2012, 12:12:32 PM »
Hi Tilliban,
where did you get acquainted with "Il Vittorioso"?. It would be nice to have an international section to talk about, and compare, historical productions. I am not aware, for example, of a true comics tradition in Germany (meaning a local production).

Did you know that Jacovitti went close to being enrolled in the SS? In fact, there is a scene of a few panels which ran simultaneously to "The Boys of Piazza Cinquecento" (from Jacovitti's story "Ciak"), where Jac makes an inside-joke portraying the boys kicking the SS in their a**. :)

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2012, 03:41:03 PM »
@Yoc: Thanks for splitting the threads, although a little introduction could have been handy.
This could be disorienting, especially for US readers. :)

P.S. Maybe we could write a short cap and edit it in tilliban's first post.  ;)

Offline Yoc

  • S T A F F
  • Administrators
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 14999
  • Karma: 57
  • 14 Years Strong!
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2012, 08:25:43 PM »
Hi Vaillant,
If you would like to write something I'd be happy to add it to the first post on this topic.
Just reply here and I can copy and paste it in.
:)

Offline prady_sp

  • DCM Member
  • Posts: 2
  • Karma: 1
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2012, 08:29:59 AM »
Thanks folks.
Its very useful.

Offline tilliban

  • VIP Uploaders
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 978
  • Karma: 5
    • FIFTIES HORROR!
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2012, 09:18:34 AM »
@vaillant:
I'm no expert on Italian comics, just read a comics magazine about them:

http://www.reddition.de/index.php/start/neuigkeiten/ausgabe55

Have a look, it's very nice, you can even flip through the minimized issue!

The discussion of German comics we had somewhere else. I'll post it here again (these are the words of a German publisher):

The german comic-market:

It is dominated by three companies, which put out mostly (if not only) foreign material; there is Panini, which publishes the most US-Comics (that means they are publishing Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, IDW, Bongo and some more, all in one publishing house), their most popular books are The Simpsons (which sold here up to 160000 at its peak, which is far more than in US, as I know) and Star Wars.
The biggest is Ehapa/Egmont, which publishes mainly Disney-stuff.
In fact, Disney-Comics (especially Donald Duck) are the most popular comic-books in germany (not western; in fact, western comics are very few here, and they are oddly enough mostly produced in France), there is a weekly magazine called Micky Maus which is now being published for 60 years, and the even more popular monthly paperback "Lustige Taschenbücher" (sells about 250000, about 450 issues so far) plus a lot of other Duck-related books from collections of famous artist like Carl Barks to special editions featuring the adventures of the Fleagle Boys or something.
All the bigger companies have no policy for publishing comics originated in germany, even if they are publishing an occasional one from time to time.

The publishing houses which are producing original german comics are few, and most of them are small underground or independent-publishers like my company (with a meager output of 10 books a year), with one exception: The guys of Mosaik, they are putting out a monthly comic book (which is kind of a leftover of the GDR) on a very professional basis ...

There were some publishers during the 50s and 60s publishing homegrown comics, mainly featuring the tame adventures of knights and jungle heroes, or some SF-heroes. A lot of this stuff was drawn and written by just one man, Hansrudi Wäscher.
With the advent of US-Comics in germany during the 60s (by then western was very popular here) this kind of comics died out. Mainly because the imported stuff was far superior to the often crudely drawn comics of german origin.
Pre-code horror aficionado and propagator of ACE comic books.
I run a number of websites about pre-code horror. Please follow the links.

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2012, 03:44:27 PM »
Quote
I've split this into a new International Comics topic to allow scanners to talk about their scanners while the international crowd can enjoy their own topic here.

Thanks to Yoc, but just a note: By "international" I mean "international". Any discussion, which I auspicate the most fruitful, does not exclude the USA or american comics. :)
In fact, since comics as we conceive them, are born in the USA, it’s only appropriate to have such a discussion here, on the DCM, which – although it’s devoted mostly to comic books – is born out of passion for the medium as a whole.

@Tilliban: Thanks for the very concise recap. It’s handy. Of course I know Ehapa. When I was 14 I used to buy occasionally Micky Maus and some Lustige Taschenbuch (even if I didn’t get anything out of them), sometimes because I just enjoyed to compare the character's names. "Lustiges Taschenbuch" is the german edition of "I Classici di Walt Disney", one of our greatest Disney comics antology, which reprinted the best of the italian production, since 1957.

Quote
There were some publishers during the 50s and 60s publishing homegrown comics, mainly featuring the tame adventures of knights and jungle heroes, or some SF-heroes. A lot of this stuff was drawn and written by just one man, Hansrudi Wäscher.
With the advent of US-Comics in germany during the 60s (by then western was very popular here) this kind of comics died out. Mainly because the imported stuff was far superior to the often crudely drawn comics of german origin.
This is a pity, but it seems so strange there hasn’t been more. Anything prior to 1950?

Japan had a comics tradition before the modern post-war conception, and it would be very interesting to know how much and how comics were known before the 1940s in Germany… :)

P.S. I have just purchased the digital editions of TwoMorrows Alter Ego #17 (because of my growing interest for Lou Fine’s art) and of the Quality Companion.
They are amazing, and once again a big "thank you" to Jim Vadeboncoeur for being there!  ;)

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2012, 03:46:35 PM »
P.S.2: That Reddition magazine is great. There must be some serious researcher among you germans. :)

Offline tilliban

  • VIP Uploaders
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 978
  • Karma: 5
    • FIFTIES HORROR!
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2012, 10:23:47 AM »
Had me laughing there: No, no comics before 1950 – just „Der Führer“-trading cards.
But as we Germans do not produce comic books, we are ardent researchers, historians and fans.
There are many collectors in Germany and a big community of Carl Barks aficionados with thousands of members:
http://www.donald.org/
Pre-code horror aficionado and propagator of ACE comic books.
I run a number of websites about pre-code horror. Please follow the links.

Offline paw broon

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 304
  • Karma: 8
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2012, 11:06:56 AM »
This is good. Size isn't everything after all and the USA is the only, I think, country where comics are virtually all the same shape with that portrait style.  Other countries comics production really shows the  variety of shapes and sizes that have been produced over the years and that includes titles which have changed size and shape dramatically during their published lives.
Tilliban, I have to say that the tradition of European comics featuring historical characters - swordsmen, cowboys, pirates, knights - many of them masked with secret i/d's - and schoolboys/girls, detectives, etc.has been a great source of entertainment to millions for yonks.  Many of the titles produced in many European countries were of a very high standard, particularly in the art.  I mentioned somewhere else re.your mention of Hansrudi Wachser, that I knew some of his stuff and enjoyed it.  It might not be of the same standard as Bill Lacey on Blackshirt or some of the strips featured in L'Audace that I've been looking at on Fumetti Anteguerra on vintagecomicsforum, but enjoyable all the same.  In fact, I've seen much, much worse in the pages of some American comics.
I'm not always looking for a Kirby (in fact, I'm still not totally convinced, despite JVJs valliant attempts to set me right) or an Adams, although Bill Lacey, Ron Turner, Don Lawrence, some artists in L'audace, for example,are easily as talented and enjoyable to read, and I really enjoy all those Spanish historical masked men, British produced detectives and cowboys, Italian neri, French graphic novels, Dutch Kapitein Rob and so much more.
Sorry, bit of a ramble.  Hope it makes sense.  Keep it up, please.
Stephen Montgomery

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #12 on: March 25, 2012, 11:43:24 AM »
Yay! This is going to be a great thread…

I’m not sure I get all the humour in Tillban’s reply, but I guess he alludes to all the nazism government propagandistic paper material, right? Well, in fact I wasn’t strictly speaking of the late 1930s/1940s, but I was thinking of any possible german or german-tradition-inspired comic (I hereby use the word "comic" to set a generic word, good for all countries, although I think the italian "fumetti" is a lot better, but it has a different meaning in english).
After all, we can say The Katzenjammer Kids is as much as a german strip as it is american, and its contribution to the development of the medium has been huge. It was already published in italy on "Il Corriere dei Piccoli" since its first issue (in 1908). The title represented mostly italian bourgeois culture, as opposed to other titles experimenting and alternating foreign and italian material.

And – Paw Broom will allow me – Jack Kirby’s output (especially in his maturity) is imbued with so much austro-european storytelling heritage, myths and folklore, to be considered european as well. In particular, no american-born artist could have conceived a character like Agatha Harkness, or – coming to Tilliban – a certain kind of horror stories.
True, the character of Witchboy (from the pages of DC's "The Demon") is imbued with references to early euro-american protestantisim but the whole series in some ways feels like something straight out of the middle ages thrown in the practical american frame of mind.
And we were entering the 1970s. Jack was clearly a genius, but let's not forget he was austrian in heritage. :)

Offline vaillant

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 118
  • Karma: 0
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #13 on: March 25, 2012, 11:54:26 AM »
Jacovitti: Pippo and the dictator (published in comic book slightly after the war, but drawn in 1945):

http://www.supergulp.biz/files/supergulp_collezionismo_Files/ebay_images/readyproebayimages/17133_102325_3.JPG
Benito Jacovitti was then 22, and he already orchestrated the tales of his personal "kid gang" ("Pippo, Pertica and Palla") with daring incoscience, among the (also spiritual) ruins of post-war italy.
I still have to purchase that story, which has also been reprinted a few times. Even the first edition is not expensive.

Offline paw broon

  • VIP
  • DCM Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 304
  • Karma: 8
Re: International Comics topic
« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2012, 12:46:15 PM »
Excellent vaillant. One of many landscape comics.  Love that format.
 As for Kirby, I have never considered him or his work in that way.  I should explain that some of us fans here in Scotland don't hold Mr. Kirby in quite the same esteem as you and most on this site.  We haven't quite figured out what made him so great and tend to place certain other artists higher in terms of our reading enjoyment  Doesn't mean I don't love lots of his comics.  But I will now have to re-think a couple of things after reading your comments.
Stephen Montgomery