Seafaring Comic Books

[Pieter Boelen]

In Spanish most stuff that is moderately successful in Europe or America gets official translations eventually, but some people cannot wait.

Spain must be pretty big on comic book enthusiasm then!
And rightly so.
They're fun.

 

[Homo eructus]

Well, Spanish is spoken in many other countries too, it's a large market.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Well, Spanish is spoken in many other countries too, it's a large market.

Ah; very true.

I wonder then what is the market for comic books in general.
Certainly the English-American market seems to be primarily into those dreadfully boring superheroes and ever more superheroes.
I can't see the Germans being much into comics either.
So it seems to be mainly a French/Belgian/Italian thing; with a bit of Dutch thrown in for good measure.

And that makes me curious...
Is Donald Duck as big in Spanish-speaking countries as it is here?
Somehow that's a weird thing as its source is as American as it gets; and yet it's only really popular here overseas.

Figure that one out.

 

[Homo eructus]

Ah; very true.

I wonder then what is the market for comic books in general.
Certainly the English-American market seems to be primarily into those dreadfully boring superheroes and ever more superheroes.
I can't see the Germans being much into comics either.
So it seems to be mainly a French/Belgian/Italian thing; with a bit of Dutch thrown in for good measure.

And that makes me curious...
Is Donald Duck as big in Spanish-speaking countries as it is here?
Somehow that's a weird thing as its source is as American as it gets; and yet it's only really popular here overseas.

Figure that one out.

Some Disney magazines became very popular in several European countries in the 70s and 80s, featuring comic strips written and illustrated mainly by Italian creators who greatly expanded the "Donaldverse" especially. I think the answer may lie there.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Some Disney magazines became very popular in several European countries in the 70s and 80s, featuring comic strips written and illustrated mainly by Italian creators who greatly expanded the "Donaldverse" especially. I think the answer may lie there.

There's been plenty of Dutch artists working on the Donaldverse too.
And it's got some serious popularity in Scandinavia as well.

But indeed, the Italian artists are in a league of their own.
Just the sheer AMOUNT they make there is ASTRONOMICAL!

Here in NL, you can buy rows upon rows upon rows of "pockets".
And every story in there has a very recognizable style that you don't see in the regular magazines and book-ey releases.
All of those are the Italian ones.
It's like a whole universe onto itself.
One which I never really investigated very deeply...

I've mainly been in the Carl Barks and Don Rosa camp:
Review - Scrooge McDuck (Carl Barks & Don Rosa)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Who here is familiar with the very, VERY Dutch Douwe Dabbert - Wikipedia ?
It used to be printed in the Donald Duck weekly magazine; and some issues feature very nautical themes.

A few weeks ago, I bought (almost) all available current re-releases.
There's only two still to come.
And today I finished reading the last one I had.

They're RIDICULOUSLY good!
And FILLED TO THE BRIM with realism, humour, magic, cultural criticism; all the good things in life.
Also, shockingly, not only does "The Masked Chieftain" feature the MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY as the punchline to one HELLUVA extended joke,
it also features "The Compass That Doesn't Point North" more than five years before Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was ever even on our New Horizons.
I am very curious if perhaps this isn't a coincidence; in a way, there ARE both Disney "properties" after all!

Now supposedly these comics are released in three editions: soft-cover, hard-cover and "luxe edition".
The ones I got are just the "cheap" mass-market versions so far.
But the next to be released will be "Return to the Animal Kingdom", which... is basically what my VERY OWN (very limited) comic book world was inspired by!!
Effectively, without even quite knowing it at the time, I took the idea from Thom Roep and Piet Wijn, mixed it with Ronald Sinoo's "Hupie" and set it a few hundred years into the future.
Into our now, really. And so "Kapitein Dol Fijn"* ends up captaining a naval submarine; which he uses for animal protection.

With this being quite valuable for me personally, I figured I'd see if I can get a "luxe edition" of the upcoming release.
Now imagine my bloody surprise when I fill in Uitgeverij stripboeken • Uitgeverij L and instead of being presented with awesome comics, I get this instead:

Wait, whaaaaaat?!?!?
It does seem like our dear Russian friends may not like Mr. Dabbert very much...

Spoiler

Apparently their certificate expired a mere FIVE DAYS ago:

This is the Declaration of the Supplier:
ISRG CPS v4.1 - Let's Encrypt

EDIT: Ah, L shop DOES work as it should.
And indeed they have VERY intriguing Collector's Editions there; along with a fair few other cool things I'm curious about and/or never even knew existed.

Dear Uitgeverij L, have mercy on my bank account (and storage capacity at home)!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

About this one, it's the grandpa of all of the above. Barbe-Rouge (1961-1970), by Charlier and Hubinon. Haven't read it but it was influential enough that the pirates in the Asterix books are a parody of its characters.

I bought a whole bunch of them second-hand AGES ago.
Today, I finally started reading the first volume.

Holy CRAP, it is GOOD BLOODY STUFF!!
Even just the first few pages contain a bunch of scenes that got adapted into famous movies; including PotC:CotBP and MC:TFSotW.

This is no fantasy story.
A lot of what I've seen already makes real, physical and historical sense!

If the rest is as good as this, I'm in for ONE HELLUVA pirate yarn here.