Thursday, January 25, 2018

Spanish comics from my misspent youth !

You probably didn´t expect a post so soon after the last one but as longtime readers know I don´t like to have to similar posts in a row and since Tomorrow´s post will also be about Spider - Man I have decided to do a quick post in - between. At least it´s supposed to be a short post.


While I was looking for a page from Vazquez´ ANACLETO, AGENTE SECRETO for my last post I went through my spanish comic pages and I remembered that ages ago I began collecting these pages for a special post I never did.


So to bring a bit of variety to the blog here are some pages from all the comic books I used to read as a kid which was much more than just super hero stuff. I am not sure if it´s 100 percent accurate but I tried to have as many different strips here as possible and I also went more for one page strips instead of longer ones. Anyway, my spanish readers will probably remember a few of these so I hope they will bring back some pleasant memories. And all my other readers are in for a journey of discovery.


Even though this is a quick post in - between there are some birthdays I have to address, starting with Comicbookgirl19 who turns 33. So maybe she could call herself Comicbookgirl33 now. Or maybe not. Women are always so touchy about their age so having it in the name would probably not fly. Anyway, if you haven´t caught on to how much I appreciate her work - especially after A Comicbook Orange closed down - you have either been living under a rock or this is your first time on this blog. I want a lot of people to support her so we can get more great videos like her Epic History X - Men and more awesome cosplays like WildC.A.T.S.´  Zealot.



Speaking of which, since this is a special occassion I´m re - posting the Making Of video of that for all those poor fellas who have missed it.



I thought quite a bit about which video I should include but finally I decided on this one because I found it too late to include it in the post that I wrote at Frank Frazetta´s birthday and I have already tried to include it in a post two times. But as they say : three time´s the charm.



Comic writer Geoff Johns celebrates his 45th birthday and I wasn´t sure if I should include him because I used to have a love / hate relationship with his work which has now turned into this love / hate / love relationship.


Because on one side he has written some of my favorite comics like Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and the Justice Society of America books that followed. As longtime readers know anything which gives us more Power Girl is okay in my book and Thy Kingdom Come is one of my all - time Justice Society of America stories . He also had a great run on Flash - which had most of its momentum stolen when Scott Kolins took over the art - his Teen Titans restart not only brought a lagging comic series back from limbo but also cemented Mike McKone´s cult status and for the longest time he steadily churned out instant Green Lantern classics like the Siniestro Corps War.


Not to mention his force de work Final Crisis : Legion of Three Worlds where George Perezwent totally nuts and drew every frigging person who was ever a member which is so awesome that I had to post all five issues ?

On the other side his Green Lantern stories got more convoluted and dark and negative until I left the title and apart from such short glimpses of his former glory as on the Aquaman restart I´m not a big fan of what he has written for the New 52 or the general direction in which he has lead the DC universe since becoming the new President and Chief Creative Officer.


And then there are shows like Smallville, Arrow and The Flash on which he has worked and which I absolutely love. I don´t know, I watch these shows and I ask myself if I am seeing the genuine love he has for these characters or if it´s only because there are also other writers involved who balance him out. Because every time I look at his recent comic book I see none of that love. It´s just full of disdain and negativity. Like being a hero is a bad thing and he´s trying to persuade us to not think positive, not to care about things and not to get involved or try to help others.

In any case, he has written some of my favorite stuff and everything else is not that important. Like somebody said : in comics you get to decide what is part of the continuity and what not and in a few years we won´t even have to pretend that the New 52 never happened because DC will find a way to explain that it was some parallel world or just a bad dream. 


Speaking about dreams, french actress Florence Geanty turns 52 and she´s best known for her role on the tv soap called Sous Le Soleil ( Under the Sun ) or simply St. Tropez in german and one of the few episodes in which she appeared was La Fin D´Un Réve which means The End Of A Dream.


Florence Geanty was perfectly cast as she plays the ex - stripper Marie ( Marion in german which made it a bit difficult to find infos on her ) whom the ex - cop of the series tries to reform. It´s not hard to see why and he even ends up marrying her but like in all soaps it has to end in tragedy.


Now very often women in soaps don´t look like they could really do the job they have on these shows - like Kyra Sedwick who in real life couldn´t scare a mouse - but Florence Geanty really has a porn star body that could have launched her into a very successful career as a striptease super star. 


So far I have only bought half a season of ST. TROPEZ - for some reason they have divided all the seasons into two parts - because the other one with the best episodes of Florence Geanty is going for an obscene amount of money at amazon right now for obvious reasons. But I´m not getting any younger and I really don´t know what exactly I am waiting for here. 

We stay with busty babes although we make the jump from french tv to US comics with Chuck Wojtkiewicz who celebrates his 59th birthday. He has drawn such titles like Southern Knights, Voltron, Nexus, Dreadstar or DC´s iMPACT line that was another failed attempt to revive The Mighty Crusader where he penciled Jaguar, Crusaders and Crucible. But most comic readers know him from his work on Justice League International issues 59 to 68 and 93 to 113 and while this includes the story with Power Girl´s infamous magic pregnancy his most sought after issue is the final issue of this because of this famous scene with Power Girl and Blue Devil. 


Speaking of Blue Devil, comic writer Gary Cohn turns 66 who not only co - created the character with artists Paris Cullins and Pablo Marcos but also Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld with artist Ernie Colon. While I have only read a few comics with Blue Devil the DC Showcase Presents : Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld has been on my comic wish list for a few years now.


I remember that when it came out I appreciated neither Ernie Colon´s art nor the type of stories it had. Now that I´m older I would like to read it to see if there is more of a connection. And there´s also the fact that it was later revealed that Gemworld will be known in a thousand years as the Sorcerer´s World which makes it part of the Legion of Super - Heroes universe. Now those comic readers who wonder what Ernie Colon´s art looks like can either buy the Damage Control series which Disney has reprinted in all kind of collections like the Acts Of Vengeance Crossovers omnibus or a much cheaper possibility is presented by our trusty pal Old Groove at DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND with a post on Speed Demon, a story written and drawn by Ernie Colon that appeared in Weird Tales of the Macabre 1. And you can find anything else you ever wanted to know about the great Ernie Colon and then some at ERNIE COLON UNLIMITED .


Today´s entertainment section is really international and our next stop is Japan as Leiji Matsumoto celebrates his 80th birthday who has worked on Galaxy Express 999, Space Battleship Yamato and Captain Harlock. Even if you never watched an anime you have seen his art in the Daft Punk videos which were issued end to end on DVD as a full length animated movie called Interstella 5555 : The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem.



Since Today´s topic was spanish comics from my youth here´s a report from the news program Informe Semanal about comics from 1970.



Now I don´t know exactly from when this song is but it was on one of the few spanish rock / pop disc records my Dad had that I listened to as a kid.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best


If I were a normal man I´d be dead. But I´m neither.

2 comments:

Terry Hooper-Scharf said...

Did you buy the Comicbookgirl19 calendar? I counted my pennies at the time but more bills came in!
Interesting that a lot of the Spanish strips are similar in style to British ones...until you realise Spanish, Italian and South American artists worked on UK strips.
I'm still 123,323,231 post images up on you so far so you'll need to catch up! :-)

SUBZERO said...

Well, it is kind of difficult to buy those calendars when they are not available at amazon or other online shops in Germany. I don´t have PayPal and I don´t like to pay over the internet so the only other venue is if you can find them at cons. It´s the reason why I still haven´t got the Yaya Han calendar for 2018.