The sad story of old used comics

I would have considered this piles of comics (fumetti in Italian) a treasure several decades ago. Nobody would have been happier than myself if owing these boxes full of imaginative drawings and stories. As the years passed by, my priorities has changed, the world has changed, the kid's wishes and priorities have changed. Once every kid's dream, rather expensive comic books, when fresh out of print, lie stacked carelessly in the cardboard boxes. Dusty, mouldy, on a crumbling paper and cheap. I miss the whole excitement of asking mom or dad for money, through rushing over to the newsstand on my old bike, speeding up back home with my precious acquisition, throwing myself on the couch, inhaling the fumes of freshly printed book and slowly indulging myself into the new mysterious adventure, that some unknown artist had so meticulously and amazingly drawn for me.
Only occasional visitor of the flea market cares to look t them, browse in search of the almost forgotten story or a hero, whose adventures he or maybe even she enjoyed as a kid.

The old books share the similar fate as the comics. Prices are in the range of 0,5 to 2 €. The digital era and the Internet have changed the world drastically in less than a couple of decades.

The photographs were taken at the large antiques and flea market that takes place each month in a picturesque multi-ethnic Italian town called Čedad in Slovenian (Italian Cividale del Friuli, Furlanian  Cividât, German Östrich).
I have yet to deal with my own huge comics collection. The one that holds nice memories, but I hardly ever read any of these comics. No time for that in the hectic world of today.

A vertical gag strip

Somehow I think that short gag comic strips work better on PC, tablet and phone when images are sequenced vertical (like the film tape).

A cartoon for today

The Fox Cat & Rat strip 03

The Fox Cat & Rat strip 02

I think I made 4 strips of the Fox Cat & Rat, back in 1998, in total .

The Fox Cat & Rat strip

 

My web comic strip from the previous century

I am tempted to resume. Any comments?

Artist's references

 

To many aspiring comicbook artists and cartoonists the Internet provides endless sources of references for their own artwork. Only 20 years ago, the World was much different. An aspiring artist had to buy tones of books and collect piles of clippings from magazines in order to have the necessary referneces.

Well, there were some references/models that were allways "at hand": artist's own hands. Belieavably drawn, inked and painted hands are quite important. Here are some of my old hand drawings.

Academy of Art Character and Creature Design Notes

Lamarr and Hogarth

One of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen, Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna in 1914. Hedy was also a talented inventor who developed a spread spectrum technique , without which the modern wireless communication would be impossible.
No wonder that even comic book artists, consciously or not, took her as a "model" for their comics. It seems that Burne Hogarth (1911 – 1996), the famous American cartoonist, illustrator, educator, author and theoretician, best known for his Tarzan comic strip, fancied the gorgeous looking actress and depicted her in his comics.

 

 

 

I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded, perhaps too much and too often. As for money, I have only realized its true worth when I didn't have it.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hedy_lamarr.html#fEaCWjXSHv12LkT2.99

Hedy: I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded, perhaps too much and too often. As for money, I have only realised its true worth when I didn't have it.

Hedy: I advise everybody not to save: spend your money. Most people save all their lives and leave it to somebody else. Money is to be enjoyed.

Hedy: American men, as a group, seem to be interested in only two things, money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook.

Hedy: The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

Hedy: I would tell anyone who wants something from someone else to feign not wanting it. People are perverse. If you show great affection to them, they'll run the other way.

More quotes from Hedy: Brainy Quote

Cooper and Luke

There are many examples of comic book heroes which were inspired by the particular movie characters or/and actors and vice versa. Sometime in the 60's, the comics magazine "Kekec", that I had following regularly, started publishing hilarious western cartoonish comic titled "Talični Tom". Later, some Croatian magazines published the same comic strip under the name "Srećko Munja". Only later I have learnt the comic's real title was: "Lucky Luke".
It was created by the Belgian cartoonist Maurice De Bevere, alias Morris, and often written by René Goscinny, scenarist of the Asteryx comic. Luke's name was inspired by that of Luciano Locarno, an Italian American sheriff who lived between 1860 and 1940. However, the real inspiration for the character and his looks was probably Gary Cooper. Just like Luke he was basically nice and benevolent, but tough and a sleek gunslinger when needed. Cooper was a chain smoker and a tuft lock of hair was sticking under his hat.
Later, when the animated cartoons were produced, Lucky Luke was dubbed with the characteristic deep Cooper's voice.
When smoking became unpopular in media, the cigarette in the comic was replaced by a straw sticking from Luke's mouth.
Together with The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix, Lucky Luke is one of the most popular and best-selling comic-book series in continental Europe.

The comic often features the characters which are in fact caricatures of the famous actors or the real people from the old wild West, like Jesse James, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, etc. The funniest "villains" are the Dalton brothers, the fictional "less successful" cousins of the real Dalton gang.

 

My digital sci fi illustration

Here is one of my digital sci fi illustrations:

My editorial cartoon

I am afraid the World is heading this way...

Cover of my humour magazine

Cover of my humour magazine. Not published yet.

Time for a gag

Here is one of my gag cartoons:

My Superman panel cartoon

Super heroes were never my thing. Probably because I have gotten to reading them when I was too old for adopting the stuff. It was around 1965 or 66, when a friend from my class, Tihomir Varga (Tini) came back from Argentina, after living there for a couple of years, with a big stack of American comics. I couldn't understand everything, but the comics were spectacular. I loved Zorro, Mighty Samson and Turok son of stone.
Here is one of the covers for Turok, which was obviously inspired by Zdenek Burian's painting (below):

The first comics I have read

Although at first the comic strips were forbidden in the post war ex Yugoslavia, for being a typical "capitalist invention", the brave artists and publishers persisted and started to issue new comic periodicals. I have been a reader of a couple of best comic magazines from the late 50's and early 60's: Kekec (Serbian) and Plavi vjesnik (Croatian).

Macherot

Above is the page from Macherot's earliest comic strip Chlorophylle Contre Les Rats Noirs from the early 50's. 

Below is my unpublished cover for the Chlorophylle comic that I never produced. My plans were to ask Macherot and the publisher who held the copyrights for the consent, but at the time Macherot was old and of poor health.