Tuesday, January 19, 2010

EARLIEST KNOWN GAG-COMICS PUBLISHED IN TURKEY (1913-14)


Prior to the introduction of the Latin alphabet in 1928, the Arabic script was used in Turkey. The illegibility of pre-1928 Turkish publications to subsequent generations in Turkey has caused a void in knowledge about such items. Hence, the history of comics in Turkey before 1930s has been documented very little. Çocuk Dünyası, a children's magazine published between 1913-14, is one of the earliest Turkish publications known to sparadoically print gag-comics. The scans in this post are from the first 49 issues, in my collection, of its 79 issue run. The scan above is of the first appearance of a gag-comics in this publication; titled as 'Devekuşu ile Maymun [The Ostrich and the Monkey]', it was printed in no. 10, dated May 16th, 1913.
The next issue, no.11, dated May 23rd, 1913, carried the below one and a half page item titled 'Hayvan Hikayeleri: Tavşan ile Tilki [The Animal Stories: The Rabbit and the Fox]':

Note that the Arabic script requires a reading directed from the right to the left. Whether this item should be called a comics with text beneath the panels or simply an illustrated story is open for debate. Nevertheless, the illustrations are framed as panels even though they are not ordered in rows.

The no. 25, dated Aug. 29th, 1913, would carry the below comics strip, titled simply as 'Yazısız Hikaye [Story Without Text]':


The below strip was serialized in two issues:




Note the last panel carries the signature Sewell Collins.

The below scan, titled as 'Yazısız Hikaye [Story Without Text]', is from no. 46, dated Jan. 23rd, 1914:


and the below one, titled 'Bizim kedi kardeş, çok cesurdur!! [Our kitty is very brave!!]' is from no. 47, dated Jan. 30th, 1914:
Gag comics were also apparently published in another Turkish children's magazine of the same era, Çocuk Duygusu (see Esin Bayraktar, 'Yazısız Hikaye', Serüven [2nd series] no. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 62-65 *).
* Bayraktar identifes the publication date of Çocuk Duygusu as 1911, but other sources note it as from 1913-14. In the same article, Bayraktar also covers comics published in Çocuk Dünyası which she also misidentifies as being from 1911.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

just a small note: the title is "hayvanat hikayeleri", not "hayvan hikayeleri"