Monday, September 12, 2011

EARLY WAR-TIME FRENCH WAR COMICS


Above scan is of a panel from the 8th installement of 'Vatan İçin [For the Homeland]' from the back cover o no. 36 (dated Mar. 11th, 1940) of Turkey's 1001 Roman weekly comics magazine. 'Vatan İçin', serialized between no.'s 29-54 of 1001 Roman, is the Turkish edition of 'Jean-Jacques Ardent à la Guerre ['Jean-Jacques Ardent at the War]' serialized in the French magazine Junior in 1939-40. Ardent was originally an athlete character created by René Pellos in 1938; Pellos (1900-1998) is better known for his 'Futuropolis', the first non-juvenile French sci-fi comics saga. 'Vatan İçin' was the only comics series published in 1001 Roman credited to its original source, with the tag "Fransızca Junior gazetesinden alınmıştır [taken from the French Junior gazette]" in its title caption. This was probably due to an intent to show sympathy for France in the newly erupted 2nd World War (Turkey had officially signed an alliance with Britain and France soon after the war had erupted, even though this alliance would in effect remain only on paper). Ironically, the German invasion of France would be initiated a few months after 'Vatan İçin' began to serialized in 1001 Roman and France would surrender before the serialization ended. The Turkish edition ends with Ardent being shot and falling down from a bridge which he had planted explosives, and sinking down into the waters below, with his last words as "Oh.! I am happy!.. I am dying for the sake of the independence of my homeland":
UPDATE: I've updated my below posts on Sept. 5th, Sept. 9th and Sept. 10th with the identifications of the original sources of the covered comics. However, comics covered in the posts on Sept. 8th and Sept. 11th still remain unidentified.

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