DEBUT OF BASIL REYNOLDS' SKIT AND SKAT (1936)

Above scan is of the debut of British comics artist Basil Reynolds' 'Adventures of Skit and Skat' in no. 1 (dated Feb 8th, 1936) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly. Born in 1916, the talented Reynolds, who had already done strip work for several newspapers, was only 20 years of age when he was given the full 3rd page of MMW, the flagship British Disney publication with more than half a million circulation. In his memoirs (reprinted in http://www.mouseplanet.com/), Reynolds has noted that he was recruited into the staff of MMW at the magazine's founding with the endorsement of his draft of 'Skit and Skat' by British Disney artist Wilfred Haughton.

The mouse which appears in the second panel of this first installement is the prototype of Marmaduke who would soon make semi-regular appearances in 'Skit and Skat' and eventually have his own strip.

Below is the scan of the 'Skit and Skat' page from no. 2 of MMW:

'Skit and Skat' would shift between gag-a-week or continuity narratives and lasted uninterrupted till (including) no 66 (dated May 8th, 1937). It would resume at no. 97 (dated Dec. 11th, 1937), retitled as 'Skit, Skat and the Captain', and last till 1940.

'THE ADVENTURES OF SIR ENDOR NEVAH THE KNUTTY KNIGHT' (1938)

'The Adventures of Sir Endor Nevah the Knutty Knight' is a very interesting humorous adventure comics serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1938 (no.'s 115-126, above scan is of the first episode). It features the exploits of the title hero and his page as they try to rescue a princess. What makes it stand out as almost avanguard is the presence of weird pseudo-futuristic motifs in its medieval setting:

I am surprised to find absolutely no mention of this exceptional comics anywhere on the net. If anyone knows anything about its writer and/or artist, please tell us...

ADDENDA FROM OCT. 2010: I've just realized that this obscure comics has also been serialized in the weekly Turkish children's magazine Afacan in 1939 as 'Kral İle Devin Resimli Masalı [The Illustrated Fairytale of the King and the Giant]'.

'HEAVENLY TWINS' (1936)

Above scan is of the first installement of the gag-a-week comics 'Heavenly Twins' ran in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1936 (no's 28-44).

THE GREEN MEN (1935)

In this post, I present select images (uploaded last month to the outducks archive by user Mankkop) from a great-looking Italian comics set in Atlantis: 'Gli uomini verdi [The Green Men'], which had started to be serialized in the back cover of Topolino no. 139 (dated Aug. 25th, 1935); the above installement is from no. 142 and the two below ones are from no. 146 and no. 148:

After no. 150, 'Gli uomini verdi', unfortunately was shifted to the interior b&w pages till it ended at no. 155 (dated Dec. 12d, 1935); the below installement is from no. 153:

'Gli uomini verdi' was the work of Yambo (Enrico Novelli, 1876-1943). Apart from his comics work, he was also apparently a prolific writer of adventure books. Soon after his retirement, he died of a heart attack during an air raid in the 2d World War.

FILM FUN

I give a break to my coverage of the pre-history of comics in Turkey to post scans from two pre-war issues of the British film comics magazine Film Fun which I recently acquired. Film Fun was published by Amalgamated Press, pioneer of platinium (pre-golden) age comics boom in Britain, between 1920-1962. The two issues I acquired contain comics featuring comedy film stars of the era, as well as text stories.
No. 446, dated Aug. 4th, 1928 (which became the earliest comic in my collection [costing me 12.5 pounds]) has 10 of its 24 pages (including covers) reserved for comics. A 2-page Harold Lloyd gag comics starts at the front cover [above scan] and ends at the back cover:

Other comics in this issue are Lupino Lane (1 pg), Grock (2 pgs, which appears to be part of a continuity), Jackie Coogan (2 pgs), Ben Turpin & Charlie Conklin (1 pg), Buster Keaton (1 pg) and Charlie Murray (1 pg)

British artists known to be working in Film Fun in its first decade include George Wakefield and Tom Radford.

For no. 730, dated Jan. 13th, 1934, Harold Lloyd's place had been reduced to a single page...

... while Laurel and Hardy take up the two centre pages:


Other comics in this issue are Joe E. Brown (2 pgs: front and back covers), Sydney Howard (1 pg), Tim McCoy (2ps, part of continuity), Wheeler & Woolsey (2 pgs), Lupino Lane (1 pg) and Schnozzle (1 pg).
Some of the comics from Film Fun were reprinted in Turkey in the children's magazine Afacan (1932-34). See my post dated Dec 22nd, 2007 for a coverage of film comics in general, including the Turkish reprints. For a nice round-up of the evolution of Film Fun itself over the decades, see the post dated Jan 14th, 2010 at http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/

DEBUT OF BRINGING UP FATHER IN TURKEY (1925)

Esin Bayraktar provides a detailed coverage of the very interesting debut of 'Bringing Up Father' in Turkey in her article 'Seni Bir Yerlerden Gözümüz Isırıyor Bican Efendi...' in Serüven [2nd series], no. 1 (Winter 2006), pp. 41-45. The scan and the info in this post are from that article.

'Bringing Up Father' debutted as 'Bican Efendi' in no. 1, dated May 28th, 1925, of Resimli Perşembe weekly and was published in its first eight issues. As can be seen in the above scan, a moustache was added to the face of Jiggs and, furthermore, the characters were depicted in traditional Turkish dresses of the time. Five of the eight installements carry the abbreviated signature "İ"; however, the identity of the artist in question is unknown. Bayraktar speculates that the installements with the İ signature might have been Turkish productions while the rest are modified versions of original American sources.

The name Bican Efendi comes from the title of a Turkish comedy film series.

Beginning with 1950s, licensed and faithful reprints of 'Bringing Up Father' would be published in the Hürriyet daily newspaper as 'Güngörmüşler'.

EARLIEST KNOWN CONTINUITY COMICS PUBLISHED IN TURKEY (1925-26)

Currently available research so far indicates that the earliest continuity comics published in Turkey had appeared in a periodical titled Resimli Mecmua in 1925-26. Hülya Eraslan, in her article 'Resimli Tefrika: Acar'ın Sergüzeştleri ve Abbas Yolcu' published in the now-defunct (but much missed!) comics research journal Serüven [2nd series], no. 1 (Winter 2006), pp. 46-49, had covered the comics published in Resimli Mecmua at length. All the info and the scans in this post come from that article:
The first six issues of Resimli Mecmua serialized 'Acar'ın Sergüzeştleri [The Adventures of Acar]', chronicling the globe-trotting adventures of a Turkish character named Acar. The first four installements credit the script to Abdullah Ziya, a famous Turkish writer of popular fiction, better known in the later decades as Abdullah Ziya Kozanoğlu, who would create the trend-setting Turkish swashbuckling comics hero Kaan (later re-named as Karaoğlan) in the 1950s. In these four episodes, Acar is a mischievous kid who is sent by his father to work in a ship. There, he befriends a Chinese and a black kid ad together they go to the poles.
The art and the content drastically change in the fifth and the sixth installements where Acar is now a youngster who solves a murder mystery in Paris.

'Abbas Yolcu [Abbas On the Road]' starts at no. 26 and continues for 18 issues. It starts with the house of a rich guy named Abbas being flooded and the character washed over to the sea in his bed where he is picked up by a ship:

Abbas' adventures take him first to a deserted island, then to the poles. Eventually, he becomes a film star on the strength of his newly gained fame as a globe-trotting adventurer. The saga ends in Paris, where he had already bought a house before embarking on his journey.
If anyone recognizes the original source of this comics, please let us know.

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.

RUPERT BEAR IN TURKEY

The ever-popular British comic strip Rupert Bear, created in 1920 for Daily Express and still running today!, was serialized in Turkish children's magazine Çocuk in the late 1930s as 'Küçük Ayı Ruperin Serüvenleri [The Adventures of Ruper the Little Bear]'. The above scan is from no. 121, dated Jan. 13th, 1939, and features the third and concluding installement of an episode titled as 'Yıkık Kaledeki Hırsız [The Thief at the Ruined Castle]'.

Rupert Bear was created by Mary Tourtel (1874-1948), the wife of Daily Express' editor. The episodes reprinted in Turkey are probably by Alfred Bestall, who had taken over in 1935.

TWO ORIENTALIST ADVENTURE COMICS FROM MMW (1936-37)

In this post, I will cover two orientalist adventure comics serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly. 'Gordon Gale - Air Rover' by British artist Stephan Chapman began in no. 43, dated Nov. 28th, 1936. It tells the story of the title hero, a pilot-mechanic who has invented a special type of plane called Hydro-Gyro. In its first full-fledged test flight, he is accompanied by a young woman who is desperate to deliver some papers to her uncle in Africa. First half of the story takes place in Morocco where the protagonists are assaulted by Arabs:

Morocco was under French occupation at the time, and several textual references to the Arabs as "rebels" testify to the colonialist stand of the comics. Furthermore, in one instance, the Arabs are also humiliated for lacking the know-how of the westerners:

The second half of the story takes place in tropical Africa, with appropriate jungle perils:

The comics ends with the protagonists getting hold of a treasure and becoming wealthy, ie. by looting Africa...

Right after 'Gordon Gale - Air Rover' ended, another orientalist comics, titled 'Green Eyes', started in its place in no. 53, dated Feb. 6th, 1937:

'Green Eyes', by an unknown author and whose plot is apparently inspired from the Hollywood film The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), tells the story of the title villain's attempt to get hold of four scarabs (all in London, but apparently brought to the UK from the Orient, ie. stolen in the first place!) which will somehow give him authority over certain "tribes" in Egypt (under British occupation at the time). Admittedly, this comics features several visuals with delicious imagery:

Even routine action scenes are well staged:

In the end, Green Eyes manages to get the scarabs back to Egypt, but secret service agents trail him:

It all ends happily -for the westerners, of course, and not for the Egyptians..

If anyone knows the artist of 'Green Eyes', please let us know.

Both 'Gordon Gale - Air Rover' and 'Green Eyes' were also serialized in the Turkish children's magazine Çocuk Sesi. The former was re-titled as 'Havalar Kahramanı Bay Metin', with the protagonist given the Turkish name Bay Metin! It started in no. 366, dated Dec. 28, 1936, only one month after its original debut in MMW.

GRACE DRAYTON'S PUSSYCAT PRINCESS IN TURKEY

'The Pussycat Princess', created by Grace Drayton (1877-1936), one of the first female comics artists in the world, was serialized in the Turkish children's magazine Çocuk Sesi in 1936 under the title 'Prenses Sarmanın Serüvenleri' [The Adventures of Princess Sarman (a popular Turkish name given to cats)]. The above scan is of the first installement of the series published in no. 335, dated May 25th, 1936. With the next installement in the subsequent issue, the comics began to be reprinted in proper format without the superflous texts beneath the panels:

Drayton would unfortunately die of a heart attack in 1936, a year after she started 'the Pussycat Princess' which would be continued by other artists. The comics serialized in Çocuk Sesi date originally from 1935 and are by Drayton herself.

Drayton's 'Pussycat Princess' was also ran in Italy's I tre porcellini comics magazine in 1935.

OBSCURE CHILDREN'S ADVENTURE COMICS FROM 1930'S

An obscure children's adventure comics with fantasy elements was serialized in the Turkish children's magazine Çocuk Sesi between 1935-36. Titled as 'Yamanla Duman' [Yaman and Duman], it told of the adventures of two teenage kids, initially accompanied by their parrot (which seems to have disappeared in the later episodes).
The series began its run in no. 274, dated March 25th, 1935, with a typical orientalist (good whites versus bad Arabs) episode, admittedly with some mystery trappings. A train has simply vanished in the forests of Egypt and the two kids named Yaman and Duman boldly set out to solve the mystery. Below are scans of the first two pages:



Fantasy elements first begin to emerge with the appearance of two giant birds during the interim between the first and the second episodes:

Next, the kids come across a land of midgets whom they befriend:

After which they encounter a colony of ancient Egyptians:

The subsequent adventure kicks off with the kids being captured by what appears to be a giant octopus..

..which turns out to be a mechanical submarine in reality. The boys are taken to an enclave beneath the waters in which they encounter an evil robot!

Further adventures entail a return to the colony of ancient Egyptians where they are mummified to buried alive after the death of the phorah, encounter with giants, with cannibals et al... The run of the strips ends with no. 345, dated Aug. 3rd, 1936.

If anyone knows about the original source of this interesting comics, please let us know..