DEBUT OF 'PRINCE VALIANT' IN TURKEY

I am not a big fan of Hal Foster's famous Sunday newspaper comics 'Prince Valiant', largely because I am not a fan of swashbuckling type of comics in general unless they feature a large dose of fantastic elements and partly because of its lack of speech balloons, but I, of course, admire its high quality art and acknowledge its sway over a large body of comics readers. In addition, 'Prince Valiant' was apparently very influential on young and aspiring Turkish comics artists in the 1940s. For all these reasons, I feel obliged to record its early publication history in Turkey.

'Prince Valiant' debuted in Turkey with a five-years delay in the last page (back cover) of the first issue, dated July 30th, 1942, of the 3rd series of the weekly children's magazine Afacan as 'Aslan Prens [Lion Prince]'. Afacan had largely skipped the first-ever three 'Prince Valiant' Sundays chronicling the arrival of Valiant's clan to Britain and started its run with the fourth Sunday from March 6th, 1937 in which Valiant's first adventure really kicks in. Three panels from this Sunday were also omitted and replaced with three panels from the earlier Sundays, including the first-ever panel where Valiant had made a solo appearance, to provide an introduction. The next installment in the subsequent issue however presented the next Sunday in its entirety:

Afacan would cease publication in 1943 due to war-time economic hardships, including shortage of paper. Prince Valiant's reappearance in a Turkish publication would come up next year, but re-titled as 'Aslan Tekin' and presented as a Turkish character, "son of the khan of the Seljuks", in the Turkish translation! Below is the scan of the first installment of this new edition in the back cover of the no.89, dated Sept. 9th, 1944, in the weekly children's magazine Çocuk Haftası: 

TURKISH-MADE 'SON OF TARZAN' COMICS FROM 1945

Starting from no. 133 (dated July 14th, 1945), a comics titled 'Tarzanın Oğlu [Son of Tarzan]' and credited to Turkish artist Mehmet Tekdal was serialized in the Turkish children's weekly magazine Çocuk Haftası for 12 issues. The comics starts with the introductory caption that "Tarzan, with his wife, had gone to America and left his son as protector of his jungles."
The plot kicks off with the appearance of a small and hostile expedition in the jungle:

It turns out that the baddies are intent on stealing "Tarzan's treasure" hidden under a waterfall:

The whites dispose of the their native servant once he brings forward the treasure..

..and then set out to dispose of each other!:

Finally, it is upto Numa the lion to dispose of the surviving baddie:

Like Ekrem Dülek's 'Tarzan ve Numa' (see the post from last month), I suspect Tekdal's 'Tarzanın Oğlu' to be redrawn from some foreign materials. Again, if anyone has a hint, please let us know.

Tekdal, whose birth date is unconfirmed, was probably in his early twenties when his first works appeared on the back covers of a puzzle magazine in 1944 (*). He would turn out to be the most prolific of the young Turkish comics artists working in Çocuk Haftası. Most of his output are historical or mythical epics, including several adaptations of Dede Korkut tales. In 1955, he had a short-lived stint as publisher with Roket, Turkey's first comics magazine in 3-D. His works continued to appear in Turkish children's magazines till the early 1970s. At some point, he migrated to Germany to continue his career abroad and settled there (**).

(*) Hakan Alpin, Çizgiroman Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: İnkilap, 2006)

(**) Levent Cantek, Çizgili Hayat Kılavuzu (Istanbul:İletişim, 2nd ed. 2002)

Coming soon in this blog: Historical Overview of Tarzan comics in Turkey

TURKISH SWASHBUCKLER COMICS FROM 1943-44

Above scan is of the back cover of no. 42 (dated Oct. 16, 1943) of Turkish children's weekly magazine Çocuk Haftası [Children's Week], featuring the first installement of the comics serial 'Boğaç Han' by Turkish artist Ekrem Dülek. The first Turkish comics artist (who received printed credit for his work) was Orhan Tolon who had worked extensively in the 1930s, creating several series of humorous juvenile adventure strips, most of which had utilized speech balloons. However, when he made his first realistic non-humorous comics, the historical epic 'Deniz Kurtları' which preceeded 'Boğaç Han' in Çocuk Haftası in the earlier issues of this magazine, he had curiously resorted back to the format of extra-panel text captions, omitting the use of speech balloons and captions inside panels. 'Boğaç Han' became the first non-humorous Turkish adventure comics utilizing speech balloons (actually, speech 'rectangles', as can be seen in the above scan) and captions within the panels without resorting to extra-panel text captions.
'Boğaç Han' is based on a medieval Turkish folktale. It starts with the public humiliation of a Turkish nobleman during a royal feast because he has no children. The nobleman returns home to scoff at his wife, he urges him to do good deeds and expect heavenly reward for these in the form of a child. He takes upon his wife's advice who soon begots him with a male child. The child grows up and shows extraordinary bravery and strength by overcoming a bull at a royal feast years after his father's earlier humiliation; the nameless child is thus publicly named as 'Boğaç', meaning "like a bull" in Turkish (no. 46):

Later, in an episode not included in the versions of the folktale which I am aware of and hence marking the only digression of the comics from its original source, Boğaç snatches another nobleman's daughter as his bride (no. 53):

Meanwhile, some subordinates of his father has become jealous of Boğaç and persuade the nobleman that his son is keen on ousting him and urge him to assassinate Boğaç, which he does; however, unknown to the plotters, Boğaç actually survivess the assassination and is secretly nursed back into health by his mother (no. 55):

When the plotters become aware that Boğaç is alive, they decide to kidnap his father and deliver him to the nobleman whose daughter Boğaç had forcibly taken as his wife. Nevertheless, Boğaç rescues his father (no.'s 61 and 62):

It all ends happily with the reconciliation of the father and son (no. 63):

The bearded person in the last panels as well as in the right side of the logo is a depiction of Dede Korkut, the wise old man who comments on the developments -the compiler and narrator of these mediveal tales collectively known as 'Dede Korkut Hikayeleri [Dede Korkut Tales]'.

Subsequent issues of Çocuk Haftası, which lasted till 1950, included several other comics, some of which were based on other Dede Korkut tales, by new Turkish artists such as Sururi Gümen, Mehmet Tekdal and Şahap Ayhan besides foreign material such Felix the Cat, Prince Valiant and some Yugoslavian comics. Çocuk Haftası was published by Turkish print media mogul Tahsin Demiray (see post on Oct. 25, 2009 for info on Demiray) and edited by Rakım Çalapala.