Robin Bougie is back in the gutter!

 

Issue #3 of Robin Bougie's zine Gutter Hunter is out now. I received my copy yesterday all the way from Canada. Fortunately, I didn't get slapped with a hefty VAT and post office fee this time! 

100 pages about (mainly) north American underground comics. Get the new issue here. 

I posted about issue No. 1 and 2 here. 

Carlos Giménez' awesome graphic novel BARRIO finally to be published - in Danish

Finally! Finally!! Finally!!!

I've been hoping for a complete release of Carlos Giménez' comic book (graphic novel if you will) Barrio (aka "Vores kvarter") for years and years.

Barrio is Carlos Giménez' own story about growing up in Francisco Franco's Spain in the 40s and 50s. This is a comic book but trust me, it isn't "the funnies".

The problem is that the original version is in Spanish and there's no complete English, German or Danish/Scandinavian edition. I think there's a French translated edition but, alas, I don't read French either.

The original edition contains four books. We got one of them in Danish in the 80s and since then; nothing. Now ZOOM publishing (Denmark) is putting out a complete edition in two days. It's simply wonderful, fantastic, wunderbar!!! (and of course I have to decide whether I'll get it now and eat pasta for two weeks or wait till October!).

Hopefully enough people are gonna get this so we can get complete editions of Giménez' Paracuellos ("Børnehjemme") and Los profesionales ("De professionelle") as well. Neither of those are published in complete, translated form either.

Gutter Hunter #1 (Canada, 2021)

It's 5 in the morning here and I just ordered Robin Bougie's new zine, Gutter Hunter!! The first print run was sold out in five days from Robin's own website (in Canada), but a pile was sent by a slow moving steamboat to FAB Press in England. I've been waiting for two months for the zine to arrive and it's finally here - or rather there - at FAB Press' headquarters. Now I just have to wait to get it from FAB Press. Yah! Spiffy!! :D

Robin Bougie ran his zine Cinema Sewer for like 25 years or so, but last year he felt it was time to call it a day. The old mag dealt with 70s and 80s porn and exploitation films. This new zine is dedicated to underground comix.

As I write this the first issue is still available from FAB Press in the UK. £12 + pp. 100 pages.

Oh, and I just found some guy's cool review of the zine on YouTube. Check it out, cabron!

Torpedo 1936 ... 36 years later!!!

Woah!!! I mean ... WOAH!!! I would never ... as in never ... have thought Sanchez Abuli would bring back Luca Torelli and Torpedo 1936. But he just did. Except ... he placed his Italian-American hitman 36 years into the future - making it 1972!!! 

The thought of this is beyond awesome. Although I'm not a member of any Luca Torelli fan club or get newsletters I must admit I've been a big fan of the series ever since it was first published on these shores that I squat on - that was back in 1983! I even had Luca Torelli on the cover of my flick fanzine in the early 2000s.

The new album (or "graphic novel" if you must use the American term) has just been released in Spain and there's Italian, German and Danish releases scheduled. No word on an English translated edition as of yet as far as I know. The German edition will be out in October. I haven't got release dates for the other two.

The few full pages that I've seen (check this link to an awesome Torpedo 1936 blog) look good but unfortunately Torpedo is no longer drawn by Jordi Bernet (apparently due to a court case but I don't know too much about this as the wee bits of info that I've been able to dig out via Google translate come out nonsensical).

Oh, and if you're in Denmark you might like to know the complete 700+ page intégrale edition of the original 1936 version that came out in Spain is gonna get a translated release on these shores as well. No release date yet. From Faraos Cigarer publishing. Info here (in Dutch or whatever it is they speak here)

Torpedo 1936 on the cover of my zine STAY SICK! in 2003

Benoît Sokal's Inspector Carnado

 "Le Chien debout" - Benoït Sokal (France, 1981)
Et hundeliv (Danish edition, 1982)

34 years after this comic album (graphic novel) came out and I finally get to read it. I didn't buy the series 34 years ago as I was sick of funny animals and comics with Donald Duck style characters - who were funny. This isn't in retrospect - I do remember seeing the albums back then and deciding not to buy them.

Skip to 34 years later and I'm kicking myself in the head for not getting them back then. But then again, maybe the jokes and adult humour would have gone over my head, haha. I found the album in a big pile of unread comics on the floor sitting between, well, other stuff. It was a pile of ex library comics that I bought at a big indoor market 6-7 years ago.

This is awesome stuff and although it's full of humour it's nowhere near funny-animals funny. This is full of mean spirited characters, violence, death, dark humour and sarcasm.
I'll have to track down the other albums. Apparently there's four more in Danish.

I checked English Wiki but whoever made the entry didn't do a very good job of it. All the French albums are listed with English titles but I'm certain most of them are just translated titles, they're not actually release in English (you don't list translations as titles when they're mere translations). And no info on the few albums that did actually get a release in the English speaking world. Wiki is only as good as the last guy who made an entry.

And kudos to Søren Vinterberg for the Danish translation. It has a flow and crispness that borders on sheer poetry.

The first issue (in French) is from 1979 and Benoît Sokal is still churning them out. The newest issue is #23 from 2015. Don't tell me I have to learn bloody French to read the rest of the series!
(actually I don't - I see the entire series is released in Germany as well)

One shelf at a time

It's been going for months now, and the getting everything sorted out and put in place (i.e. the tidying up nightmare) is still in progress. The past few days I've got my ex-library hardcover comics (i.e. graphic novels mainly from the French/Belgian school of comics) in place, my records (most of 'em anyway) and a few shelves of non ex-library graphic novels. One shelf contains graphic novels that I had in a closed cupboard since the mid 80's!!! (they're almost still in mint condition). I guess it's about time for a reread.

Hardcover graphic novels (all ex library copies)

Soft cover graphic novels, also ex library copies. No, you don't usually put comic books in a pile when you're a collector but these are worn copies from the library and they're totally bent in all directions so I'm trying to get them somewhat back into their original shape.

LPs. I began to buy records around 1980 and I've still got most of them.

Most of the graphic novels from the cupboard I mentioned atop the original post.

I collected Jonah Hex when the original magazines came out. I discovered the mag early on and bought them all from ish #1 and thru to the end. I love the fact they're reprinting them now. Also Tomb of Dracula and House of Secrets/House of Mystery are comics I used to read back in the day. Very cool to finally be able to get complete reprints. And I love that they're in black & white which suits these comics much better than colour.

Blurry piccie of yours truly in front of some of my films. They are NOT placed in any kind of order yet!

Creepy Bernie Wrightson

Dark Horse (2011), 144 pp, £10.84 (incl p&p/Amazon UK).



Yesterday, I ordered this tome of work that legendary Bernie Wrightson did for CREEPY and EERIE horror comic book magazines in the 1970s and early 80s. It's a hardcover deluxe edition and on Amazon it says it's Wrighton's complete work for those two magazines. Very cool! Someone in the Amazon comments section complained about the release being unnecessary as the same stories are (probably) also going to get released down the line when all issues eventually are reprinted in Dark Horse's big reprint series of CREEPY and EERIE.

Well, I beg to differ: It's a VERY welcome release! Firstly, it's most likely that not everybody can afford all the reprints! (they're pretty expensive). And secondly, this book means Wrightson fans get his stories NOW instead of having to wait fuck knows how many years before they're all back in print! And thirdly, it's just great to have them all in one collected volume. So up yours to the complainers! Hahaha. I'm getting the book from Bookdepository via Amazon UK, it was just under £7 (+ £4 postage).

No, but the effect is great!

Viivi & Wagner


My friend Kurt (aka Member-X) in Finland sent me the above comic strip cos he knows I suffer from bad migraines. Woo-hoo, finally a way out of this insane hell, haha. Click the scan to see it blown up (pun intended, LOL).

If you don't read Finnish here's Kurt's translation:

- Terrible migraine!!
- The blood vessels are expanging, that's why it hurts. Have a nitro (pill)!
----------------
- Does it help?
- No, but the effect is great!
-----------------------
-!!????!
- The nitro makes the blood vessels expand even more. It feels like your head is exploding.



Viivi & Wagner

The complete "Tomb of Dracula" finally coming home

How cool is this! Zuzelo jnr with my pile of "Essential The Tomb of Dracula" volume 1-4 (reprinting every issue of "The Tomb of Dracula" from the early 1970s + crossovers). Argh! This is where the original Blade character stems from! This is Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan's awesome series which I used to read in its Danish translated editions (printed in 1974 and then again in the early 80s). But these reprints (most likely) smoke the old Danish ones; Original text, complete, black & white, uncut. Oh, and the fact that Gene Colan is one of my all time fave artists certainly cranks up the awesomeness volume a notch or ten. Thanks heaps to David (junior's daddy who incidentally does another "tomb") for this awesome (and certainly in my favour) deal! Dude, you're the best! You and Paul (Cooke) are both awesome and I'm happy to have gotten to know ya!


Bottom photo: Daddy Z