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Robert Walter Auberger
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Joined: 11 April 2014
Location: Austria
Posts: 22
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 2:17am | IP Logged | 1
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Seems that DC struggled a lot in Europe in the mid eigthies. In Austria/Germany the publisher EHAPA folded their DC publication in 1985. They tried to restart with the new Superman books, but only lastet for a dozen issues. No other new DC books were published, only reprint collections of Superman and Batman.
Now I learn that also in france, DC vanished from the stands.
In Italy , after a long period of time, Superman comics (and the rest of DC I guess) were cancelled in 1984. After being published since the 50s as "Nembo Kid" (lighting kid).
Any thoughts from our european members, why that was so?
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Carlos Velasco
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Joined: 02 August 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 280
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 4:22am | IP Logged | 2
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This topic is awesome! The hebrew version of Superman #1 feels like out of a sci fi movie. As a Spaniard, I started buying superhero comic books a few months later with the Demon appearance in Action Comics (I was only 8 years old and they these stories blew me away).
Starting in 1984, the now defunct Ediciones Zinco published a few DC collections in Spain, such as Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern and the New Teen Titans. The original comics had been published in the USA around 1,5 to 2 years earlier in the case of Superman and 4 years earlier in the case of the New Teen Titans.
This started to change in April 1987, where they suddenly switched to the post Crisis Superman and they also started publishing Crisis and Watchmen. The delay was "only" 10 months now and they would start publishing every single number instead of only selected runs.
But the rest of the collections were still pre Crisis at this point, and it wasn't until September 1987 when they published Superman #1 (as Superman #6), the first issue of Batman Year One and the Shadow. Superman was made biweekly, with Byrne's issues usually receiving full treatment and the cover and Wolfman's Adventures of Superman split between the two issues each month, including the cover in the interior.
In the following years, they would also publish the full Giffen's run of JLI/JLA/JLE, around 30 issues of the Legion of Superheroes starting with v3 #33, Crisis, Legends, Millennium, Invasion, Perez's Wonder Woman, Ostrander's Suicide Squad and many others, but they also ignored All Star Squadron, Firestorm, Booster Gold, Teen Titans Spotlight, Secret Origins and some others. Around 2/3 of the collections did not arrive here, but some of the most interesting stories were published in "Universo DC", such as Byrne's The World of Krypton or the first 4 issues of Ostrander's Manhunter
10 years later, Ediciones Zinco closed due to a copyright issue with DC (there was another publisher in Mexico that had the exclusive rights and Zinco was also selling DC comics in Mexico).
It was a shame, they did a really good job bringing DC to Spain and the comic selection was usually great (I would have published Firestorm and Booster Gold instead of Kupperberg's Doom Patrol and Mr. Miracle, but those are minor complaints). The edition of the comics was also great, complete with letters, news, superheroes and villians files...
In contrast, the Mexicans were not as lucky: the publisher Vid only released two collections in 1986: "Superman", that somehow included issues of Wonder Woman, and "Batman" (with "Batman" including the Action Comics Annual by Byrne and Art Adams and many issues of Flash or even the JLI).
You can find more details about the history and the sad end of Ediciones Zinco here and here.
Edited by Carlos Velasco on 08 August 2019 at 4:24am
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Yvan Jullien
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: France
Posts: 126
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 6:25am | IP Logged | 3
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Thank you Carlos for that story about Ediciones Zinco. It reminds me a travel to Spain when I was 16 and could buy the same day in the « barri gòtic » de Barcelona, the Nick Fury kills Hitler story in « Los cuatro fantásticos », the Joker story from Superman #9 and the Superman / Big Barda story from Action Comics in Superman comics published buy Ediciones Zinco. For me, back then, it was a miracle since I couldn’t find DC comics by John Byrne at that time in my home town in France. Actually, that remembrance makes me want to visit Spanish comics shops during my holydays next week in Alicante and Barcelona, to see if I can find other Byrne comics from Zinco !
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Carlos Velasco
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Location: Spain
Posts: 280
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 9:34am | IP Logged | 4
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You're welcome, Yvan! It is amazing how different France and Spain are being so close:
- Spain published more than 1,000 DC comics between 1986 and 1997, France didn't publish a single one (correct me if I'm wrong).
- France has much more racial variety, while Spain has much more linguistic variety.
- Spain was invaded by the Arabs and has a lot of Arabic monuments, while France is very superior in modern art (video games, comic books. movies, TV...).
- Spain's video game market is dominated by Sony, while France is dominated by Nintendo.
- Spain, as many other countries, is happy to turn English into the second language, as close as Spanish as possible, while France has always been worried about that and tries to defend French.
Then, there's all the cliches about how party and siesta are more important for us.
Regarding the comic book shops in the 80s, I visited one of them several times when I was 8-10 years in the late 80s and you are right, these were magical places. American shops were probably twice as good, but our comic book shops definitely looked great in that era.
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Joined: 03 July 2012
Location: Uruguay
Posts: 1464
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 10:10am | IP Logged | 5
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Wow great post about Zinco, Carlos!
Those were the comics that started it all for me. They arrived in Uruguay in bundles (unsold issues in Spain I guess) years later. They were distributed in the biggest supermarket chain and that's how I found them. But you had to "hunt" for the issues all over, it was very uneven, some issues I could never find at all (like MAN OF STEEL #1).
Pre-internet days of course. I remember reading JB's Superman run and hearing in the news that Superman was dead now! It blew my mind!
On France, I've been to Paris several times and I found some of the coolest comic book shops I've ever seen, mainly on the Latin Quarter. A lot more variation, a lot of Tintin (which I love), but plenty of american stuff as well. Definitely a comic book loving city!
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Carlos Velasco
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Location: Spain
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 10:42am | IP Logged | 6
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I should also mention that pre-Crisis Ediciones Zinco comics had more issues than being very few and appearing years later:
- For some reason, the size of the comics in this first era, from 1984 to 1987, was about an inch longer. It took me a while to find a visual reference, but you can see this here. Some collections changed size in the middle.
- Instead of the classic DC logo, a more ugly logo merging DC and Zinco was used (see last link).
- No letters, no articles, no list of releases for that month were included. Simply the comic.
- All the comics had 32 pages and needed to include some pages of a "guest comic" at the end: Atari Force included Masters of the Universe, Flash included Supergirl and Green Lantern, Omega Men included Kirby's New Gods, Arion included Warlord, the Swamp Thing included Night Force and the New Teen Titans included issues appeared 3 years later, so you could be learning the truth about Tara before getting to know her and trust her as a character by issue 9.
Edited by Carlos Velasco on 08 August 2019 at 10:44am
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Yvan Jullien
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: France
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| Posted: 08 August 2019 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | 7
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Carlos, you’re quite right about the differences between Spain and France. Speaking about spanish editions of american comics, if I remember correctly, the « cuatro fantásticos » I bought that day long ago was oversized. I think it was published by Forum. I don’t where you leave in Spain, but you may know good comic shops in the Barcelona area where I could find some treasures in english or in castellano ?
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Carlos Velasco
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Location: Spain
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| Posted: 09 August 2019 at 6:28am | IP Logged | 8
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That's interesting, I didn't know old Marvel comics edited by Forum in Spain were also oversized.
I'm hundreds of miles from Barcelona and I don't usually go shopping there, but I just found these two articles about comic book shops in that city:
Top 11 comic book shops in Barcelona (in Spanish)
Top 10 comic book shops in Barcelona (in English, different list)
It's a bit weird, because both articles are from the same site but the first one, in Spanish, lists 11 comic book shops and the second one, in English, lists 10 shops and several shops only appear in one of the articles.
They all look pretty interesting to me.
Edited by Carlos Velasco on 09 August 2019 at 6:58am
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Yvan Jullien
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Location: France
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| Posted: 09 August 2019 at 7:24am | IP Logged | 9
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Thanks a lot Carlos. Are there any Byrne victims here who live in Barcelona or Alicante ?
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Nathan Greno
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 02 January 2020 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | 10
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Added a couple more to the pile...
I believe this one is from India
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Nathan Greno
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| Posted: 02 January 2020 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | 11
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Italy
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Nathan Greno
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| Posted: 02 January 2020 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | 12
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