Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Stark Terror #1 and #5: The Page Publications editions

Stanley Morse's Stark Terror #1 was published December 1970:


An Australian edition of this magazine was published by Page Publications in early/mid 1978:


The cover and contents are identical to the US edition, based on the GCD index.
Page Publications recycled this issue as Stark Terror #5:


The cover is from the first panel of the story The Hallucinations!:


This edition is identical to Stark Terror #1 apart from the different advertisement on the rear cover, and the inclusion of advertisements in the inner front and rear covers - these are blank pages in Stark Terror #1.

Portman Distribution in the UK also issued an edition of this issue as Stark Terror Vol. 1 #2:


There are gaps in the Page Publications series. To this point I have not seen copies of Stark Terror #2, #6 and #7. It is possible these issues do not exist. I note there are two unnumbered issues of Stark Terror, one of which is also a $0.50 cover priced issue, so this may be [#2] or [#6] or [#7]. However, it is also possible these issues will turn up, and one of them may be yet another reissue of Stark Terror #1. TBC.




Monday, April 22, 2024

Blazing Western Action

Page Publications' Blazing Western Action is a digest-sized one-shot featuring Rawhide Kid:


This is a recycled and retitled reprint of Rawhide Kid #3


This was likely published late 1982/early 1983 and probably followed the publication of the recycled retitled edition of Rawhide Kid #2 late 1982 as Rawhide Kid Shoot-Out:


I have now added the Blazing Western Action and Rawhide Kid #3 pairing to my ongoing gallery of retitled and recycled Yaffa one-shots..



Sunday, April 21, 2024

Detective Comics #27: Reimagined - The Italian edition

Batman: A Celebration of 75 Years is a hardcover collection of classic Batman comics published by DC Comics in 2014:


Amongst the reprinted material is a story exclusive to this volume - [The Case of the Chemical Syndicate (reimagined)]. As per the GCD listing: 

"This is a reimagining of the first Batman story. Designed by Chip Kidd, it combines the original Bob Kane artwork from Detective Comics #27 (1937 series) with the script from the modernized version of the story that appeared in Detective Comics #27 (2011 series) written by Brad Meltzer (based on the original script by Bill Finger). The original art is blown up to a larger size, with only 1-3 panels per page. As a result, the art from the original 6 page story is stretched across 29 pages."

This exclusive story has not been published by DC elsewhere, however a three-page preview was published in Detective Comics #27 Special Edition (Batman 75 Day Comic 2014) #27:


Whilst I'm not aware of any other printing of this story by DC, it was reprinted as a one-shot issue in Italy in Batman 75: 75 Anni di Batman:


Under an Alex Ross cover, which originally appeared on Batman: No Man's Land #1 [Standard edition], this story appears in an Italian translation:


As you can see the translators are credited in the first panel.

The Italian edition is identical to the US edition apart from some small variances. For example, the US edition has two all black pages interspersed to offset a couple of panels which are blown up to two-page spreads, whereas the Italian edition replaces the black pages with Kidd-esque images of Batman from the story:


These two pages are interspersed at different points to the US version but still serve to maintain the two-page spreads which necessitated them.

The other difference is the cover. The US edition included the following cover page as a lead-in to the story:


Batman 75 is cover-dated July 2014 and is published by RW Edizioni under license from DC Comics.

This is an attractive book with quality production values, with a cardstock cover and glossy pages. I do not know if similar editions were published elsewhere, and I'm surprised it does not appear on the GCD. If DC published an English language edition with the cover from the hardcover collection, I would happily add it to my collection.