A Postcard from Romania

[paulvonscott]

Well, I thought someone here might be interested in hearing what a Romanian chap has to say about the Romanian Comics Scene.  I find this stuff interesting, anyway, it's amusing to see that the current state of their comics industry is about the same as ours, and in some cases are the same comics!

Here we go...

We had a few magazines with romanian comics art but all have died. The last died a few months ago. We also have few translations like Ultimate Spider-Man, a so-called SuperEroi (SuperHeroes) mixt magazine with translation from Dark Horse crossovers such as
Superman and Madman, Batman and Tarzan, Superman and Terminator and Planet of Apes and traditional kids stuff such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Tom & Jerry, Mosaik.

Occasionally we have albums too: there is an editor who publishes romanian underground comics albums (the series title is Hardcomics, nothing to do with porn) and others publishes also isolated translated albums (few Asterix albums, around 9 Garfield albums, 2 Lucky Luke albums).

There are also some imported comics magazines from Belgium and France such as Lanfeust, Fluide Glacial, Bodoi, BD Magazine, W.I.T.C.H. and from UK Dennis the Menace, Classic Comics, Beano and Commando. By the way, who on Earth is still reading these english
titles in UK?  The company should have imported 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine instead . Am I right?


And in a bit more detail from another e-mail:

By the way, now that you mentioned Dandy being the oldest UK ongoing comics title, I realized that is also imported in Romania, together
with Beano, Dennis the Menace, Commando and Classic Comics. I forgot to tell you about the new edition of Pif magazine which is imported from France. I buy it because is the only foreign comics magazine which was available (limited availability) under the
comunist regime from Romania, when I was kid.

Pif was the comics magazine which was supported or edited by the french socialist party so you can figure out why was tolerated by the comunist system from Romania. More than this, one of the most
popular characters from Pif Magazine, who's name is Rahan, had reprinted his adventures in albums (such as the Chronicles of Judge Dredd albums, but coloured) which were printed in the comunist
Romania (!).

Later I found out that even some beautiful hardcover Superman albums
were printed here, but they were never aloud to be sold on the romanian comunist market. So the pupil who were born around 1968 (as myself) grew up with these french comics titles (Pif and RAHAN). Now, the new generations are more american oriented.

Here you have one online address where you can see the complete scans (made by a devoted fan) of Quadrat nr. 1 (1996), which is
considered by me and many others to be the best 100% romanian comics achievement after the anti-comunist revolution (december 1989).

Unfortunately, Quadrat Magazine died after 2 numbers, I suppose because of totally lack of publicity and because it has been very poorly spread around the country.
http://www.visualart.ro/forum/showthread.php?t=6325

The following online address is of the underground Hardcomics (only romanian authors published by my knowledge) which issued 4 albums up
to this moment.
http://www.hardcomics.ro/
Go to the "Old Sait" (Old Site) link section and you'll be able to see a few samples from the first 2 albums published. Warning! Some samples have explicit sexual content by I wouldn't call it pornography.

The latest romanian comics magazine which died around 2 months ago was called CARUSEL (new edition) and it had mix-content: romanian comics short stories and translations of some Conan and Aliens Dark Horse series.

I think that the 2 numbers which appeared were totally sponsored by Sandu Florea, a romanian comicbook artist who lives in USA at this
moment and works as inker for Marvel, Dark Horse and many other publishers. He also published some of his work in CARUSEL, some comics created with romanian colaborators, some with american ones.

Unfortunately, I don't have any other online address then the following which shows you only the covers of the 2 numbers. Cover of Nr. 1 is made (pencil+ink) by Sandu Florea and cover of Nr. 2 is made by Tudor Popa who also worked for Quadrat (cover of nr.1 and also the first painted serial title "Aranca")
http://www.caruselbd.blogspot.com/

Hope someone enjoyed all that!

Paul

[DavidXBrunt]

I did.

[petemaskreplica]

yup, me too.

[Dudley]

Ditto

[judge dreddd]

Romania is a lovely country :)

[paulvonscott]

When I say amusing, I actually probably meant tragic.  Glad it was of interest to some folk though, the Romanian comics landscape doesn't look so different to ours, despite being from a  different culture.

[Art]

If we all clubbed together and got him a copy of Fiends of The Eastern Front, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

[paulvonscott]

Heh, he'd probably love that as he collects 2000AD books, but it's not out is it?  I'd have bought it if it were.