New monthly comics magazine Por Dios
Eppo publisher Rob van Bavel has added a new comics mag to his stable, called Por Dios.
It will contain the same sort of comic strips that adorn his other publication, with a twist: the comics in Por Dios have been published before. Every issue of the monthly will contain one complete long story. The upshot is that Van Bavel can now publish stories by authors that are dead (Don Lawrence, De Smet) or retired, and that new generations can be introduced to the classics.
The name comes from the tag line of Eppo precursor Pep: “Por dios, what a magazine!” The price per issue is 5 euro, while a 12 issue subscription can be had for 50 euro.
The November issue kicks off with Storm adventure De robots van Danderzei (The Robots of Danderzei, 44 pages), a very straightforward “what if a society of sentient robots is introduced to talking meat bags”. I am not a Storm fan, but I think this is a good choice. The characters are so flat they need no introduction (the roles of hero, strong man and beauty are immediately obvious), and Storm is a flag ship comic for Eppo.
The first issue also contains four-pagers of De Generaal by Peter de Smet en Agent 327 by Martin Lodewijk, and a bunch of smaller comics. Van Bavel claims the magazine is aimed at the whole family, though there are those that have reason to doubt the statement. Certainly bi-weekly sister magazine Eppo is not.
Illustration: Don Lawrence. Storm is a very straightforward space opera, with the back story of Buck Rogers and the cast of Valerian (although a strong man/warrior was added at the start of the Pandarve story line). Here we see nameless heroine Red Head tied to a giant penis which will destroy her if it goes off.
Illustration: Peter de Smet. De Generaal (the General) wants to be grand-vizir, er, Field Marshall instead of the Field Marshall. With his little tank he attacks the Field Marshall’s fort week after week, but his schemes are always foiled. De Smet was no Goscinny, but his stories are still immensely fun to read. Finding out who is who in the large cast of minor characters is a joy in itself.
(Link: Moors Magazine)
Mr Branko Collins
When make a so strong and undoubtedly label on a series you have to know what you are talking about. Plain characters??
I have to call you ignorant! I´m portuguese and I know all of the serie Storm. The characters grow in density along the series! Your “nameless” heroine have a name! Discover by yourself. And in the last books she surpass’s Storm in character density and become the principal roll in the story!
Please, read some books and talk about them. Don’t talk about books that you don´t know…
Nuno Amado
In the original language, Dutch, the heroine is called Roodhaar, which means Ginger. That is not a name, but a description.
My description above is based on the album I mention and of earlier Storm albums I have read (before the Pandarve story line). Maybe the series has improved since, I don’t know.