STRIP Magazine publisher Ivo Milicevic read our recent feature on Classic British Comics Collected and kindly sent us some scans of some classic strips that were syndicated into former Yugoslavia, where comic fans were also once enthralled by Dan Dare, Trigan Empire, the Steel Claw and more.
It was strips like this that shaped his love of British comics, culminating in his plans for a UK imprint.
Most of the scans featured here are taken from a comic called Panorama, which launched in 1965 and ran until 1971, with total of 318 issues. “It was old Yugoslavian title, but publisher Forum was from Novi Sad-Serbia,” Ivo tells us.
“It was weekly when it started and had 24 pages, half of them in colour. Later, it expanded to 32 pages.
“It was cleverly edited, with a mix of both British and a few popular French and Belgian comic strips.
“The UK strips included Trigan Empire, Steel Claw, Jet Ace Logan, Black Archer, King Kong [actually the British strip Mytek the Mighty], Dan Dare, Saber King of Jungle, Johnny Coguar, Karl the Viking, Olac the Gladiator, Jailbird Commandos (there were too many World War Two stories to mention!), Zip Nolan and more.
“It also featured newspaper strips such as Wes Slade, Modesty Blaise (as ‘Modesti Blez’), and James Bond.”
“Panorma was my favourite comic that I use to read as kid (along with Plavi Vjesnik, which I now own),” Ivo enthuses, “and I have full collection now.”
In Yugoslavia, Serbia had the largest and strongest production of comic magazines. The three main comic cities were Novi Sad, Gornji Milanovac and Belgrade.
Many strips would be reprinted several times, it seems. “Mytek the Mighty”, rebranded as noted above as “King Kong”, was the cover star, for example, of a 1978 Specijal Hit Stripovi, an anthology also featuring “Adam Eterno” and “Skid Solo”…
(Reprints of popular characters, and not just British characters, were not unusual in the Balkans. An obscure, largely forgotten Italian adventure strip, “Alan Ford”, created by Lucianno Secchi and Roberto Raviola, known by their pen names Max Bunker and Magnus, has something approaching cult status in the countries once forming Yugoslavia).
As Richard Sheaf noted in a feature in Titan Books recent Dan Dare collection, Safari in Space, Dan Dare had a longer run in Plavi Vjesnik, a comic from publisher Vjesnik (based in Zagreb, in modern day Croatia) that ran from 1954 to 1973 and has been revived sporadically since the early 1990’s, most recently by Ivo (see our 2010 news story).
Plavi Vjesnik was the first Yugoslavian comic to contain Dan Dare reprints (or Den Deri as he was known), although he did appear in other titles as well as Panorama, such as EKS Almanah and ZOV.
“Strangely, they re-coloured Dan Dare for the comic, then ran it later in black and white,” he notes. “Plavi Vjesnik was the first Yugoslavian comic to bring us Dan Dare in his original glorious colour.”
In addition to reprints in Panorama and Plavi Vjesnik, characters such as The Spider and the Steel Claw were also re-published in separate pocket library editions, just as they were in the UK.
It’s always fascinating to learn more about just how widely syndicated British comics once were – and how enduring their popularity is beyond our shores.
Dan Dare in Croatia
This information originally appeared on the now offline Dan Dare Info Site, archived here on the Wayback Machine in 2021, information sourced from a website complied by artist Berislav Krzic (also now archived on Wayback Machine)
The Plavi Vjesnik (Publisher: Vjesnik, Zagreb) launched with an issue cover dated 1st October 1954 and ran right up to 1973 (a total of 979 issues). These were basically reprints of the Eagle comic, featuring Den Deri, Pilot Buducnosti.
Since then, various revivals of the comic have been attempted: Plavi Zabavnik (1992) – six issues only; Plavi Vjesnik (1999) – two issues only – numbered 980-981; and Plavi Vjesnik (2001) – five issues only – numbered 982-986
Berislav Krzic notes: “when writing about the Croatian Dan Dare issues, maybe it would be more appropriate to divide it from the rest of the former Yugoslavia. While Dan Dare appeared in ZOV and Plavi vjesnik, which were published in Croatia, the rest of the publications were published in Serbia (EKS Almanah, Panorama, etc…). Of course, due to the similar language (which was also official for the whole of Yugoslavia) these publications were read in all of the six Republics.”
• More about the original Plavi on Comics Croatia (in Croatian)
• More about the modern Plavi on stripmagazin.com (in Croatian, Wayback archive link)
This item was updated on Wednesday 16th October 2024 to update dead links, and on Friday 6th December 2024 to add images of the Specijal Hit Stripovi comic and additiinal information on comics publishing in Yugoslavia from Iztok Sitar
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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