El Víbora (The Viper), a cult comic from Spain’s 1970s counter-culture, has been relaunched online to help relieve the tedium of the nation’s lockdown.
The subversive comic El Víbora was a Spanish language monthly alternative comics magazine published in Barcelona, Spain, between 1979 and 2004, running to 300 issues. At its height, the magazine sold some 45,000 copies an issue, although that had declined to around 6000 by 2004.
Founded by a group of Spanish cartoonists led by Josep Maria Berenguer, Catalan comics publisher Josep Toutain financed and helped the establish the magazine, which was published by La Cúpula.
Contributors included not only Spanish creators such as Max, Mariscal, Martí, Nazario and Pons, but French and Americans too, including Peter Bagge, Robert Crumb and Charles Burns – and many have returned, or will soon return, with work for the digital revival.
Max created some of the monthly comic’s most remembered such as Gustavo, Peter Pank, Gallardo and Mediavilla – available today in Spanish language collections.
The first digital edition of the comic includes a comic by Gambarte, set in the current confinement resulting from the Pandemic, in which an egomaniac musician who is only applauded by his mother finds new hope – playing from the balcony in the afternoons.
Revived “by popular demand”, according to the comic’s Barcelona-based publisher, Emilio Bernárdez, the comic, always subtitled “Comix for Survivors”, in reference to those who had lived through Spain’s 40-year dictatorship, which ended with the death of General Franco in 1975, is reappearing as “The Viper for Survivors”, this time referring to Covid-19.
“It’s an act of solidarity with people who are bored at home,” Bernárdez said, reported by The Guardian. “We wanted to do something. But we’re not health workers so this is what we came up with.
“We’re very close to our readers and so many of them asked us to revive El Víbora we decided to bring out a special issue that brings together our contributors’ favourite strips. The response from the cartoonists has been fantastic.”
• You can read the new El Víbora here on Calameo or here on Issuu
• There’s more about the revival here in Lavanguardia, in Spanish
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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.
Categories: Digital Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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