AVENTURAS MACABRAS 12
"O ESTRANO WILLIAM WILSON"
(English translation)
I've been finding more and more foreign POE comics adaptations, many of them that have NEVER been published in America-- or even in English! I've made it my goal to correct that situation.
Bloch Editores S.A. was a Brazillian publisher from 1952-2000, the creation of Ukrainian emigrant Adolpho Bloch. Among their magazines was AVENTURAS MACABRAS ("Macabre Adventures"), which started out reprinting Marvel's DRACULA LIVES! and MONSTERS UNLEASHED.
For the 12th issue, they switched content completely to NEW material by local Brazillian artists. This issue was in the tradition of Warren's CREEPY #69 and #70, in that it contained (mosty) adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe! When I ran across this book online, I was looking for something else entirely, and was both surprised and utterly delighted to find I'd gotten ahold of virtually an ENTIRE comic of POE material I had not before laid eyes on.
The 4th of 4 stories here is the somewhat-obscure...
"WILLIAM WILSON".
This was the 5th version of this, following...
Taika's ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #6 (1968),
Skywald's NIGHTMARE #19 (Jun'74),
Maisal's LAYENDAS MAISAL #6 (Jun'77), and
La Urraca's EL PENDULO #2 (Oct'79)
...the last a few months earlier.
At 7 pages, this ties with Osvaldo Talo's as the shortest version so far,
one page less than Skywald's.
The artist on this is Jose Menenzes.
The coloring in this comic is quite BOLD and graphic, which is apparently quite popular in Brazil, though I suspect whoever processed these scans cranked the contrast up WAY too high. I've tried to "tone it down" a bit in my clean-ups, and I hope I haven't lost any of the original intention along the way.
Incidentally, I haven't mentioned it before, but, after going through all 5 stories in this comic, I have NO IDEA what the idea of this cover was. The barbarian-woman, the guy in the mask, and the giants bats do NOT appear anywhere in this issue!!
AVENTURAS MACABRAS 12
cover by GJOIZ (Bloch Editores S.A. / Brazil / 1979)
(WILLIAM WILSON") / Version 5
Adaptation & Art by JOSE MENEZES / Page 35
and will not be included in this project.
Copyright (C) Bloch Editores S.A. & Jose Menezes
English Translation (C) 2015 Henry R. Kujawa
Scans of AVENTURAS MACABRAS #12 from the Minhateca.com site.
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
Special thanks to Toni Rodrigues for identifying the artist!
For more:
Read about Edgar Allen Poe at Wikipedia.
Read about Bloch Editores at Wikipedia.
Read about Adolpho Bloch at Wikipedia.
Read about THE WEIRD CIRCLE radio show at Wikipedia.
Read about WILLIAM WILSON at Wikipedia.
Read the complete short story
at the Edgar Allan Poe Society Of Baltimore site.
Hear THE WEIRD CIRCLE episode!
Read the Osvaldo Talo WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!
Read the Alfonso Font WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!
Read the Albert Breccia WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!
Read the Juan J. Aguilar WILLIAM WILSON illustrated story! (coming soon!)
Read the Jose Menezes WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!
Read the Jonas Schiaffino WILLIAM WILSON adaptation! (coming soon!)
See my Edgar Allan Poe overview at this very blog!
(Continued in Poe 1992, Pt. 1)
Hey! They dumped the original ending, which was the most interesting part of the story. I enjoy seeing different interpretations of these Poe stories, but I botta say the artist sucked most of the life out of this one (the bright yellow backgrounds didn't help either).
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