Poe 1967, Pt. 4

(Continued from Poe 1967, Pt. 3)

ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR  3
"HOP FROG"
     (IN COLOR  w/ English Translation)

Editora Continental / Outubro / Taika were 3 names used by the same small publisher in Brazil.  The work of artists Jayme Cortez & Miguel Penteado, they produced some wonderful comics, many of them in the horror genre, each doing many gorgeous, stunning cover paintings!

I have discovered, between my own researches and the IMMENSE help of artist and fellow fan Toni Rodrigues, that Continental / Outubro / Taika during their run produced at least 25 POE adaptations-- MORE than Skywald or Warren !!  It's my intention to compile, clean up, TRANSLATE and COLOR every one of these for my POE blog project!!

Taika's ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR was a series that picked up some 6 years after Continental & Outubro's CLASSICOS DE TERROR ended.

As of June 2016, I discovered that ALBUM CLASSICS DE TERROR #3 had  
3 POE stories--  "HOP FROG", "THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH", and "MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN A BOTTLE"; plus, a text story, "SILENCE -- A FABLE".  So far, every issue of ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR I've run across has had at least 1 POE story in it-- and only 1 more has not yet turned up in any form.

1st up from this issue, and 9th in line from Taika...
     "HOP FROG".

     This was the 4th comics version of this story, following...
St. John's NIGHTMARE #11 (Feb'54),  
Dell's Movie Classic of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (Aug-Oct'64), and
Warren's CREEPY #11 (Oct'66), 
     ...the latter about a year earlier.

The art this time is by Ignacio Justo, who seems to be mostly known for war comics.  The inks are by an assistant of his, known only as "Edegar".  Apparently he only worked in comics a short time, which may be just as well, as I consider him one of the sloppiest artists I've ever seen.  He's the one who first inspired me to begin replacing badly-drawn panel frames with nice, sharp, straight ones in Photoshop, something I've since done with many other artists' work.

This was their 1st of 6 POE stories.

On 12-23-2018 I managed to get my hands on a copy of this comic-- one of the very FEW I've managed to do so with, from Brazil.  When I did, I was shocked to find a sheet was missing, which should have contained the first 2 pages of this story.  I'm guessing that those 2 pages were missing from EVERY copy of this book-- and that would explain why this story has NEVER turned up as a reprint, or been posted online at blogs.

I decided I WASN'T going to let that stop me from posting it here.  I determined to create NEW artwork to replace the missing pages-- MYSELF!

The castle on the first page was actually a spot illustration for an entirely unrelated text story near the back of the comic. It was too perfect not to re-purpose!  Even my friend down there, Toni Rodriguez, is not sure who drew the castle, though he suspects it might be Osvaldo Talo, one of the few comics artists of Brazil from that period who is STILL around!

I had to study Poe's original text carefully to decide exactly what to include on page 2.  The reference to the jester's birthday, as far as I know, has never appeared in any other comics adaptation of this story.

The pose in the 1st panel of the 2nd page was a tribute to Reed Crandall's version!

I finished the art on 7-5-2019.  If I'm right, no one has EVER been able to read this version of the story intact before.  ENJOY!

ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR  3
cover by JUAREZ ODILON   (Editora Taika  /  Brazil  /  1967)

As this is the 1st of several issues with multiple POE stories, I thought I'd include the contents page-- UNprocessed-- so you can see not only what I'm dealing with, but also, just how SLOPPY Taika's production department had become without its 2 artist owners in charge anymore.  The logo seen at the top of this page was used on the covers of the first 2 issues of this series.  A new, less thrown-together-looking logo replaced it for issues #3 & 4, while a slicker logo debuted on the cover of issue #5.  Note how here, much of the production paste-up work is so bad, the lettering isn't straight or consistent, and you can even see where some paste-up work had been done.

"Oh! tu mortal que me ves repara bem como estou.  Eu ja fui o que tu a e tu seras o que son."
"Oh! your mortal who sees me repairs as I am. I already went or you, you will be what they are."

Page 3   (contents)

"HOP FROG"  /  Version 4
Adaptation & Art by IGNACIO JUSTO & "EDEGAR"
Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13

Page 14

Page 15

Page 16

Page 17

As a bonus, here's 2 photos of Ignacio Justo, from many years apart.

And here's a sample of his "war" comics art.

Copyright (C) Juarez Odilon,  Ignacio Justo  &  Editora Taika.
English Translation & New Color Copyright (C) 2019 Henry R. Kujawa
Pages 1-2 Copyright (C) 2019 Henry R. Kujawa

Scans of ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #3
     from MY collection.
     Special thanks to Vagner Ferreira Silva.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.

Read a chronological list of Poe's stories at the Edgar Allan Poe Society site.

Read about Ignacio Justo at Lambiek Comiclopedia.
Read about Ignacio Justo at Guia Dos Quadrinhos.
Read about Editora Continental / Outubro / Taika at Guia Dos Quadrinhos.
See more covers from Editora Outubro at the Nostalgia Do Terror site.
See more covers from Editora Taika at the Nostalgia Do Terror site.

Read about Hop Frog at the Interesting Literature site.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the HOP FROG Gallery Of Illustrations!

Read the John Prentice HOP FROG adaptation!
Read the Frank Springer HOP FROG adaptation!
Read the Reed Crandall HOP FROG adaptation!
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" HOP FROG adaptation!

      Misc.:
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" HOP FROG adaptation!
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" VALDEMAR adaptation!
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" MAELSTROM adaptation!
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" ANNABEL LEE adaptation!
Read the Ignacio Justo & "Edegar" IMP adaptation!

See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!

(Continued in Poe 1967, Pt. 5)