Monday, March 28, 2016

Poe 1968, Pt. 1

(Continued from Poe 1967, Pt. 11)

ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR  6
"WILLIAM WILSON"

     (IN COLOR  w/ English Translation) 
          REMASTERED

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!!

15th in line, making its comic-book debut here...

      "WILLIAM WILSON"

This story, which may or may not involve the supernatural, has been adapted in some rather wildly different ways from one version to another.  This is certainly another example of that.  The instant I saw the splash page, I recognized that this was not so much adapted from Poe's short story, as it was from the adaptation seen in the 1968 film, "HISTORIES EXTRAORDINAIRE"-- released in America as "SPIRITS OF THE DEAD".  There's no mistaking it.  It opens with the title character running into a church, to confess his lifetime of sins to a priest.  And it ends with him racing to the top of a bell tower.

This is the earliest comics version of this that's turned up.
It would not be the last!

The artist here is Osvaldo Talo.  His style is a bit simpler than many of the Brazillian cartoonists whose work I've discovered of late, but he seems to have done more Poe adaptations than any of the others!  He's become a real favorite of mine.  His style really lends itself to COLOR.

This is his 5th of 5 POE adaptations.

I initially set this up in August 2015, before I found out WHERE it originally appeared.

On 9-5-2017, I managed to get ahold of a copy of the original comic.  I hate doing any job twice, but being able to do my own HIGH-RES scans straight off the original comic allowed the improvement in line quality to be so drastic, it was worth it.  This "REMASTERED" version was finished on 10-13-2019.

ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR  6
cover by PRIMAGGIO MANTOVI   (Editora Taika  /  Brazil  /  1968)
"WILLIAM WILSON"  /  Version 1
Adaptation & Art by OSVALDO TALO  /  Page 83
Page 84
Page 85
Page 86
Page 87
Page 88
Page 89
I must admit, I think it's a bit crazy to be last on a list of 6 writers involved in bringing this comic to life... between Poe, the 3 people who worked on the film, the artist who adapted it to a comic in Brazil, and me doing the English translation OF the comic!

As of this writing, each of the 4 comics versions of "WILLIAM WILSON" has been drastically different from all the others.  As might be expected, this version doesn't quite match the 1968 movie version, either.  While the "framing sequence" with the church, the priest, and the bell tower here definitely came from the film, the comic is vastly toned-down from that version.  There's no sadism, nudity or sado-masochism, for one thing.  And, the main character here has a moustache, and doesn't really resemble actor Alain Delon at all.  (In fact, in ONE single panel on page 2, he actually looks like Basil Rathbone.  But not in any of the others.)

However, given that this was apparently at least partly inspired by the film, I decided to use the film for visual reference when I did the coloring job.  The color schemes for the town, the church, the uniforms worn at the private school, medical school and the military, all came from the film.
I did some research and discovered there really was a particular uniform in the Austrian army in the mid-19th Century that was white as seen in the film, although the painting I found had red trim and blue pants.
I decided to stick with yellow trim and tan pants as in the film.  Among other things, the yellow trim made the RED when it eventually showed up stand up much more!
Here's the reprint where I found it.  This contained 3 POE stories, each from a different earlier comic:  "MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN A BOTTLE", "WILLIAM WILSON", and "THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM".

CLASSICOS DE TERROR  5
cover by JOSE EVOLDO   (Editora Taika  /  Brazil  /  June 1973)
Copyright (C) Osvaldo Talo  &  Editora Taika.
English Translation & New Color Copyright (C) 2015 Henry R. Kujawa


Scans of ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #6 (1968)

     from MY collection!
     Special thanks to Mark Castrodale.

Scans of CLASSICOS DE TERROR #5 (1973)
     from the QuadriBrasil site.
Danube Monarchy lithograph from the Getty Images site.

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 about Osvaldo Talo at the Guia Dos Quadrinhos site.
Read about Osvaldo Talo at the Top-Comics blog.
Visit Osvaldo Talo on Facebook !

Read about Primaggio Mantovi at the Guia Dos Quadrinhos site.
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 WILLIAM WILSON at Spark Notes.
Read about WILLIAM WILSON at Cliff Notes.
Read about WILLIAM WILSON at Shmoop.
Read about WILLIAM WILSON at Grade Saver.
Read about WILLIAM WILSON at Lit Charts.
Read about WILLIAM WILSON at Interesting Literature.

Read the complete short story
     at the Edgar Allan Poe Society Of Baltimore site.
See the WILLIAM WILSON Gallery of Illustrations.

      Audio:

Hear THE WEIRD CIRCLE episode!
Watch the European trailer for the HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRE film!

      Comics:

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!

     (Coming soon:)
Read the Jonas Schiaffino WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!
Read the Dan Dougherty WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!

     Misc:
Read the Osvaldo Talo MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE adaptation!
Read the Osvaldo Talo OVAL PORTRAIT adaptation!
Read the Osvaldo Talo AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Osvaldo Talo HOUSE OF USHER adaptation!
Read the Osvaldo Talo WILLIAM WILSON adaptation!

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


(Continued in Poe 1968, Pt. 1A)

1 comment:

  1. If I had done this restoration, translation, etc., I'd be proud evermore! thanks, Henry.

    ReplyDelete