ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR 6
"BERENICE"
(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!!
16th in line, the always-bizarre...
"BERENICE"
This is consistently one of the most disturbing of Poe's stories, which all the same has proven popular enough to have been adapted in comics multiple times!
This was the 3rd comics version of this, following...
Outubro's CLASSICOS OF TERROR #24 (1962), and
Warren's EERIE #11 (Sep'67).
When I first saw this, the artist here was a bit of a mystery. This and several other stories with similar art all had no credits. My friend and fellow artist, down in Brazil, Toni Rodrigues, believed it was the work of Ignacio Justo, an artist mostly known for war comics-- OR, an uncredited assistant of his.
Months later, I ran across another story, reprinted in ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #8 (Nov'73), which was unquestionably by the same artist. This one had credits-- "Edegar e Justo".
Toni Rodrigues agreed with me: "It is the same guy Henry. He did some work for Taika by the end of the 1960's and beggining of the 70's. I do not know his full name. He never did anything else."
Although this worked nicely in B&W, the lack of graytones inspired me to want to add COLOR. I also felt some of it (including frames, word balloons, lettering) were sloppier than normal from this publisher. I believe this was the first one where I began actually redrawing the panel frames, and doing other touch-ups to the art myself, where I felt it was necessary, to bring it up to a more "professional" level.
What I really don't get is, they already had the wonderful, beautiful version by Flavio Colin. WHY commission a new version, and then have such MISERABLE art on it?
I initially set this up in July 2015, before I found out where it originally appeared... or, for that matter, WHO actually did it.
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 2nd time around, I did FAR more touch-ups to the linework than the 1st time, in some cases (like page 96 and even moreson on page 98) virtually re-inking much of the page in Photoshop. I also re-did much of the color from scratch, as the coloring job 4 years earlier was just too "dreary"-looking.
I also redid a lot of the narrative text, so I could include more authentic Poe text from his original story. This "REMASTERED" version was finished on 11-16-2019.
ENJOY!
ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR 6
cover by PRIMAGGIO MANTOVI (Editora Taika / Brazil / 1968)
Adaptation by Francisco De Assis / Art by IGNACIO JUSTO & "EDEGAR" / Page 90
Page 91
ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR 3
cover by NICO ROSSO (Editora Taika / Brazil / May 1973)
English Translation, New Color & Revised Art,
Copyright (C) 2015 & 2019 Henry R. Kujawa
Scans of ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #6 (1968)
from MY collection!
Special thanks to Mark Castrodale.
Scans of ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #3 (1973)
from the QuadriBrasil site.
Photos of Ignacio Justo from the Guia Dos Quadrinhos site.
Scan of Ignacio Justo war art from the Nostalgia Do Terror site.
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
For more: