Poe 1959, Pt. 1

(Continued from Poe 1958, Pt. 3)

MAD  46
High Flown Balloons Dept.:  "THE RAVEN"

Incredibly-- 5 years after Harvey Kurtzman tackled "THE RAVEN" in EC's
MAD #9 (Feb'Mar'54), Frank Jacobs tackled it AGAIN in MAD #46 (Apr'59).

In fact, I have found no less than 5 different versions of 'THE RAVEN" in EC's MAD over the years.  And if you read all the way through this project, you will see ALL of them!  And more...

The artist this time is one of the greatest artists in the history of the medium.  What, you think I'm making this up?  NOT A BIT OF IT!  The artist in question is WALLACE WOOD, whose work appeared in pretty much every issue of EC's MAD from its very beginning until sometime in the early 60s --when some unspeakable thing occured between him and editor Albert B. Feldstein, which we will-- uncharacteristically enough-- NOT be discussing here at extreme and grotesque length.  Just take my word for it, SEE?  Nyah.

Of course, by this time, EC's MAD had evolved from a regular-sized color comic to a B&W magazine format.  But-- you KNEW that-- didn't you?  (PLEASE tell me you knew that!  No, it can't possibly be that anybody didn't knew that-- er, KNOW that!)

And for those who are keeping count.... this was EC's 9th foray into POE.

So much for the hyperbole (or is that metaphor?).
As Stan Freberg once said...
     "And now, ON widda da SHOW!"

MAD  46
cover by KELLY FREAS   (EC  /  April 1959)

"THE RAVEN"  /  Version 8
Adaptation by Frank Jacobs  /  Art by WALLACE WOOD

MAD SUPER SPECIAL  36
cover by KELLY FREAS   (EC  /  Fall 1981)

Copyright (C) EC.

Scans of MAD #46 interior supplied by "Pappy"
     with special thanks!
All other scans from the GCD 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.

Visit the EC Fan-Addict Club Facebook group.
Visit the Kelly Freas website!
Visit The Mad Comics Of Wally Wood blog!
Visit Booksteve's Horray For Wally Wood blog!
Read my DAREDEVIL blog article to learn the truth about what really went on
     during Wood's brief time on this 60s series!

Read about The Raven at The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore site.
Read about the inspiration for The Raven at The Vintage News site.
Read about The Raven at the Mental Floss site.

Read the complete poem at the Poetry Foundation site.
See THE RAVEN Gallery of Illustrations!

     Audio / Video:
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
See the Vincent Price performance!
Hear the Christopher Lee recording!
Watch The Simpsons cartoon!

     Comics:
See the James William Carling RAVEN illustrations!
See the William Ladd Taylor RAVEN illustrations!
See the Gustave Dore RAVEN illustrations!
See the Galen J. Perrett RAVEN illustrations!
See the John Rea Neill RAVEN illustrations!   (coming soon!)

See the Ferdinand H. Horvath RAVEN illustrations!
Read the Harvey Kurtzman / Will Elder RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Wally Wood RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Mort Drucker RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Frank Springer RAVEN adaptation!

Read the Nico Rosso RAVEN adaptation!
Read the 2 George Woodbridge RAVEN adaptations!
Read the Richard Corben RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Peter Cappiello RAVEN adaptation!

Read the Paul Coker, Jr. RAVEN adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Steve Ditko RAVEN story!
Read the Jeff Bonivert RAVEN adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the Ricardo Leite RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Jerry Gersten RAVEN adaptation!

Read the Gahan Wilson RAVEN adaptation!
Read the 1st Luciano Irrthum RAVEN adaptation
     at the Canibuk blog!
Read the 2nd Luciano Irrthum RAVEN adaptation
     at the Canibuk blog!
Read the Dave Morice RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Thomas Eide RAVEN adaptation!

Read the 2nd Richard Corben RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Eureka Productions RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Stuart Tipples RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Mangosta RAVEN adaptation!
Read the 3rd Luciano Irrthum RAVEN adaptation!

Read the Yein Yip RAVEN adaptation!
Read the David G. Fores RAVEN adaptation!
Read the 3rd Richard Corben RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Edu Molina RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Gustavo Del Valle RAVEN adaptation!

Read the R. Sikoryak RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Duncan Long RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Pete Katz RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Rebecca Tough RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Gareth Hinds RAVEN adaptation!

Read the Stefano Lei RAVEN adaptation!  (at Deviant Art)

     Misc:
Read the Wally Wood HOUSE OF USHER adaptation!
Read the Wally Wood RAVEN adaptation!

Read the Wally Wood 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read my Wally Wood DAREDEVIL article at this very blog!

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

(Continued from Poe 1960, Pt. 1)

Poe 1958, Pt. 3

(Continued from Poe 1958, Pt. 2)

MONDIAL AVENTURES  29  /  ALBUM GIGANTE  39
"LES AVENTURES DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"  /
"A NARRATIVA DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"
     (IN COLOR  w/ English Translation  /  Conclusion)

The Société Parisienne d'Édition or SPE, was a French publisher that existed under various names from the end of the 19th Century.

MONDIAL AVENTURES  ("World Adventures") was their own version of Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED.  The series ran 30 titles from 1954 to 1959, including the works of such notable writers as Fenimore Cooper, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Robert Louis Stevenson;  oddly enough, especially given it was a French company, they didn't include Jules Verne in their run.  However, they did one story by Edgar Allan Poe-- his ONLY full-length novel!

The comic, created in France in 1955, was delayed; it was published in Brazil in 1958, a year before it finally appeared in France in 1959!

Following the terrible "cliffhanger" moment when the 3 survivors contemplate cannibalism, the comic version once more "tones things down" for the kiddies by skipping ahead to a scene from the novel some 4 days later, when Arthur suddenly realizes they have a way out.  In the book, this realization came after they ate a fellow survivor (who in this version had been swept overboard in the storm), rather than before!!

What follows after that feels as if it belongs in an entirely separate story, giving one the feeling that Poe was improvising and making this up as he went, perhaps with no clear idea in mind of where this story was supposed to be going.

MONDIAL AVENTURES  29
cover by YVES & WILLY GROUX
(Société Parisienne d'Édition  /  France  /  1959)

ALBUM GIGANTE  39
cover by ANTONIO EUZEBIO NETO
(Editora Brasil America Limitada  /  Brazil  /  January 1958)

"A NARRATIVA DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"
     ("THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET")  /  Version 2  /  Adaptation by William Groux  /  Art by WILLY & YVES GROUX
Page 32  /  "And now... the EPIC conclusion!"

Page 33

Page 34

Page 35

Page 36

Page 37

Page 38

Page 39

Page 40

Page 41

Page 42

Page 43

Page 44

Page 45

Page 46

Before I began this project, I'd read the opinion that this story didn't have a proper conclusion, but simply STOPPED dead.  Now that I've read the comic-- AND the novel-- I can say with certainty-- that's correct.

The entire structure of this story makes no sense to me.  You have more than 2/3rds of the novel dealing with the nightmarish events on The Grampus, including a scene of cannibalism (cut from the comic version).  Then Arthur and Dick are finally rescued (yes-- Augustus actually DIED in the novel from earlier wounds before that scene arrives) and the remainder of the book concerns The Jane Guy.  It seems to me these should have been 2 separate books.

Some of the most tremendously interesting and exciting scenes from the novel are brushed over in the comic, such as the crew spending several weeks among the natives who decide to MASSACRE them just before they leave.  Some 9,000 natives attack the mere 6 men left onboard the ship, and when they set fire to it, 1,000 of them are killed when the magazine explodes.  This is barely hinted at in the comic.  Arthur & Dick spend 3 weeks stuck atop that rock (not just 1), during which they find and explore an underground chamber which may be man-made, may be marked up with a mysterious ancient alphabet, and may predate history.  This isn't even mentioned.

Further, the last 2 pages of the comic are completely NEW!  Although the "prologue" of the novel does reveal that Arthur and Dick somehow made it back to civilization, it's not even hinted at how.

So much build-up leading NOWHERE must have been frustrating to a lot of people.  It's no wonder then, I suppose, that decades later, no less than 3 writers felt compelled to write SEQUELS to this story, in varying attempts to fill in the blanks, explain or explore the themes and locations further.  This includes Jules Verne's "THE SPHINX OF THE ICE FIELDS" (1897), Charles Romyn Dake's "A STRANGE DISCOVERY" (1898), and H.P. Lovecraft's "AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS" (1936).

In addition, it struck me that the sequence where The Jane Guy passes through the ice fields, continues south and finds the temperature going UP instead of down and they discover a tropical island, may well have inspired "Pal-U-Don" in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT" (1924).

Scene from "THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT" (1976) as the submarine is pushing through the icy Antarctic Ocean.

Further, the description in the final chapter where they continue even further southward, it becomes very dark and the air is constantly filled with ash and dust, suggests to me a volcano-like opening to the center of the Earth, as seen in Burroughs' "AT THE EARTH'S CORE" (1914) and particularly its sequels.  Burrough's "Pellucidar" also influenced the Lovecraft story!

I have not read any of these sequels or possible spin-offs, but the very fact that Lovecraft did one suggested to my mind, as I read the sequence about the underground chamber, that the natives, far from merely murdering the entire crew simply because they were afraid of anything WHITE, may have been COMPELLED to do so by the "Elder Gods" of Lovecraft's "Cthulu" stories.  It seems to me these creatures bent on conquering the Earth would not only wish to enslave all of mankind, but would not want them to have any technology-- hence the seemingly POINTLESS destruction of The Jane Guy.

And finally, the discovery of the ancient underground chamber that predated known civilization-- in Antarctica-- seems to me like it may well have influenced a far more recent sci-fi movie-- "ALIENS VS. PREDATORS" (2004).

Don Bearden has been in contact with the Classics Comics Store in England, attempting to interest them in re-printing this comic, and using MY version with the English translation and new COLOR.  In line with that, I've created a new version of the original French cover, removing and replacing the text on it at no small effort.

Copyright (C) Société Parisienne d'Édition  &  Yves & Willy Groux.
English Translation & New Color Copyright (C) 2016 Henry R. Kujawa.

Scan of MONDIAL AVENTURES #29 from the Ebay site.
Scans of ALBUM GIGANTE #39 by "Netto" from the www.GuiaEBAL.com site
     supplied by Don Bearden with special thanks!
Thanks to Toni Rodrigues for identifying the cover artist
     of ALBUM GIGANTE #30!

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 THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET
     at the Grade Saver site.
Read the complete novel at the at the Lit 2 Go site.
See the ARTHUR GORDON PYM Gallery of Illustrations. 

     Audio:
Hear the LIT 2 GO audio book!
Hear THE WEIRD CIRCLE episode!

     Comics:
Read the Bernard Lamotte ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Yves & Willy Groux ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Editorial Sea/Navaro ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the Cesar Lopez Vera ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Jorge Bernuy S. ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Enrique Alcatena ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!

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

(Continued from Poe 1959, Pt. 1)

Poe 1958, Pt. 2

(Continued from Poe 1958, Pt. 1)

MONDIAL AVENTURES  29  /  ALBUM GIGANTE  39
"LES AVENTURES DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"  /
"A NARRATIVA DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"
     (IN COLOR  w/ English Translation  /  Part 2)

The Société Parisienne d'Édition or SPE, was a French publisher that existed under various names from the end of the 19th Century.

MONDIAL AVENTURES  ("World Adventures") was their own version of Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED.  The series ran 30 titles from 1954 to 1959, including the works of such notable writers as Fenimore Cooper, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Robert Louis Stevenson;  oddly enough, especially given it was a French company, they didn't include Jules Verne in their run.  However, they did one story by Edgar Allan Poe-- his ONLY full-length novel!

The comic, created in France in 1955, was delayed; it was published in Brazil in 1958, a year before it finally appeared in France in 1959!

MONDIAL AVENTURES  29
cover by YVES & WILLY GROUX
(Société Parisienne d'Édition  /  France  /  1959)

ALBUM GIGANTE  39
cover by ANTONIO EUZEBIO NETO
(Editora Brasil America Limitada  /  Brazil  /  January 1958)

"A NARRATIVA DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"
     ("THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET")  /  Version 2  /  Adaptation by William Groux  /  Art by WILLY & YVES GROUX
Page 16  /  "Our story continues..."

Page 17

Page 18

Page 19

Page 20

Page 21

Page 22

Page 23

Page 24

Page 25

Page 26

Page 27

Page 28

Page 29

Page 30

Page 31

Don't go away!  We'll be right back with the conclusion...

Copyright (C) Société Parisienne d'Édition  &  Yves & Willy Groux.
English Translation & New Color Copyright (C) 2016 Henry R. Kujawa.

Scan of MONDIAL AVENTURES #29 from the Ebay site.
Scans of ALBUM GIGANTE #39 by "Netto" from the www.GuiaEBAL.com site
     supplied by Don Bearden with special thanks!
Thanks to Toni Rodrigues for identifying the cover artist
     of ALBUM GIGANTE #30!

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 The Société Parisienne d'Édition at Wikipedia.
See the complete list of Mondial Aventures at the Bedes d'Antan site!

Read about THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET
     at the Grade Saver site.
Read the complete novel at the at the Lit 2 Go site.
See the ARTHUR GORDON PYM Gallery of Illustrations. 

     Audio:
Hear the LIT 2 GO audio book!
Hear THE WEIRD CIRCLE episode!

     Comics:
Read the Bernard Lamotte ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Yves & Willy Groux ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Editorial Sea/Navaro ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the Cesar Lopez Vera ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Jorge Bernuy S. ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Enrique Alcatena ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!

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

Don't miss the 3rd PART of this... coming up next!!!

(Continued in Poe 1958, Pt. 3)

Poe 1958, Pt. 1

(Continued from Poe 1955, Pt. 3)

MONDIAL AVENTURES  29  /  ALBUM GIGANTE  39
"LES AVENTURES DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"  /
"A NARRATIVA DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"
     (IN COLOR  w/ English Translation)

The Société Parisienne d'Édition or SPE, was a French publisher that existed under various names from the end of the 19th Century.

MONDIAL AVENTURES  ("World Adventures") was their own version of Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED.  The series ran 30 issues from 1954 to 1959, including the works of such notable writers as Fenimore Cooper, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Robert Louis Stevenson;  oddly enough, especially given it was a French company, they didn't include Jules Verne in their run.  However, they did one story by Edgar Allan Poe-- his ONLY full-length novel!

     "THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET"

...seems to be one of the less-popular of Poe's stories, at least as far as comic-book adaptations are concerned, despite it apparently being an influence on a number of more-famous stories that followed it, including an actual sequel written by Jules Verne!

Ocean-going travel was always potentially dangerous in Poe's time; this is clear in each of the various stories he wrote that involved sailing ships:  "The Oblong Box", "MS. Found In A Bottle", and "The Descent Into The Maelstrom".

As of 11-6-2019, I've discovered the existence of 6 comics adaptations of "PYM".  This 2nd one featured the art of William & Yves Groux, and as far as I know, has only been translated into Portuguese.

I have fellow fan Don Bearden to thank for letting me know of the existence of this comic in the first place.  Since he told me about it, I found ONE copy on sale from a site in Luxembourg-- but it disappeared before I was able to get it.  As a result, I set up this page as another "place-holder" until I did get ahold of a copy of the book-- or at least, SCANS of it.

Meanwhile... I know this comic is of French origin... how, then, can a foreign reprint have an earlier date?

Don Bearden supplied the answer to this little mystery:

(Honore de) "Balzac's THE TENEBRESE AFFAIR, which was prepared in France in 1955 with Rene Giffey artwork, but somehow did not get published in France (May,1956)...the French series stopped ended (temporarly) in 1955, but several titles had already been sent to Brazil, so several titles were actually issued in Brazil before they were issued in the original French MA (MONDIAL AVENTURES) series."

Source: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CLASSIC ILLUSTRATED VOL. 2 by Dan Malen. copyright 2001 by Rudy Tambone.

How's that for screwing up the dates of which was the original and which came next?

The book was created in France in 1955... published in Brazil in 1958... and finally saw print in France in 1959.

And my patience paid off.  Don got back in touch with me on October 1, 2016, saying he'd FOUND scans-- of the Brazillian edition-- and e-mailed scans of the entire book.  As he put it, "We were both beginning to think this one might never turn up!"  As a result, he asked me if I could tackle this one as soon as possible... which I am doing, having just finished the 1968 French digest version of "RUE MORGUE".  Since the Brazillian edition was printed in B&W, that means I "get" to add COLOR.  From one massive project to another... here we go!  ENJOY.

(Intro text updated  /  3-8-2020)

MONDIAL AVENTURES  29
cover by YVES & WILLY GROUX
(Société Parisienne d'Édition  /  France  /  1959)

ALBUM GIGANTE  39
cover by ANTONIO EUZEBIO NETO
(Editora Brasil America Limitada  /  Brazil  /  January 1958)

"A NARRATIVA DE SIR ARTHUR GORDON PYM"
     ("THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET")  /  Version 2  /  Adaptation by William Groux  /  Art by WILLY & YVES GROUX
Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13

Page 14

Page 15

Don't go away!  Our story will continue...
 
This is nuts.  Page 15 required more work than any of the other pages so far.

First up, the large number of figures took much longer to color.  Especially difficult as, due to the small size of the files, I had to keep zooming OUT to see what I was looking at.

But I didn't expect what was next.

I've been reading the novel along as I did the translation.  This section was compressed FAR more than usual, and skipped over huge passages.  Plus, almost nothing of the original text was usable in the space available.  I've had to go back and retype the Portuguese text into the translator AGAIN, each word on a separate line, and then in more and more cases, type certain words into Google Search by themselves, just to try and figure out what the hell do these words mean?

The 5th panel made less sense than usual.  I jumped ahead to panel 6.  I discovered that by expanding the 2 narration boxes a bit, I was able to use a passage of Poe's original text VERBATIM.  This isn't happening much on this one.

So then I went back to panel 5.  I finally got it figured out.  And then... I realized... part of the STORY did not make sense.  Because, somehow, the events had been jumbled around.

It would have been far too difficult to do this in the PSD file, with ALL the multiple layers involved.  I took the large saved image, before text was added, and in Photoshop, COPIED and PASTED panels 3, 4 & 5-- so they became 5, 3 & 4 !!!!  Yes, I actually moved 3 WHOLE panels.

There was only one thing left to do.  I ADDED exactly ONE line of original Poe text to the whole thing.  A line that was NOT in the comic at all.  But without that line, the thing still made no sense.

"A scene of the most horrible butchery ensued."  After this, I added one more word... "After,"

Yes.  They MURDERED most of the crew, and threw them overboard, BEFORE putting the captain and his closest aides into the "whaler" (lifeboat used for whaling purposes).

NOW it works.  Sheesh.

Only NOW, after I did this MAJOR "fix", do I realize, that in the comic, most of the crew stayed below decks, while the captain was put OFF the ship, then they surrendered... and presumably, then took part in the piratical scheme.

But by RE-arranging those 3 panels, and adding the one line (and one word) as I did, MOST of the crew is killed BEFORE the captain is put in the longboat.

WHICH IS HOW POE wrote it!!

The "original" page 15 (for comparison)...

Copyright (C) Société Parisienne d'Édition  &  Yves & Willy Groux.
English Translation & New Color Copyright (C) 2016 Henry R. Kujawa.

Scan of MONDIAL AVENTURES #29 from the Ebay site.
Scans of ALBUM GIGANTE #39 by "Netto" from the www.GuiaEBAL.com site
     supplied by Don Bearden with special thanks!
Thanks to Toni Rodrigues for identifying the cover artist
     of ALBUM GIGANTE #30!

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 The Société Parisienne d'Édition at Wikipedia.
See the complete list of Mondial Aventures at the Bedes d'Antan site!

Read about THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET
     at the Grade Saver site.
Read the complete novel at the at the Lit 2 Go site.
See the ARTHUR GORDON PYM Gallery of Illustrations. 

     Audio:
Hear the LIT 2 GO audio book!
Hear THE WEIRD CIRCLE episode!

     Comics:
Read the Bernard Lamotte ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Yves & Willy Groux ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Editorial Sea/Navaro ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the Cesar Lopez Vera ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Jorge Bernuy S. ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!
Read the Enrique Alcatena ARTHUR GORDON PYM adaptation!

As an extra bonus, here's the Brazillian splash page
side-by-side with my translated & colored version!

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

Don't miss the 2nd PART of this... coming up next!!!

(Continued in Poe 1958, Pt. 2)