Poe 1961, Pt. 3

(Continued from Poe 1961, Pt. 2)

CLASSICOS DE TERROR  14
"O GATO PRETO"
     (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!

In April 2015, I ran across this story as a reprint in SPEKTRO #14 (Editora Vecchi / Feb'80).  However, I soon learned it was actually a reprint from 1961.  That got me wondering if there were any other POE stories in that particular series-- CLASSICOS DE TERROR.  These have been very hard to find, and tracking down the comics, or even information about them, has become a real obsession!

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!!

5th in line, another version of that popular favorite...

     "THE BLACK CAT".

     This was the 4th comics version of this story, following...
Charlton's YELLOWJACKET COMICS #1 (Sep'44), 
EC's THE HAUNT OF FEAR #15 [1] (May-Jun'50), and  
St. John's NIGHTMARE #12 (Apr'54), 
     ...the last one some 7 years earlier.

The artist here is Luiz Saidenberg.  His work was somewhat inspired
by Alex Raymond's!  I just love the fluid figure-work.

 This is his 1st of 2 POE adaptations.  The 2nd wouldn't be until 38 years later!

Originally, the scans for this came a PDF file, taken from the online MEMO magazine by Toni Rodrigues.  The linework was a bit fuzzy (I wound up using "sharpen"), except for the splash page, which apparently was a scan of a STAT used for one of the later reprints.  That page was MUCH sharper and had far more detail than the rest of the story... although it took me 6 HOURS to clean up.  In the long run, that was nothing compared to some of the clean-ups I've done since then.

However, in early 2018, I asked Toni if he had the hi-res scans, made straight off the ORIGINAL 1961 comics... he did.  So I decided to re-process this entire story a 2nd time.  The results are STUNNING.  The linework is MUCH sharper, and along the way, I've made some minor adjustments to the colors, the word balloons, and replaced the font used for the narration boxes.  Overall, the entire presentation is MUCH better than it was before.  Very fitting, for what I consider my 2nd-favorite comics version of "THE BLACK CAT", right after Berni Wrightson's.   (7-17-2018)

(I originally set this up back in April 2015, but decided to replace that page with this one due to the large number of stories from Editora Continental / Outubro / Taika that have turned up since!)

CLASSICOS DE TERROR  14
cover by JAYME CORTEZ MARTINS   (Editora Outubro  /  Brazil  /  1961)

"O GATO PRETO"
     ("THE BLACK CAT")  /  Version 4
Adaptation & Art by LUIZ SAIDENBERG  /  Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

I suppose I'm not the only one who's noticed certain recurring themes in some of Poe's stories.  "The Black Cat" is a perfect example.  On the one hand, you have someone who loses someone he loves, only to replace them with a very similar object of affection... only to find at the end of the story it is somehow, inexplicably, the SAME (see "Ligeia").  Then you have someone who commits a murder, and winds up walling them up in the basement ("The Cask Of Amontillado").  There's also someone who commits a murder, only to have the police discover it while they're trying to dissolve their fears ("The Tell-Tale Heart").  And finally, you have someone who has committed a murder, but then succumbs to a self-destructive urge to shout his victory to the world ("The Imp Of The Perverse").

Sometimes you need a scorecard to keep things like this straight... especially if you're dealing with other people's adaptations of said stories (see Roger Corman's "TALES OF TERROR").

By the way, while I tried to be as faithful as I could to the Portuguese text when I did my English translation (barring the odd word or phrase which I may have changed to make it sound more "natural" in America), the final paragraph of narration I replaced completely with the original text taken straight from Poe's short story.  It just "felt" more "right" to me!

Since this story, I've increasingly tried to use more and more authentic Poe text with my translations.

REPRINTS

Continental / Outubro / Taika's reprints usually had NO rhyme or reason.  For example, here you had one Poe story included in a collection of 22 totally random stories.

ALMANAQUE DE HISTORIAS MACABRAS  [2]
cover by NICO ROSSO   (Editora Outubro  /  Brazil  /  1966 ?)

According to the Historias Comentades site, this one particular reprint issue contained 3 POE stories.  I recently ran across the cover, with "Coracao Denunciador" posted on it, and soon realized that this must be that issue-- and that "O Gato Preto" must be one of the other 2. 

CLASSICOS DE TERROR  6
cover by JAYME CORTEZ MARTINS   (Editora Taika  /  Brazil  /  July 1973)

Jayme Cortez' cover, it turns out, has been reprinted at least TWICE.  However, at least once, it accompanied a DIFFERENT version of the story (by Juarez Odilon rather than Luiz Saidenberg).  I'm presenting them here for easy comparison.

PAGINAS SINISTRAS  3
cover by JAYME CORTEZ MARTINS   (Editora Outubro  /  Brazil  /  1966)

ALMANAQUE CLASSICOS DE TERROR  2
cover by JAYME CORTEZ MARTINS   (Editora Taika  /  Brazil  /  April 1974)

Here's where I originally found the story...
 
SPEKTRO  14
cover by JULIO SHIMAMOTO   (Editora Vecchi  /  Brazil  /  1980)     

THIS is where most of the original scans I used came from, now replaced!

MEMO  3
cover by LUIZ SAIDENBERG   (Toni Rodrigues  /  September 2013)

Shortly after I set up the original page for this story, I got in touch with Toni Rodrigues.  His enthusiasm and help since then has just blown me away.  In addition to everything else, he also informed me that Luiz Saidenberg was STILL AROUND, and suggested I could contact him on Facebook.  I did!!  Here's what he had to say... 

"Thanks very much, Henry. Yes, I appreciate very much your version of that old comic...I never could imagine to see this, in colours. Here, a more recent page about samurais.Best regards.

Yes, 54 years ago! This seems also fantastic for me. Now, I´ve more of seventy years old, but yet very active and full of energy, making draws, painting, sculpture e writing articles .

I liked very much your use of color in " Black Cat", giving a new dimension to the story. I´m waiting for a international project to do comics , what would be very interesting to me. Let´s see what happens! Bye."

Getting in touch with him, and his response, has been one of the highest points of this entire project!  I've found so many artists whose work I've come to love, but most of them have already passed away, some many years before I discovered their work.

As a bonus, here's that sample page Luiz Saidenberg sent me...

Luiz Saidenberg.  

Copyright (C) Luiz Saidenberg,  Editora Outubro  
     &  the various publishers.
English Translation & new color 
     Copyright (C) 2015, 2018 Henry R. Kujawa.

Scans of CLASSICOS DE TERROR #14 (1961)
     supplied by Toni Rodrigues with special thanks!
 
Scan of ALMANAQUE DE HISTORIAS MACABRAS [#2] (1966)
     from the Guia Dos Quadrinhos database site
     with special thanks to Marcelo Ferreira Antunes.
Scan of PAGINAS SINISTRAS #3 (1966) from the Mercado Livre site.
Scan of CLASSICOS DE TERROR #6 (1973) from the Mercado Livre site.
Scan of ALMANAQUE CLASSICOS DE TERROR #2 (1974)
     from the Banca Dos Gibis Brazucas site.
Scan of SPEKTRO #14 (1980) from the Gibi Classicos site.
Scan of MEMO #3 (2013) from the Memo site
     with special thanks to Toni Rodrigues.
Scan of unidentifed ninja art supplied by Luiz Saidenberg with special thanks!

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 Editora Continental / Outubro / Taika at Guia Dos Quadrinhos.
Visit the Jayme Cortez blog!
Read about Luiz Saidenberg and "O Gato Preto" 
     at the Historias Comentades 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.
See more covers from Editora Vecchi at the Nostalgia Do Terror site.

Read about THE BLACK CAT at Spark Notes.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the BLACK CAT Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio:
Hear the Peter Lorre MYSTERY IN THE AIR episode!
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
Hear the Norman Rose CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

      Comics:
Read the Bill Allison BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Johnny Craig BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the St. John Publishing BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Luiz Saidenberg BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Fran Matera BLACK CAT adaptation!
 
Read the Juarez Odilon BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Editorial Novaro BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Gino Dauro BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Berni Wrightson BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Ricardo Villamonte BLACK CAT adaptation!

     Misc.:
Read the Luiz Saidenberg BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Luiz Saidenberg KING PEST adaptation!   (coming soon!)

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

(Continued in Poe 1961, Pt. 4)