ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR 7
"ULALUME"
(Gallery of Illustrations)
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!!
ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #7, as it turns out, and not counting issue-long stories, was the 4th ALL-POE comic anthology, following Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #40 (Aug'47), CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #84 (Jun'51), and Dell's Poe's TALES OF TERROR (Feb'63), the last one 4 years earlier. The next such book would be Gino Sansoni Editore's I CLASSICI A FUMETTI #17 (Sep'69), some 2 years later, followed by until Warren's CREEPY #69 (Feb'75), some 5-1/2 years after that!
Once again, the cover was by Nico Rosso, one of the most high-profile artists in his time, working for many publishers and doing both cover paintings and interior stories. This is only one of his MANY painted covers.
The book contains no less than 5 comics adaptations of Poe:
"THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR"
"THE TELL-TALE HEART"
"A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM"
"MORELLA"
"ANNABEL LEE"
However, strangely enough for a comic-book, it ALSO contains 2 poems, presented simply as text pages with no illustrations whatsoever! When my friend and fellow artist Toni Rodrigues e-mailed me hi-res scans of the book, at first I considered skipping these. However, after months of delays, I was suddenly inspired to include them anyway-- and use them as as excuse to present a pair of galleries of illustrations done over the many decades since their publication!
This issue opens with a presentation of Poe's 1847 poem, "ULALUME". Like "THE RAVEN", it is a paean to a lost love, and may possibly be considered a sequel to it.
Along with the various artworks, I decided to do MY OWN art for the poem. Since I only had a scan of the last page, I started there, maintaining the original page layout & text design. I went on from there. 3 of the pieces are based on or include photographs of Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey, where I worked for 2 years promoting the new Veterans' section from 2009 to 2011. Decades back, when Camden was a thriving city, Harleigh was where all the "filthy stinking rich" used to be buried. As such, it's the closest equivalent in this area to "Eagle Hill Cemetary" on DARK SHADOWS, the place where the Collins Mausoleum was located.
ENJOY!
ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR 7
cover by NICO ROSSO (Editora Taika / Brazil / 1968)
New Art by Henry Kujawa / Page 5
Scans of ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #7 from Toni Rodrigues
with special thanks!
Photographs of Harleigh Cemetery, Camden, New Jersey.
Scans of "Ulalume" by...
Daniel Gabriel Rosetti (1847) from Wikipedia,
John Tenniel (1858) from the Ebay site / Barrel Room Rare Books,
W. Heath Robinson (1900) from the EBooks@Adelaide site,
unknown artist (1912) from Esty.com site,
Edmund Dulac (1912) from Poul Webb / Art & Artists blog,
Hugo Steiner-Prag (1922) from the Scott Lindberg / Flickr blog,
Dario Cecchi (1949) from the Via Libri site,
Janina Stinevich (2000) from Janina Art.com site,
Anne Bachelier (2012) from the DMF Gallery site,
Ines Falcao Ferreira (2015) from Patreon.com site,
Melancholita (2016) from the Deviant Art site, and
unknown artist (year unknown) from the F--F.Info site.
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa.
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