Well, I searched and searched and found that I had not posted the piece -it was saved in Drafts!
So here goes…
Geisterhaus was published by Interpart GmbH. As you can see by the above cover and the page below, this was nothing more than reprints in German of DC comics horror strips introduced in this case by character Cain (of Cain and Abel).
As far as I have been able to see there were no new strips included in this title.
Geister Geschichten (Ghost Tales) was a comic title publishedGustav Luebbe Verlag which was established in 1949. You can find out more here -apologies for the long url but its a translated page!):
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastei-Verlag&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbastei%2Bverlag%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DkMS%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=8x0EUMKeJIWn4gT26YG_CA&ved=0CGgQ7gEwAg
I never got to get my hands on a copy of this, though, thanks to an acquaintance in Germany (about 7 years ago) I did get to see scans. The main story is “Der Verhexte Planet”/”The Bewitched Planet” starring Manos:Der Damonenjager (Demon Hunter) in a mix of horror and sci fi in this story.
I’m not sure who wrote the story but the artyist was Correa.
This was followed by a more common (in these titles) short strip “Der Geister Der Tafelrunde”/”The Ghosts Of The Round Table” drawn by Puigagut. Not the most German of names but I’ll come to this shortly.
Sadly, because of the scanner not including the bottom of the page I have no art credit though I do not think this is Puigagut drawing “Im Bann Der Zaubersonne”/”The Spell Of The Sun.” Puigagut’s style seemed slightly more Joe Kubert.
The back-up strip here is “Die Arena Des Schreckens”/”The Arena of Secrets.” Once again the art credit is lost but I think from the style that it might be Marco -though I am very uncertain. The art is very pleasing, to me at least: it has lots of line shading and detail on trees, wood and clothing. You could say that it is almost quite “Old School” style.
Gespenster Geschichten was the title I had most copies of, however, sadly, due to my willingness to let people borrow comics when they visited my old Chalcraft House flat, I am now down to three issues -but with a good few on disc: thanks again to the guy in Germany (oh, come on -you know me and names by now!).
The lead strip in this issue was “Das Spukhaus Im Teufelsforst”/”The Ghost House In Devil’s Forest” and is drawn by Sandelli.
Issue 240 “Die Gruft Des Steinernen Gotzen”/”The Crypt Of The stone God” -drawn with lots of lovely detail by Celal. A rather exotic tale with the type of ending you expectred from a Gespenster Geschichten strip!
Comos drew“Das Dorf Der Lebenden Schatten”/”The Village Of The Living Shadow” which took readers Down South of the Mexican Border for the chills. Though it needs to be pointed out that there was never any real over the top gore involved in these strips which, after all, were meant for kids and young adults -it wasn’t thought (back in the 1970s/1980s) by German publishers that any adult would read comics.
Pena drew “Der Monstermacher Aus Der Villa Rosa”/”The Monster Maker Of The Villa Rosa” -in this case featuring the much loved giant cat of pop culture (film -The Incredible Shrinking Man: TV Star Trek (TOS), Land Of The Giants, etc. etc..
In these comics you would find strips printed under licence from Cayuga Produktions whom I have not heard of anywhere else comic-wise; from The Boris Karloff Estate and Western/Dell -”Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”
But you would find artwork varying from the highly detailed to clean-lined by a lot of non-German creators such as:
Comos
Sandelli
Celal
Pena
Gonzales
Cardona
Balcells
Puigagut
The quality of the work produced was far better than pay from Bastei! These were the days of representatives from IPC, Thomson (known in Europe mainly under the name Dundee Editions) and smaller UK publishers such as Anglo who met up with European publishers from Scandinavia right down to Turkey and Greece (and beyond). Here Dundee Editions sold on strips such as “Mr Pendragon”, drawn by David Lloyd, to Bastei and others.
Of course, anyone with an interest in UK comics history knows that creators working on some of our best comics were from Brasil, Argentina, Spain, Italy and so on.
Although much later issues of Gespenster Geschichten featured German creators the art was not really up to the standard of earlier books. In the international comics publishing field it was easy money to sell on strips drawn by UK artists because they never got a penny back -it was all profit for the company (ref: Don Lawrence).
Far cheaper for Bastei to pay lesser rates to Italian and Spanish artists who were quick and produced the goods on time. There was, after all no real German comic creator community and people like Ralf Kauka set up his own company -Kauka Verlage who produced Fix Und Foxi, amongst others.
Of course, in issue 626, Bastei made a big fuss over the fact that they had a complete adventure by none other than Hansrudi Wascher – “Die Schreckensgruft der Todes Gottin”/”The Horrors Of The Tomb Of The Death Goddess.” And why not make a fuss! In case you are not aware Hansrudi Wascher is one of the (possible is the) greats of German comics.
I treasure that issue and no sod is going to borrow it!
But let’s have a long look at some covers -you KNOW you want to!
Above: The great Hansrudi Wascher!
Below is the Jubilee Edition (1973) of Gespenster Geschichten which, sadly, is comprised entirely of Western’s Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”!
Below, an inhouse advert letting you know that for a mere 1,50 DM you could get 32 pages of ghostly tales every eight days. Fond memories!
The other title I collected and which was decimated by thieving visitors, was Spuk Geschichten.The main feature here was Arsat Der Magier von Venedig/Arsat The Magician from Venice.” A mix of horror-fantasyand the issue I have has the story “Die Brucke zur Damonenwelt”/”The Bridge To Demon World” which I love as it features a giant cyborgy-type gorilla.
And the artist is none other than Jesus Pena.
There were a number of pocket books and one I had (grrrr) featured David Lloyd’s “Mr Pendragon” and “The Werewolf” by the great Esteban Moroto, a Spanish artist I loved and I’ve just found his web site:
WWW.ESTEBANMAROTO.COM
And, yes, the colour could be “in your face” but there are fine examples of colour inking as well as water colour work.I loved the pricing on the cover. Rather like early 2000 AD used to list Earth, BVenus and Mars cover prices, on Bastei comics you saw:
Osterreich (Austria): S 16 (Schillings)
Schweiz (Switzerland) Fr 2.-
Frankreich (France) F 6,50
Italien (guess!) L 1700
Niederlande (Holland) f 2,60 and
Spanien (Spain) P 150
Yes, untranslated so in the original German though Turkey and Greece (amongst others) published translated versions.
To me these comics mixed with Lasso, Silberpfiel, Buffalo Bill (all French originated though Wascher did some Buffalo Bills) , Wastl (Nederlands) were what made my life in Germany even better.
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