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"El Despertar del Mundo"("The
World Awakes")Nº54, November 30, 1959. Published by Editora de Periódicos
"La Prensa", of Mexico, after the hiatus caused by the comic crisis of
1955, it carried stuff from Atlas (later Marvel Comics), with a definite
bent towards sci-fi. The scripts, however, subjected to the censorship
imposed by the Comics Code, were considerably watered-down, almost naive,
and the art was barely acceptable, in those days of underpaid, unsure jobs
in the field.
That was the general
rule for the comics of that hard period, both in USA and the Latin countries,
but the tenacious reader could sometimes be rewarded with unexpected little
jewels, as is the case of this particular issue, which, in addition to
contributions by Bob Forgione (a dependable artisan), "¡Alguien Espera!"
(or "Someone is Waiting!"), John Forte (a hard worker, but well under the
quality of the mature professionals of yore), "¡Los Hombres Azules!"("The
Blue men!") and Paul Reinman (of dubious competence, but a regular of those
times), "Vinieron por la Noche"("They Came at Night"), carried an (unsigned)
small masterpiece by Bob Powell (in disgrace by then, his favorite field,
horror, having been banned by the infamous Code), "Donde Habitan los Dinosaurios"
("Where Dinosars Dwell") and a brief opus by Joe Orlando (of E.C. fame),
"La Ciudad Encantada"("The Enchanted Village"). There was also another
story, "Mundo Equivocado"("Wrong World"), by unidentified artist, a black-and-white
mystery filler (probably not in the original magazine) and two pages of
text. But the stories were all 4-pagers, the dialogue poor, the plots uninspired.
From that despicable clay, however, a genius named Stan Lee would eventually
operate a rebirth of the comic book -which for many, including yours truly,
seemed a doomed medium by then- and build the millionaire Marvel empire.
That's the reason why I decided to add this book to the gallery, despite
the bad shape of the cover, which I was forced to "clean up" (there was
a sticker, some handwriting and a big rubber stamp to get rid of) with
far from perfect results... |
