BEYOND EBAL

EBAL was not the only publishing company that released treasury editions in Brazil. Here are the others:

BLOCH: Bloch Editores(or just Bloch) purchased the rights to publish the Marvel comics in Brazil during the mid70's. After the good sales of the first EBAL treasury editions, Bloch tried to get some money over it and released two oversized comic books "based" on the Marvel treasury edition series.One was "dedicated" to Spider-Man and the other to Captain America.

Actually, unlike the EBAL / DC editions, they didn¹t have anything in common with the original Marvel Treasury series. They were so poor in their lack of quality they don¹t deserve any further commentary.

In 1978, just before losing the rights of Marvel, Bloch published the comic book adaptation of Star Wars in one single magazine-sized edition, picking up the three issues of Marvel Special Edition: Star Wars and using the cover of #1. This magazine is a classic case of how Bloch was careless about comics and the people who read them. The coloring inside is weird: Darth Vader wears pink and yellow (a groovy side of the force??) and the storm troopers are in purple! Thanks to that mistake and many others, Bloch is, by far, the worst company that ever published Marvel Comics in Brazil.

RGE: Rio Grafica Editora or just RGE (today known as Editora Globo) launched in 1975 a series of 6 oversized collections of Golden Age classic strips like The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, The Spirit, Mandrake, and Terry and the Pirates, among others.

It was called Almanaque Do Gibi Nostalgia. Released between 1975 and 1977, those editions were similar in format (square bound, print and paper) to the American treasury books and they were even bigger than the EBAL editions (they had another difference: the inside pages were all in black and white). RGE also published special editions like the 40th anniversary book of The Phantom in the same format. Yes, he¹s wearing red, but that's another story.

ABRIL: Editora Abril owned the rights to publish almost every title of DC and Marvel in Brazil since the early 80's and remained as that until some years ago, when they lost those rights to Panini Cmics and other companies.

Before that, Abril was responsible for the launch of Superman/Fantastic Four (magazine size) and the first four Alex Ross and Paul Dini treasury editions (from Superman: Peace on Earth to Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth). The Abril editions of Ross' books are very similar to the originals, except for the language (Portuguese, by the way).

(Just added courtesy Rogerio Baldino are the covers to the Abril editions of Superman: Peace on Earth and Shazam!: Power of Hope!)

PANINI: Panini Comics is the current owner of the most part of the rights to publish DC and Marvel today in Brazil and they gave the same treatment of Abril to the latest treasury editions of Alex Ross books (JLA: Secret Origins and JLA: Liberty & Justice). JLA: Heaven's Ladder was released in magazine format.

Bizarre Fact! Bloch was not the only company to make some incredible editorial mistakes. In the mid 80's, Abril decided to re-launch Superman Vs. Spider-Man. They did it in a small format book, similar in size to today's Dark Horse line of TPBs. As if that wasn't enough, they also cut-out (!) some of the original pages and replaced them with ad pages. Not to mention Marvel Treasury#13. And they did it again in 1993 with Batman Vs. The Hulk! RGE did the same thing with Marvel Treasury#28!

Like our dear old Col. Kurtz would say: The horror...the horror...

After Brazil, we will continue our "travel" around the globe, searching for foreign editions of DC and Marvel treasuries.

Next Stop: France!

Bonus! The Phantom: Always on Sundays

A Brazilian publishing company called Opera Graphica jave just released a tabloid-sized hardcover featuring the first stories of The Phantom by Lee Falk and Ray Moore on Sunday pages--from May 1939 to October 1942.

This beautiful giant edition called Fantasma: Sempre Aos Domingos (or The Phantom: Always on Sundays) was entirely remastered from the original pages. It features some of the best stories from the Golden Age, including The Return of the Skie's Pirates and has a gorgeous painted cover! Great art by Moore, one of the best comic book artists of all time! Hardcover, 96 pages, black and white.

The only problem for U.S. readers--it's in Portugese...