Comic #140 - A Flash Gordon sunday in Bengali from 1978 : "Crash Landing"(Original title; S146)

 A continuation of their journey to Xalisco, Flash, Dale, Tasso & Tamina met the deadly queen Mesala. This sunday was serialized in Jugantar newspaper in 1978 and much later reprinted in the Indrajal Comics in Bengali titled "ভয়ঙ্করী রাণী মেসালা" in 1988. 

Again, to repeat what I have mentioned in the previous post, some panels were dropped in this Jugantar version of FG strips, most of which you will find in the Indrajal issue.

Read On!

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Basic Information :

Title/Serial No. : "Crash Landing"(No given title in Jugantar) (S146)

Artist : Dan Barry

Publication Period(strips) : 5-28-78 to 8-13-78

Publication Period/Date(Jugantar) : 11-12-78 to 2-4-79

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal) : 12-18-88 (V25 N51)

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Same strips, from the pages of Indrajal..

DOWNLOAD S146(Bengali ver.)

Comic #138-139 : Two FG sundays from the late '70s in Bengali

 In this post you will read a couple of late '70s Flash Gordon sundays in Bengali, both were reprinted in Indrajal Comics under a single title "হারিয়ে যাওয়া মহাদেশ" in 1988. Just like the previous post, these strips were also reprinted in the Bengali newspaper Jugantar. 

Just one thing to keep in mind that, while these are the official version but not complete i.e. drop-panels(two left-side panels) were not included in this version. As a result, many of such 'drop' panels are available in the Indrajal as ToI did use the whole strip, even though the story was little edited to fit in their book-format. The fans who have this Indrajal issue, can easily compare these two versions.

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Basic Information :

Title/Serial No.: "Skorpi Hunters"(No given title in Jugantar) & "The Dark Side of  Xalisco!"/জালিসকোর রহস্য!(S144 & S145)

Artist: Dan Barry

Publication Period(strips): 12-11-77 to 5-21-78

Publication Period/Date(Jugantar): 5-28-78 to 11-05-78

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal): 11-13-88 (V25 N46)

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Same strips, from the pages of Indrajal..

DOWNLOAD S144+145 (Bengali)

Comic #137 - A 1976 Flash Gordon sunday-strip in Bengali

 Bengali newspaper Jugantar reprinted Flash Gordon sundays in the 1976-79 period. This sunday story - originally titled "Lifeboat" and created by one and only Dan Barry - never reprinted in the Indrajal Comics, so this is the only source to read this sunday in Bengali.

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Basic Information :

Title/Serial No.: "Lifeboat"/শনিগ্রহের পথে (S138)

Artist: Dan Barry

Publication Period(strips): 5-30-76 to 8-15-76(12 sundays) 

Publication Period/Date(Jugantar): 11-14-76 to 1-23-77(11* sundays) [*Jugantar skipped the 5-30 sunday]

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DOWNLOAD S138(শনিগ্রহের পথে)

Comic #136 : Princess Pam by Dave Stevens

While we are waiting for the 40th anniversary Artist's edition of Rocketeer by late Dave Stevens, lets read a different comics by him.

My introduction with Dave Stevens was thru the art book "Covers & Stories" in the late 2017. This was even before my introduction with Cliff & co. which would be in 2019. This book has several b&w cover-arts by DS and some of his complete b&w comics - directly shot from the original pages. "Princess Pam" - a sci-fi take of the Snow White fantasy - was one of those. This was an one-off short comic originally published in the Alien World #4. Couple of years ago I have finally managed to collect the Alien World issues reprinted Dave's comics, plus the breathtaking covers.

 I am posting both b&w and colored versions of this comic. While the colored version is spectacular, the large size b&w version helps to study Dave's finer details better.

B&W version - 

Colored version - 

"Covers & Stories" & "Alien Worlds #4"

Comic #135 : Money & Power(D147) - A 1987 Rip Kirby strip

 

Another Rip daily from the period of Indrajal Comics. This particular strip was published in the Indrajal Comics as a 2nd story(Vol. 25 No. 38-39; 1988 -  Bengali title was "Satarka Pratishodhdata(সতর্ক প্রতিশোধদাতা)" - I don't have the English version of these Indrajal issues).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: Money & Power(D147)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period(strips): 2-9-87 to 4-25-87(66 dailies)

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal Comics): Sept-1988 (Vol. 25 No. 38-39)

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DOWNLOAD D147

Some inside pages from the Bengali Indrajal issues - 

Comic #134 : The Former Ambassador(D169) - A 1992 Rip Kirby strip

In this post, read 169th daily adventure of Rip Kirby. This is the 2nd shortest RK daily with only 36 strips(the 1975-daily Rebel Queen(D101) also ran for 6 weeks while Raymond's 1948-daily Major Mystery(D009) is the shortest among 197 RK dailies, ran for just 5 weeks(30 strips)).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Former Ambassador(D169)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 7-20-92 to 8-29-92(36 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D169

Comic #133 : The Scorpio Case(D152) - A Rip Kirby adventure from the late '80s

Another Rip daily and this time from the period of Indrajal Comics. This particular strip was the penultimate Kirby adventure published in the Indrajal(Vol. 26 No. 19; 1989 -  titled "The Cunning Scorpion"). Incidentally, Bengali version of this Indrajal - titled Kakra-bicher Hul(কাঁকড়া-বিছের হুল ) - was one of the earliest Indrajals I have purchased when I have had restarted the Indrajal-hunt, some around 20 years ago. Happy memory! :-)

Anyway, back to the story, it was a nice thriller, all was happening around a Caribbean casino. Like most Rip Kirby stories, there were some memorable one-off characters. Like Nina, who helped Rip to nab the frauds, and played as his better-half throughout the story! 

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Scorpio Case(D152)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period(strips): 4-25-88 to 7-16-88(72 dailies)

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal Comics): 4-7-89 (Vol. 26 No. 19)

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DOWNLOAD D152

The cover & some inside pages of the Bengali Indrajal issue...

Comic #132 : Big Boy the Fighting Farmer(D159) - A Rip Kirby adventure from 1990

 One more Rip Kirby daily strip from the '90s, another unpublished RK adventure from the post-Indrajal era, and this time you will find Honey Dorian, who became very infrequent in the later RK strips.

As usual, I have to use different source-materials than the already available lot for clearer version(I had to re-construct many strips using multiple versions, just to get the best possible strip we can have at present), plus I have added all missing strips from the earlier version.

PS - I have maintained the title given by the original uploader/blogger years ago(as no RK strips was ever given any official title, so any appropriate title will do very well!).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: Big Boy the Fighting Farmer(D159)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 1-22-1990 to 4-14-1990(72 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D159(complete)

Comic #131 : The Perfect Alibi(D174) - Another Rip Kirby adventure from the '90s

 Another Rip Kirby daily strip from the early '90s, so one more unpublished RK adventure from the post-Indrajal era, when John Prentice was doing both script & art duty, and his story-telling was very refreshing(and probably to handle this dual-duty, sometimes he re-used old plot-lines, plus, occasional strips were completely drawn by some ghost-artists(those without his signature)).

As usual, I have used different source-materials than the already available lot for clearer version(saying this, I had to edit few strips using two versions, just to get the best possible strip we can have at present).

Good news is, if everything goes well, I can have all/majority RK strips till the mid-'90s, in the relatively better condition. The only thing is, it will take little time in culling & then editing them by myself. While my major target is to get as many post-Indrajal RK strips as possible, occasionally I will post few strips already published in the Indrajal & among my favorite stories - so readers can have unedited strip-version of those Indrajal stories.

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Perfect Alibi(D174)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 8-30-1993 to 11-27-1993(78 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D174

Comic #130 : The Missing Briefcase(D168) - A Rip Kirby adventure

 A Rip Kirby daily strip from the early '90s. A strip never reprinted anywhere in English.

I have used a different source-material than the already available lot(see the previous post). While we now have all RK strips, most of the later strips are more or less smudged, and this version may be considered as a somewhat clearer version(I have used a few strips from that lot to complete the story & intend to do same in the future - hence a big thanks again for those involved!).

Time to time, I will try to post few more strips whenever possible. 

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Missing Briefcase(D168)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 5-4-1992 to 7-18-92(66 dailies)

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DOWNLOAD D168

Comic #129 : All 197 Rip Kirby daily-strips in English

 Finally it has been achieved - the availability of all 197 RK strips in English, specifically the last 40 odd strips from the late '80s to late '90s, when this series was cancelled after the sudden demise of John Prentice. While the first 131 strips were already available long time ago, and as strips from D119-153 were reprinted in the Indrajal Comics in English & other regional languages, so only those post-Indrajal strips were left to be tracked down(except few of those were reprinted elsewhere/e-vers posted online). And this has been finally achieved within the last few months, so I thank every person involved in the whole process of finding and sharing these too elusive strips!

Now, the quality of the strips, specifically of those later ones, are only 'readable' but that's ok, as it was primarily required to have all RK strips at least, and now that has been done, hopefully better quality strips will be tracked down eventually! The current publisher of the RK strips, IDW has released 11 volumes(D1-103) till now, and still 9 volumes are required to complete the whole run - i.e. total 20 volumes. Few months ago, publisher Dean Mullaney told me via mail that they have no immediate plans for next RK volumes - probably due to the ongoing pandemic situation - and hence we can safely assume that we have to rely on the online strips for the post-Indrajal period(D154-197) for quite sometime, if not forever!

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Few years ago, much before all of these happened, I have had culled out last RK-Indrajal & few post-Indrajal strips(D153-155, 157) from a USA newspaper's archive. I have previously shared these & now re-sharing here. Plus, there was an old blogger who have shared few more(D159 & onwards) from his own newspaper cutting(although majority were incomplete). Quality wise, these are slightly better(and in places, inferior too!) than the above lot, and definitely fall under "readable" quality too, but there is no harm having a 2nd version of these rare strips(plus, you will find few "missing dates" from that lot in this version).

DOWNLOAD D153

DOWNLOAD D154

DOWNLOAD D155

DOWNLOAD D157

DOWNLOAD D159

DOWNLOAD D160

DOWNLOAD D176

DOWNLOAD D196

DOWNLOAD D197(last)