Plavi Vjesnik no. 437, February 2, 1963

Plavi Vjesnik no. 437, Feb. 2, 1963
DAN DARE
PILOT OF THE FUTURE
THE PHANTOM FLEET
(TAJANSTVENA FLOTA)

This magazine was bought at eBay in May 2002 from Stuart Dexter. It belonged to the estate of Dennis Gifford (who was probably the greatest comics collector in the UK, and almost certainly one of the greatest experts in comics history in the world. He wrote various books among them, The International Book of Comics). According to Stuart, the auction was held at Hamers Comic Auctions, Workshop Notts on April 28th, 2002, one of a total of six Gifford auctions up to now, he had a lot of stuff all over his house when he died, over 50 tons of it!

The same issue appeared in The Eagle, Dec. 27, 1958, Vol. 9 No. 52. It was also reprinted in the Hawk Books Eight Deluxe Collector's Edition published in 1993. What makes this issue even more sentimental for me, is that I remember reading it in Croatia during the best years of Plavi Vjesnik and Dan Dare comic strip. It is also five months later in Terra Nova Trilogy that Frank Hampson draws his last Dan Dare.

The Plavi Vjesnik reprint is much darker and of lower quality. The back page is tilted at a small angle. For larger, fully legible versions, click on each image.

This Plavi Vjesnik issue is very interesting as it carried a number of Croatian comic strips such as: "Cuvaj se Senjske Ruke" (drawn by A. Maurovic), "Pobuna u Kiboku" (drawn by J. Radilovic) and "Tom i Malo Medvedje Srce" (drawn by W. Neugebauer). These artists of national renown could have done quite well internationally were it not for the myopic Communist system that failed to capitalize on the excellent work of these great artists.

This is one of the only two complete Plavi Vjesnik issues I own. The other one is No. 965, of March 27, 1973.

Plavi Vjesnik (Plavac) first published on October 1, 1954 in the city of Zagreb, Croatia by the publishing house "Vjesnik". It carried Dan Dare comic strip for many years and it was the magazine's main feature. "Plavac" went out of business in 1973 with issue 979.

Plavi Vjesnik appeared again in 1992 with 6 issues and 2 issues in 1999, all of which you can see here.

Plavi Vjesnik Cover Page
No. 384 - February 1, 1962 - Year 9

Caption:

DEN DERI
PILOT BUDUCNOSTI
U VLASTI ROBOTA

DAN DARE
PILOT OF THE FUTURE
REIGN OF THE ROBOTS

The same cover published in Eagle on Dec 20, 1957 - Vol. 8 No. 51

For a larger view, click on the image.

Special thanks to Zvonimir Tosic, CWCSt - Croatian Web Comic Station - Zagreb for this scan.

For another example, see the front page of Plavi Vjesnik #257.