This incidentally is the 300th post in this blog. When Balaji started this blog on June 26, 2007, this was one of the very few blogs entirely devoted to the first ever Superhero in comics history - Mandrake the Magician. Incidentally this month is 81 years since the first strip of Mandrake appeared in newspapers. Here is a tribute to that from ComicsAlliance. Enjoy.
When I started substituting for Balaji, one fine Vishu day in 2012, there was less than one third of all Mandrake Sunday strips available on the Net. Due to contributions from Magnus Magnusson, Steve Cottle, Tom Williams, Richard Hy, Paulo Marques, we now have been able to get to a point that we have less than 5 Sunday strips to post before we have all the Mandrake Sunday strips available for everyone to enjoy. And here is one of those remaining strips for your enjoyment. The story is called "The Devil's Stage Coach" and it ran for 24 Sundays from October 01, 2000 thru March 11, 2001. The first panel looked like this:
The color strips are courtesy Magnus Magnusson. Download the story here and shower your thanks on Magnus.
With all the activity on the Sunday strips, the Daily strips till proved elusive. The main reason being that we were not able to get full strips from American newspapers of the late seventies thru the nineties. Paulo, Balaji and I were able to get most of the strips from D203 thru D226 from a paid archive. All strips after D226 were posted by Lothar in his wonderful blog.
That still left a few classic daily strips and a whole lot of strips from the seventies thru the nineties. I have been able to download most of the classic daily strips. I also have a whole lot of strips from the seventies. It was when I almost hit the end of the road, with strips from the 80s & 90s, that a knight in shining armor appeared from Down Under. Despite his health issues including a surgery, Donald Ladhams was able to get me all strips that were available in his local library from microfilm. This amounted to nearly 95% of the daily strips from D160 thru D202. I also have some very good Spanish scans from Lothar's friend Teo, from my E-mule days. Recently Paulo introduced me to a Spanish Mandrake fan, who goes by the name of Mapanare, who is doing yeoman service with his posting of Mandrake strips in both English and Spanish. I have been honored to present a couple of strips from him earlier. We are working together to compare strips and bring out some strips as a joint venture. I am presenting here two classic strips from Mapanare.
Download story here.
Download story here.
A general complaint from bloggers is that people flock to the blogs to download stuff, but can't find time to pen just a few lines thanking the efforts of all involved. When you download these stories and enjoy, please do give some thought to all those contributors who have selflessly worked to bring forth these for your enjoyment. And please remember that this is not their day jobs. They are finding time out of their schedule to bring us these strips. Keep that in mind while "demanding" strips of your choice.
Happy 81st Mandrake.
Venkit
When I started substituting for Balaji, one fine Vishu day in 2012, there was less than one third of all Mandrake Sunday strips available on the Net. Due to contributions from Magnus Magnusson, Steve Cottle, Tom Williams, Richard Hy, Paulo Marques, we now have been able to get to a point that we have less than 5 Sunday strips to post before we have all the Mandrake Sunday strips available for everyone to enjoy. And here is one of those remaining strips for your enjoyment. The story is called "The Devil's Stage Coach" and it ran for 24 Sundays from October 01, 2000 thru March 11, 2001. The first panel looked like this:
The color strips are courtesy Magnus Magnusson. Download the story here and shower your thanks on Magnus.
With all the activity on the Sunday strips, the Daily strips till proved elusive. The main reason being that we were not able to get full strips from American newspapers of the late seventies thru the nineties. Paulo, Balaji and I were able to get most of the strips from D203 thru D226 from a paid archive. All strips after D226 were posted by Lothar in his wonderful blog.
That still left a few classic daily strips and a whole lot of strips from the seventies thru the nineties. I have been able to download most of the classic daily strips. I also have a whole lot of strips from the seventies. It was when I almost hit the end of the road, with strips from the 80s & 90s, that a knight in shining armor appeared from Down Under. Despite his health issues including a surgery, Donald Ladhams was able to get me all strips that were available in his local library from microfilm. This amounted to nearly 95% of the daily strips from D160 thru D202. I also have some very good Spanish scans from Lothar's friend Teo, from my E-mule days. Recently Paulo introduced me to a Spanish Mandrake fan, who goes by the name of Mapanare, who is doing yeoman service with his posting of Mandrake strips in both English and Spanish. I have been honored to present a couple of strips from him earlier. We are working together to compare strips and bring out some strips as a joint venture. I am presenting here two classic strips from Mapanare.
Download story here.
Download story here.
A general complaint from bloggers is that people flock to the blogs to download stuff, but can't find time to pen just a few lines thanking the efforts of all involved. When you download these stories and enjoy, please do give some thought to all those contributors who have selflessly worked to bring forth these for your enjoyment. And please remember that this is not their day jobs. They are finding time out of their schedule to bring us these strips. Keep that in mind while "demanding" strips of your choice.
Happy 81st Mandrake.
Venkit
22 comments:
Thank you so much for this and all your posts of Mandrake stories -- keep it up!
Happy 300 post, keep sharing Mandrake old episodes, a new discovery for many people, you are doing fine, take care, Mapanare
Extremely grateful for posting these Mandrake strips. I very much appreciate the wonderful work you & your team have done over the years by sharing these comics. The amount of joy & happiness you have given is immeasurable & can't be repaid back. May God bless all of you & hope that you continue to do this selfless work.
wonderful post .
congratulations for your 300th post.
and i wish the blog will continue for another 300 & more post
thanks for posting
Thanks a lot for the comics
Of course like they say in Sanathan Dharma, it was just my Niyogam and I was just a Nimitham to get this blog to these heights. All credit goes to Balaji, as he started as lone warrior ploughing the field with various representations of Mandrake comic strips and books.
Thanks to all the visitors, who have played a big role in making this blog what it has become.
Thanks,
Venkit
Happy to have been of service Venkit !
Happy Mandrake Birthday to all !!!
Cheers,
Paulo
thanks magnus
How to down load other two stories in black and white?
The download links are near the pictures.
Thank you Venkit and to all the contributors.
Many thanks for all your posts to you and to all the contributors. All of you greatly help to keep the Mandrake strips alive and collectible. Thanks again for that work.
Thanks very much for the great comics! Some of them I have looked years for.
Thanks Venkit and his constellation of friends.
Thanks a lot to you and your co-leagues for these wonderful comics. Keep it up.
I don't have the following sunday strips.
Can you please provide the same ?
44 Jungle Adventure
89 The Collector
134 Old Folks
135 The Three Brothers
136 Mr Ttazz
139 The Mysterious Birds
140 The Sky Pirates
143 Mandrake's Hate Club
144 The Cave Mystery
147 Centre Stage Terror
152 Dr Ffark's Cosmic Circus
165 The Snarff of Karff
185 The Trouble with Hobbies
Does anybody have the Mandrake sunday KRAKEN(S156) in color? I have lost my copy after mistakenly deleted from my folder.Thing is I have myself posted this in my blog years ago and that link is dead and so other on-line links....
so if anybody has a copy plz upload and send me a link.
Thanks in advance..
I am sorry that the links given on the side land to filefactory download. Pl suggest me the way.
FileFactory is just like sendspace or mediafire. Click on the Link and you should be able to get to the download. I just now tested both links and they are working.
Thanks sir...you refresh all of my childhood days...only three heroes ever lived till date are Phantom, Mandrake and of-course Amitabh Bachchan..!!
One more comment. Back in April 2004 I had written to Fred Fredricks (also called Harold Fredricks) expressing my long time admiration of his work on the Mandrake strips and here is how he had responded (he always wrote in all CAPS). I think it is fitting to include that email verbatim here in this post on Mandrake's 81st birthday (the typos are his too :) Thanks again for all that you guys do ....
--- On Thu, 4/1/04, harold fredericks <> wrote:
> From: harold fredericks <>
> Subject: ...ABOUT MANDRAKE--
> To: "" <>
> Date: Thursday, April 1, 2004, 3:20 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> HI RAJIV
> ---
> THANKS FOR YOUR VERY KIND
> WORDS
> ABOUT THE GREAT
> MAGICIAN--WOULD THAT WE COULD ALL
> LOOK THE SAME AFTER 70 YEARS INTHE COMICS--I APPRECIATE YOUR
> COMMENTS AND TAKING
> THE TIME TO SEND THEM ALONG ---
>
> ALL THE BEST FROM MANDRAKEM
> NARDA AND LOTHAR
> ---
>
> FRED
> FREDERICKS
Thanks , Venkit , coming to any blog after a very long time , was very busy . Thanks to all involved . PL keep on posting . You have been quite regular in posting comics
read here click over here this link hop over to this web-site click over here now navigate to this website
Post a Comment