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#293 - Kolossus - A Mandrake Daily from the early seventies

January 30, 2015, 8:30 pm
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I just returned from a 3 week trip to India. I was able to catch up on reading my old Indrajal Comics, the ones still left with me, which I had given to my brother's kids during my last trip there.

One of the comics I read again was IJC 176 - Mandrake And The Giant Man from Feb 1973. I had shared this comic in Prabhat's blogs a long while ago. The first panel in the comic looked like this:











I am presenting here the full 90 strips of this daily strip which was called Kolossus and it ran from 05-31-1971 thru 09-11-1971. The first panel looked like this:









Download the story here and enjoy.

Venkitachalam





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#294 - S181 TheTrickStealer (02-06-00 to 05-28-00)

March 8, 2015, 6:00 pm
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Not sure if this has been posted before. Because I have been having the color strips for a while. There was one strip missing.











I have to thank Magnus Magnusson for the color strips. Download the story here.

Enjoy,

Venkit
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#295 - Rest In Peace Mr. Harold "Fred" Fredericks Jr. (August 9, 1929 - March 10, 2015)

March 29, 2015, 3:00 pm
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Fred Fredricks passed away on March 10, 2015. I was rather surprised to see a lack of real flow of sadness on his demise or articles of appreciation of his longevity at continuing a comic strip. More than 55 years of drawing Mandrake!! That is older than the age of many of his fans!

I am presenting here a Sunday strip conceived and drawn by this artist about 15 years ago. The last panel in the story is a true "AWWWW" moment. All romantic and mushy!











As usual, I have to thank Magnus Magnusson for the color strips.

Download the story here and enjoy.

Venkit




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#296 - A classic Mandrake daily strip

April 14, 2015, 3:00 pm
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It is yet another Vishu, the new year day for the people of my erstwhile state in India, called Kerala (also called God's own Country by visitors). It is also 3 years since I started handling this blog on behalf of Bala. One thing that has given me immense satisfaction is that I have been able to unearth quite a few Mandrake Sunday strips that were hitherto unavailable. Of course I have to thank Magnus Magnusson for all the color Sunday strips he has shared so selflessly over all these years.

This week I am presenting a daily strip - D058 - The Mystery of Uncle Ed  - sent to me by a Spanish friend who likes to be known as Mapanare. He even has a cover page devised for the comic, which you can see below.














On this Vishu day, which is also celebrated as Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Baisakhi in Punjab, Ronagali Bihu in Assam and Naba Barsha in Bengal, I use this opportunity to wish all the best to all of my friends and non-friends who visit this blog.

Shower your thanks on Mapanare.

Enjoy,

Venkit

PS. Here are a few pictures of what put up for VishuKani earlier this morning


 




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#297 - A classic Mandrake daily strip "The Swami" provided by Mapanare

April 25, 2015, 9:00 pm
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I am presenting a strip called "The Swami" which ran from 1950-12-04 thru 1951-03-17. In this story we come to hear about and then see Theron in the second thru fourth panel of the first ever strip of this story.

So it led to a trivia question - Which story did Theron make an appearance either live or in a photograph?  I present below,  what the greatest authority on Mandrake thinks is the first ever drawing of Theron by Phil Davis.















In this story, (The Swami) we come across a disciple of Theron who abuses the powers acquired for personal gain and Mandrake is directed by Theron to put an end to it. Now where have we heard and read this before or after?

Well, this story was provided by Mapanare. This story also contains an excellent cover page created by him.









Download the story from here and shower your thanks on Mapanare.

Enjoy,

Venkit


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#298 - A Mandrake Sunday comic that discusses hacking of computers in cars!!

May 11, 2015, 12:00 pm
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Today one of the greatest fears of any intelligence agency in the world is whether the on-board computers in aircraft can be hacked by terrorist groups leading to mass-murder of innocents. In this Mandrake story that appeared just under a year after Lee Falk's death, the just departed Harold "Fred" Fredericks scripted and drew this story, where the on-board computers in cars are hacked.











Not sure where I got these scans from, but thanks are due to the original scanner. These were small scans (so I am sure that these were not from Magnus) and I blew them up and cropped them a bit.

Today is incidentally my birthday and I take this opportunity to thank all of the friends who have taken their time to wish me on my Facebook page.

Download the story over here.

Enjoy,

Venkit


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#299 - The first of the 3 Mandrake-Narda Weddings

May 23, 2015, 1:00 pm
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Some of us have a chance to marry more than once and usually they are all to different spouses unless they are Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Here I am presenting the first of 3 weddings between Mandrake and Narda. These were collected and sent to me by Emile.







Download the story here and shower your thanks on Emile.

Enjoy,

Venkit
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#300 - Happy 81 years, Mandrake !! How do I go about it? Probably by saying a huge THANKS to all contributors

June 14, 2015, 3:00 pm
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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




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#301 - Two more daily Mandrake daily strips.

July 12, 2015, 6:00 pm
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It is now 3 weeks since I made the 300th post in this blog. It was more than enough time for people to come and offer their good wishes to Balaji and his blog. So here I am with my next post. This time I am presenting two classic Mandrake daily strips, prepared by Mapanare. 

The first is D072 - The Vanishing Rocket [mapanare].cbr. Here is the first panel:












The second is  D076 - The Royal Suitor [mapanare].cbr. here is the first panel.



Thanks to Mapanare for making these available.

Enjoy,

Venkit












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#302 - More Daily Mandrake strips

August 30, 2015, 5:00 pm
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I know that I have been late in posting strips. I have been busy with a major project at work. I am presenting here two daily strips sent to me by my friend Mapanare.

The first one is called the Mysterious Mr.Bean. Not at all related to the other Mr.Bean. The first panel looks like this:













Download the story here.

The second one is called The Haunted Slope. The first panel looks like this:













Download the story here.

Enjoy and shower your thanks on Mapanare.

Venkit

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#303 - Reprint of D226

October 17, 2015, 5:00 pm
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Emile has provided us with reprint of D226 (Mandrake's Wedding at the College of Magic), which concluded about 10 days back. The first panel goes like this:








Download the story from Emile's original link here.

You will recall that Paulo, Balaji & I had worked together to get the original Black & White run from Reading Eagle archives a few years ago and posted that in this blog

Enjoy the story of the second round of the Wedding of Mandrake & Narda and shower your thanks on Emile.

Venkit

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#304 - Reprint of D227

January 23, 2016, 10:30 pm
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Emile has provided us the strips of the just ended reprint of D227 Big Jake & Co . One tends to wonder at the artistic brilliance of the late Fredericks, when he could do wonders even at his advanced age.









Please download the story from Emile's original link here and shower your thanks on him.

Enjoy,

Venkit
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#305 - Reprint of D228 (Mandrake's Wedding at Xanadu)

March 4, 2016, 7:00 pm
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Emile was kind enough to send me the strips for this story earlier, but unfortunately the computer on which I had all my downloads and all had some issues. Added to that I was also busy at work. So it took me a while to go through the stuff and post it.









Please download the story from Emile's original link here and shower your thanks on him. One thing I observed though - the reprint is not the complete original story. They cut it off immediately after the wedding and then started on the reprint of the next story.

Enjoy,

Venkit
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#306 - Happy Vishu to everyone. Sharing my digital collection of Mandrake Comics Strips

April 13, 2016, 6:00 pm
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I had been planning this post for a while, but unfortunately some others beat me to it. But it does not matter. I am not in this to compete against anyone.

April 14 has a lot of meaning for me. It is the New Year according to the Malayalam calendar being used in the state of Kerala. It was also on that day in 2012, that I started to post in this blog with Balaji's permission.

Today,on this auspicious day, I present my collection of Mandrake The Magician comic strips, both Daily and Sundays.

The first strip in the first Daily:








The last strip in the interrupted last Daily strip:








Download the Daily strips from here.


The first strip in the first Sunday strip:




















The last strip of the last Sunday strip:










Download the Sunday strips here.

It would be a dereliction of my duties if I did not express my thanks to the following people who worked hard along with me to search and get all these strips. The names are in no particular order:

Balaji - who started this blog as a homage to Lee Falk and his amazing creation - Mandrake the Magician.
Ajay - who posted a quite a few of the Sunday strips in his blog.
Allen Lane - who provided me with a whole lot of Sunday strips including the one in which Narda becomes the most beautiful woman in the Galaxy.
Comic Crazee - who provided us with quite a few wonderful drawings and was the first person to provide us with all 3 stories of the Mandrake wedding.
Tom Williams - who provided me with the first seven strips in the Daily Strip saga.
Magnus Magnusson - who provided me with all those beautiful color Sunday strips.
Paulo Marques - who paid and gained access to strips starting from Daily Strip 203 to 220. Balaji and I joined him in downloading the daily newspaper (approx 60MB) and then worked on bringing out those strips in story form.
Myron & Richard Hy - who provided quite a few daily strips to this blog in 2007 & 2008.
Mapanare - a new friend who has been instrumental in providing me with many of the later year daily strips. He runs a prolific blog in Spanish where he concentrates more on ... (who else?).
Donald Ladhams - who despite his advancing age and ill-health traveled to the Library and sent me strips from the microfilm archives of one of Australia's leading dailies.
Emile - One of the greatest living authorities on both of Lee Falk's characters. He also has a wonderful database of Indrajal Comics. Emile has been instrumental in providing me with Phantom and Tarzan strips in addition to Mandrake.
Carlos - more famously known as Lothar, who is singlehandedly responsible for most of the daily strips. (and that too at exceptional quality!)

When I started posting, we did not have more than 60 of the Sunday strips online. In these 4 years, it has been my good fortune to work with a whole lot of friends and get all Sunday strips though in varying colors and resolution.

If I have by oversight missed anyone, I profusely apologize.

















Enjoy.

Venkit




















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#307 - Reprint of Aliens (2016-02-22 to 2016-05-21).

June 12, 2016, 8:00 pm
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Over the last few weeks we had quite a few Daily and Sunday strips coming to an end. So I had to delay posting this one though Emile had sent this across to me as soon as the strip ended.









Please download the story from Emile's original link and shower your thanks on him.


Well, there is some news that Mandrake the Magician may be coming to the big screen soon. Here are some links about that

http://www.vulture.com/2016/06/meet-future-film-character-mandrake-the-magician.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2016/06/08/481231518/sacha-baron-cohen-is-mandrake-the-magician-wait-who-now

http://www.superherohype.com/news/375967-sacha-baron-cohen-is-mandrake-the-magician

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/06/08/sacha-baron-cohen-will-become-a-superhero-in-mandrake-the-magician


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#308 - Reprint of D230 - The Fisherman

August 9, 2016, 8:00 pm
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Emile has shared with us the reprint of D230 - The Fisherman. The original strip ran from December 14, 1998 through February 13, 1999. Balaji, Paulo and I had worked to get the original strips in Black and White posted in this blog a while ago. It also forms part of the post on Vishu day when I shared my collection of Mandrake strips.

This reprint in color ran from May 23, 2016 thru July 23, 2016. The first strip looked like this:









Download the comic strip from Emile's original link here and shower your thanks on him.

Enjoy,

Venkit
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#309 - Reprint of D231 The Secret Mission!

December 10, 2016, 3:00 pm
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Emile has sent us the strips for D278, which is a reprint of D231, which originally ran from February 15, 1999 thru July 03, 1999.








Download the story from Emile's original link here.

Some interesting notes from Emile :

"While I was reading the story, my feeling was that the script was done in many parts. I read it once more and found 4 different parts. Probably because of Lee Falk's death earlier that year (less than 2 months before the start of the story). I can only think that Lee wrote the story start and Fred had to continue it. So he include a recap of an old Narda story, then come back to the original script and finished the story.

Of course, this is just an idea that come to my mind while I was reading this story. No inside knowledge.

The Narda’s adventure retold here comes from a Sunday Strip story. Read below.

Here are data about the story:

Mandrake the Magician
The Secret Mission
Script and Artwork:    Fred Fredericks
Reprints:    2016-07-25 to 2016-12-10
Runs    20 weeks (120 strips)

Original Data:
Kind:    Daily Strips
Story    231
Title:    The Secret Mission
Script and Artwork:    Fred Fredericks
Start:    1999-02-15
End:    2999-07-03
Runs    20 weeks (120 strips)

Shooting Script (my attempt to understand the script):
a. Introduction: enter the “8”    2016-07-25 to 2016-08-27
b. Narda recalls the past    2016-08-29 to 2016-10-15
c. Back to the Secret Mission    2016-10-17 to 2016-11-12
d. Rescuing Mandrake and friends    2016-11-14 to 2016-12-10

The recalled story comes from:

Kind:    Sunday Strips
Story    41
Title:    The Raft People
Script:    Lee Falk
Artwork:    Phil Davis
Start:    1948-11-21
End:    1949-01-23
Runs    10 weeks/strips

Enjoy,

Venkit







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February 5, 2017, 10:58 pm
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Writing a post after a very long time, extremely sad to inform you all of the demise of a great friend and a contributor to this blog, Rick Hy (Richard Hy). I received this message from his friend.

My Dear Friends,

It is with very heavy heart that I must send you this message. My closest friend of 45 years has passed this morning at 5 am. He is now with Our God.

Rick Hy died at Buffalo General, at the age of 74. We just played cards at my house for his birthday.

No arrangements have been made. I'll try to get more word to you as soon as I know,

With my love and prayers,
Barb Urban
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#311 - Dr. Congo in strip form

March 18, 2017, 6:00 pm
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Emile has been kind enough to provide us the complete story. The first panel looks like this:








Download the story from Emile's original link here and shower your thanks on him.

Enjoy,

Venkit
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#312 - Happy Vishu to one and all. Enjoy The Mirror people!

April 14, 2017, 9:30 am
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Vishu or the Malayalam New Year has always a special place in my heart. It was during one such Vishu 5 years ago that I stepped in to help post comics in Balaji's blog. Last year, we were not able to celebrate Vishu because of the unexpected demise of an extended family member.

Here are some pictures from the Vishu celebrations earlier this morning.





What after all is Vishu if you do not have a Mandrake strip to read. Emile has been kind enough to provide us with strips for the story "The Mirror People" which ran for 10 weeks. The version we have is from the pages of Magic Comic book.

Here is the first panel:


Download the story from Emile's original link here and shower your thanks on him.

Enjoy,

Venkit




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