Happyfarm

Here, by the way, is the Danish edition of the EC Big Book of Horror. This was published in 1974, and it's the first time we had EC stories published in Denmark, even though Haxthausen had already mentioned them in his book almost twenty years before.

And I already feel deeply guilty about that because the terrible thing is that this book is really difficult to find. ;) I've only stumbled upon it once, and that was when I found my own copy. I was lucky to find it at a flea market here in Copenhagen, though, in a pile of books where the seller didn't seem to know what it was. I did a podcast recently on the moral uproar over comics in Denmark in the 50's but unfortunately it's in Danish so I'm not sure many here would find it meaningful to listen to. If there are a few here who speak Danish you can find the podcast through this facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/vildhistorie/posts/pfbid02CKgi7ksP919U733nbo8eCAR7LUJGpA82W645cbyuMKsC4dnfrpG3mRTcUjrUiVVAl

Some fun Danish Superman books from the 60's with locally designed covers.

And here's a news photo from when comics and a huge figure of the Phantom were burned in Enghaveparken in Copenhagen in the summer of 1955 only a few feet from where I live now.

The influence of Frederic Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent wasn't limited to American soil but extended all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to a small country slightly to the north of where Wertham himself grew up in Germany. Namely Denmark where a book heavily inspired by Wertham's was published the year after his by Danish journalist Tørk Haxthausen. The title of the book was Opdragelse til Terror, which roughly translates as something along the lines of Raised to Terrorize, and it landed in Danish book stores in 1955 creating a moral uproar similar to what was seen in America and culminating in an autodafé at Enghave Plads in Copenhagen, only a few meters from my apartment, where jubilant parents would burn their children's comics. Here are some pictures of the book and interior pages with additional information added to each image. In fact, the book was so shaped by Wertham's that it also included examples from EC and other pre-code horror books, even though these had never been published in Denmark at the time. It's a pretty rare book today.

And the first Marvel superhero to ever appear here was Daredevil in January 1967. The cover proudly proclaimed that here was "a whole new superhero from space for the first time in Denmark!" I guess the editors had no idea what they were about to publish. Spider-Man was removed from the cover since he was about to be published here by a competing publisher a few months later.

The first Danish edition to ever sport an American superhero on the cover was Skipper Skræk # 34, published in August 1946. This book included both Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel, in Danish known back then as Atomdrengen (Nuclear Boy) and Atompigen (Nuclear Girl).

And another fun curiosum. The first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes (originally printed in Adventure Comics # 247) was printed in Danish Gigant # 16 in 1968.

Superman first appeared in Denmark in a woman's magazine Familie Journalen in 1940-41 with early Sunday pages but that was put to an abrupt end due to the German occupation. After the war he turned up in one of the earliest Danish comics anthologies Kong Kylie from 1948-51, with both daily strips and Sunday pages. Only 3 of these carried him on the cover. Notice how they reformatted the panels to create a half-page as opposed to the full American Sunday pages from the 40's. Furthermore the Danish edition almost solely used red as the only color, as did the early Danish Superman editions from 1950-52.

These locally designed covers were based on panels inside as you can see here (where I've put the Danish editions next to the IDW Sunday pages edition).

Here are some other early Danish Superman covers from the anthology title Kong Kylie 1951.

Thank you. It must have been taken when I was about 8-9 so somewhere around 1981-82, I think. My mother made the costume. Up, up and away!

I've now reuploaded some of the photos so hopefully you should be able to see them now.

Yes, they must have been printed at the same time and then cut afterwards. They published 39 issues all in all in 1958 so I would assume they were published on a weekly basis. Around 15 of them had Superman or Superboy on the cover. And then there were around 4 with Batman on the cover.

Yeah, it's a weirdly cool cover. This copy is in a bit of a rough shape so if you're interested you can have it for $ 30. I also have other Raketserier with Superman.

As far as I can see the photos are still visible? Did you get your # 33 at Heritage last fall? https://comics.ha.com/itm/silver-age-1956-1969-/raket-serier-33-danish-edition-forlaget-interpresse-1958-cgc-fn-55-off-white-to-white-pages/a/40210-83306.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515 If you're ever interested in other issues I have some extra copies for sale. Many of the Superman covers are quite cool.

Oh well... apparently Sprang's first name is so controversial that it's automatically changed to MR.

By the way, in my eyes MR. Sprang's art looks absolutely stunning printed in b/w in these Raketserier... despite the panels being reformatted. The story "A White Feather for Batman!", originally printed in World's Finest # 49 in late 1950, was reformatted and spread out over numerous issues of Raketserier.

And then after hibernating for four years he returned in Raketserier in 1958 and once again had to accept being misnomed Red Arrow. ;)

But when Danish Superman went full color in 1953-54 he was once again Green Arrow (Grønne Pil).

Here's an example of why Green Arrow ended up being called Red Arrow (Røde Pil) in Danish.

There's also this US cover, which looks a bit similar.

Thank you. It took me many years to complete it. I still need to upgrade my # 1, though, but it's just such an impossible book to find.

And my complete collection of Danish Superman 1950-54. The series folded in 1954 due to a moral uproar similar to what happened in the US after Wertham published The Seduction of the Innocent. In the first couple of issues Batman was called Læderlappen, which makes absolutely no sense in Danish since it means 'The Leather Patch'. It was probably simply copied from the Swedish issues where the word 'Läderlappen' at least also means 'bat'.