1980: BATTLE OF THE PLANETS in HOLLAND - PART TWO

Last week I ran scans from two Dutch BATTLE OF THE PLANETS comic strip albums featuring the Spanish strips I'd not seen before (they didn't reach the US or UK markets, which is a shame).  Today, we go Dutch again with two copies of their translations of the US comics published by Western.

Each Dutch issue reprinted two US issues, translated of course.  As many of the US issues featured two stories, this meant Dutch kids had four self-contained stories per issue. 

Issue one featured reprints from the first two US issues: Operation Decoy becomes De Ruimtekrab whilst Undersea Threat translates as De Ruimteschildpad.

The Ice Creature from Western’s second issue becomes De Ruimtesneeuwman whilst The Flaming Menace translates to De Ruimtevulkaan.

I don’t have the second Dutch issue but I see no reason to suspect that it doesn’t contain translations of the 3^rd and 4^th US issues.

The third Dutch issue reprints the material first seen in the 5^th and 6^th Western issues: The Hidden Enemy is now De Ruimtevijand and The Vulture Menace becomes De Ruimtegier.  The full-length story from Western’s 6^th issue, Ghost Ship parts 1 and 2, becomes Het Ruimteoog deel 1 and deel 2.

Unlike issue 1, the third edition doesn’t appear to feature a next-issue plug which suggests that maybe only three issues saw print.  There were ten US issues.

Some of the strips would be familiar to British BOTP fans too: the same US material appeared in the UK annual and the 1983 and 1984 specials.

1980: BATTLE OF THE PLANETS in HOLLAND - PART ONE

Whilst we're on the subject of BATTLE OF THE PLANETS (or, in this case, DE STRIJD DER PLANETEN) comic strip versions, here's a Dutch one that isn't derived from US or UK reprints.

It's amazing what you can find in the basement of London book stores, I think I paid 50p for this oddity.  It's Dutch (I *think!*) and features a BOTP strip I'd not seen anywhere else.  A bit of digging online reveals these were originally produced for the Spanish market (four albums and 17 comics, featuring different material to the albums, were published there).  I'm 99% certain it never appeared in English, at least not in the UK or the US.  Which is a bit of a shame as it looks really nice.  Of course, I have no idea what it says.

There must have been at least three of these A4 full-colour albums, the titles of the other two are (I assume) on the back cover although I have no idea what they are.  Any ideas?

The publisher, Junior Press, also issued (at least) three US-sized colour compilations of Western's BOTP comics, running two US issues per album.  By some quirk of fate (and from a completely different transaction) I also have a couple of these and I'll run them here in the near future.

Interior page

Back cover