Gauls, a Cowboy and a Knight

I often wondered why in hell today's comic books are so poorely made. Drawing is an art form and cartoons and comics such as 'Cow and Chicken' are far off from being an art form! They are so lousy that my girls did better when they were three years old!

I grew up with good comic books and cartoons. I guess people had a little more pride back then. Pride in their work and a sense of responsibility for what they were displaying for the World to see!

One of my favorite comic books was Asterix and Obelix; the story about two gaelic warriors and their little town full of fearless folks. The only thing they feared was that the sky would fall on their head! ...Sometimes it does feel that way!

Asterix and Obelix are best friends and live together in a small house with their dog Idefix. The Chief of their village is Majestix and they have a Druide named Miraculix. The names may give it away already, but pretty much everybody is named after something that is typical for them or their profession. It kind of adds to the humor of this comic book serious.

Obelix fell into a pot of the potion their Druide Miraculix brews to give his villagers super-human strength. Due to that 'bath', Obelix is a little on the 'strong' side and often has a hard time controling that strenth. He also likes to eat; his favorite food being wild bore.
Asterix is smaller than him and relays on his bottles of potion he receives from Miraculix.

The series started in 1959 in France and by now has 34 volumes and has been translated in over a hundred languages. To my delight it has also been translated into Platt-Deutsch, my own North German language!

The comics are funny, the stories often hilarious, and the drawings are actually done with a great amount of details and attention to detail. And like every good story, there is always a bit of a lesson to learn added to it!

Luky Luke is a lonesome cowboy that rides into the sunset on his faithful horse Jolly Jumper and his equally faithful but rather ...slow dog Rantanplan.
His main 'enemies' are the four Dalton brothers that will remind you very much of the Three Stooges. He also, at one point or another, meets such famous names of the old West such as Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid or Sarah Bernhardt. He also participates in many well known historic moments we know from the old West. The one issue he deals the most with are the Dalton brothers.
The series started in 1946 and I belief there are over 50 comic books out there by now. It has been translated into 30 different languages. It was always a lot of fun to follow the 'Lonesome Cowboy'. He almost got married once, but escaped in the last moment; as always riding alone into the sunset and singing:

"I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, and a long way from home...".

Long before I watched the equally good movie, I would read one after another of the comic books my Dad had collected. One of my most favorite ones was Prinz Eisenherz aka Prince Valiant.
" Generally regarded by comics historiand as one of the most impressive visual creations ever syndicated, the strip is noted for its realistically rendered panoramas and the intelligent, sometimes humorous, narrative." (Wikipedia.org)

The movie is actually the story of the first comic on how the young Prince travels to Camelot and meets the Knight Gerwain and King Arthur. He gets trained to become a knight and eventually falls in love with the beautiful Aleta; a equally courages and beautiful lady.
The drawings themselves always fascinated me for their details and great skills. I always wished I could draw like that! Or lived at a time when standards of honor and honesty were so much higher than they seem to be now.

Besides appearing in over 300 American newspapers, there should be at least 30 comic books in the series. The series was orignially launched in 1937 and is printed in several languages. I will eventually try to collect them again, but they have become such priced goods that they are not easily found and can be very expensive.

For me, Prinz Eisenherz and his Aleta were a great part of my youth and a great memory.

Bruno Brazil was published between 1967 and 1995 and was one of the best drawn action comic book series I ever saw.

"Bruno Brazil is the leader of a small, elite combat unit of the American secret service, the 'Cayman Command', of which each member has some special skills. Together they fight crime and exotic threats." (Wikipedia.org)

The group was actually a collection of some very interesting characters and I had a lot of fun following them throughout the different stories. It was well written and well drawn and I felt it as a great loss when the lack of care of my ex husband had my collection fall victim to rain and mold.

Besides lots of action, the comics also had some great points to make; especially about things that are important to me like friendship and honor.

Hopefully one day I will be able to afford to collect them again.

Compared to the others, this story is relatively young and was published from 1978 to 2007. But the quality of the drawings and the story was of equal greatness. I loved reading about Schnitter (Cutter) and his Leetah (my first German Shepherd was named after her.) and their migration, their discoveries and the great love stories and more.

Yes, I am a romantic and a bit of a dreamer. But the stories were great and full of 'human' qualites I often miss in the people I deal with.

The story begins with Schnitter and his tribe of Wolfriders living happily and mostly peacefully in a hollow tree. But forced to leave they migrate across a desert and eventually meet Leetah and her tribe; their peaceful live unharmed by human interferance and the dangers by them.
Eventually they meet others, both good and evil, and learn a lot about where they came from and what their future may bring.

I managed to collect the story until shortly after I came to the States in 1995 and sadly don't know how it ended. But I hope one day I can finish reading it!