TURKISH COVER WITH DONALD DUCK FROM 1936

Above scan is of the cover of the no. 14 (dated Sept. 12th, 1936) of Turkish weekly children's magazine Gelincik. The cover illustration signed by Orhan Tolon (1912-2011), Turkey's pioneer comics artist, is among the earliest ever cover illustrations around the world (incl. the US) featuring Donald Duck as the main character. In the speech balloon, Donald rejoices that he is the winner of the race. The runner-up of the race may be, or is modeled on, Max the Hare from the Disney cartoon short The Tortoise and the Hare (1935) in which Donald does not appear.

Gelincik is one of the rarest of Turkish children's magazines from the 1930's. I have only two very tattered issues in my collection and haven't seen any other sample anywhere else. It was apparently a short-lived publication, which is rather surprising given that other publications from its publisher spanned over a decade. Gelincik was published by Mehmet Gürtunca's Ülkü Basımevi (Ülkü Publishing House), Turkey's leading publisher of children's magazines in the 1930s. Ülkü's other children's weeklies had frequently carried Disney comics, of both American and British origin; actually, Disney comics had first been introduced to Turkey in 1932 in the first issue of Ülkü's Afacan weekly. 

It was also in Afacan where Tolon first started doing comics work. Throughout the 1930's, he was the sole Turkish artist making comics. In the mid-1920s, one or two earlier anonymous Turkish artists appear to have tried their hand in comics, but Tolon is the first-ever Turkish citizen to sign his name in this medium.

TURKISH ARTICLE ABOUT MICKEY MOUSE CARTOONS (1934)

This article from no. 27 (from the year 1934) of Turkish cinema weekly magazine Holivut was kindly brought to my attention by my friend Özge Özyılmaz (*) who came across it while researching old Turkish cinema magazines for her PhD thesis on the coverage of Hollywood in pre-war and war-time Turkish film magazines. The article is apparently about animation in general with one section on p. 11 on Mickey Mouse cartoons which, the article reports, will began to be screened in Istanbul cinemas "in the coming season." Unless the author of the article has unknowingly missed any previous release of MM cartoons in Turkey, this indicates that they made their Turkish debut in 1934, with a six years delay from their inception in the US. I know that MM cartoons were being distributed in Britain as early as 1930, but I cannot find any info on the dates they began to be distributed elsewhere in the world. If anyone can kindly provide any info on the distribution of MM cartoons outside the US, esp. in continental Europe, that will be great. In any case, 1934 is a somewhat curious date for the possible debut of MM cartoons in Turkey as MM strips, possibly reprinted from French albums, had already began to be serialized in Turkish children's magazines as early as 1932 and even Turkish illustrators themselves had made several MM gag panels from that date onwards prior to 1934. And yet, it is also a fact that MM comics and story books did really proliferate in Turkey from 1935 onwards.
By the way, if anyone can point out the original source of the illustration on the upper right corner in which Mickey is reading an issue of Holivut, we will be very grateful.
(*) I also thank Cemil Yıldızcan for converting the pdf file into jpg format so that I could post it in this blog.

TURKISH DONALD DUCK BOOK (1961)

While Donald Duck books began to be published in the US (and also in the UK) since the late 1930s, titles headlining Disney's most famous duck appeared in Turkey much later. The earliest such Turkish title appears to be Ördek Kardeş Istanbulda [Brother Duck in Istanbul], first published in 1947. A very rare Turkish edition Donald Duck book is Vak-Vak Kardeş Masal Diyarında [Quack-Quack Brother in the Land of Fairytales], a 16 pages-long booklet translated by Turhan Tümay and published by Necmeddin Salman's Kitap Yayma Odası in 1959 as no. 30 of 'Küçüklere Kitaplar' [Books to the Minors] series; I have never seen a copy of this title, all the info I have on it is from the index of the Turkish National Library in Ankara.
The next in line was Vakvak Amca [Quackquack Uncle], currently the oldest Turkish Donald Duck illustrated story book in my collection. This 16 pages-long booklet was published by Edip Alşar in 1961 as no. 3 of 'Eğlendirici Çocuk Kitapları' [Entertaining Children's Book] series, and distributed by Gazeteci Kitap ve Yayınevi. Edip Alşar is an author of a soccer history book and also of school books for children. Gazeteci Kitap ve Yayınevi was a short-lived franchise active in 1960-62. It was apparently a miniscule enterprise as only a post box number is given as its adress.
Vakvak Amca features a very ugly Donald Duck illustraton on its first pageand two more illustrations in the central pages:The plot concerns Donald deciding to make a feast all for himself, with eventually smoke rising from the kitchen while the food is being cooked. It turns out to be a false fire alarm however as a bird is revealed to have blocked the chimney.
The backcover showcases the covers of the books from the series, all of which are Disneyic:

FIRST COLOR EDITION OF MICKEY MOUSE IN TURKEY (1941)

Above scan is from the no. 257 (dated March 29th, 1941) of Turkish weekly children's magazine Yavrutürk, featuring the first installement of 'Miki Fare ve Lambası [Mickey Mouse and His Lamp]' which happens to be the first color edition of a Mickey Mouse strip in Turkey. 'Miki Fare ve Lambası' is an abridged and colorized Turkish edition of a US daily newspaper continuity from 1939-40 known as 'the Miracle Master'. It was serialized in Yavrutürk till (including) no. 286 in a total of 30 parts with one page each issue.

FIRST COLOR EDITION OF DONALD DUCK IN TURKEY (1940)

Above scan is of the back cover of no. 206 (dated April 6th, 1940) of Turkish children's weekly magazine Yavrutürk, marking the first color edition of Donald Duck in Turkey. The Turkish edition is missing two panels from the original American Sunday newspaper edition from Jan. 28th, 1940 (below scan from a 1997 reprint):
Donald Duck Sunday newspaper comics would be reprinted in color in the back covers of Yavrutürk no.'s 206-212 and no. 216.

1944 MAGAZINE CLIP REGARDING TURKISH RELEASE OF BAMBI

Above scan from the no. 70 (dated April 29th, 1944) of Turkish children's weekly Çocuk Haftası [Children's Week], which had been serializing an illustrated text story of Bambi, is of a notice, perhaps an 'advertorial'!, urging its readers not to miss the movie itself which had opened in Istanbul's Sümer cinema. The one-and-a-half year delay for the Turkish release of Bambi (which had premiered in the US in August 1942) is quite normal given the wartime conditions.
The Sümer cinema, which had opened in 1930 as Artistik, would be renamed in the later decades as Rüya and then function as a venue for mostly B-movies. Further later, it would become an adults-only theater (*). A long way from Bambi!..

(*) On Dec. 27th, 2008, Rüya was raided by Turkish police's vice squad for being a site of gay prostitution. Next month, it was renamed as Yeni [New] Rüya and converted back into mainstream programming, eventually even hosting the Istanbul Film Festival. However, it closed its curtains for good on May 7th, 2010.

TURKISH PINOCCHIO VINYL RECORD

This is a Turkish "children's fairy tale" vinyl record (possibly from the late 1960s or early 1970s) of Pinocchio. It's not a song record, but features an audio renditio of the tale of Pinocchio.

TRACED PINOCCHIO COMICS IN TURKISH CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1945-46

Above scan is of the cover of no. 24 (dated Apr. 24th, 1946) of a little-known Turkish children's weekly magazine titled Şen Çocuk [Merry Kid], showcasing Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket alongside Laurel & Hardy as well as a bunch of Turkish comics characters featured in that magazine. Şen Çocuk had began to serialize the first comics adaptation of the feature-length Disney animation movie Pinocchio (1940), originally run in the US newspapers in 1939-40 as a Sunday half-page comics on the eve of the movie's theatrical release, from its first issue (Nov. 14th, 1945) onwards.

As can be seen from a comparison of the first installements in Şen Çocuk (above scan) and the US newspapers (below image, taken from the outducks archive), the Turkish magazine had produced a traced version with panels of reduced length in most cases, causing a loss of detail and overall decrease in the beauty of the original art. The practice of tracing would be very common in cheap Turkish comics publications of the post-war era.

The first issue of Şen Çocuk had also promised a locally-made Mickey Mouse comics for the coming issues, but that promise wouldn't materialize in the next 23 issues and I don't know if the magazine continued publication beyond the first 24 issues available in my collection.

By the way, the art in this promo for the promised Mickey Mouse comics is a reworking of the cover art of no. 8 (dated March 28th, 1936) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly.

BRITISH ALICE COMICS IN TURKISH CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1952

I've recently come across, at a Turkish online auction site, this Turkish children's weekly magazine from 1952 which apparently serialized the British-made Alice In Wonderland comics adaptation originally serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly the year before. The reader-bound volume of the first 40 issues of Karınca [the Ant] was offered at an unreasonably high starting price and I couldn't afford it (it did not receive any bids anyway). Hence, I don't know if it featured any other Disney comics, British-made or otherwise. The cover illustration at the right of the above image looks familiar, but I cannot immediately identify its original source.

Karınca was published by Nihat Bali and its editor was Ramazan Gökalp Arkın. According to the (often unreliable) Çizgiroman Ansiklopedisi, Bali (1928-1991) had made traced Mickey Mouse comics for a Turkish children's magazine in 1945. He is better known as a satirical/humourous strip artist, the short-lived Karınca marking his only stint as a publisher. Prior to Karınca, Arkın had also worked as editor in Şen Çocuk, a children's weekly from 1945-46 which had serialized a traced/redrawn version of the comics adaptation of Pinocchio. Later in 1952, Bali would handover the ownership of Karınca to Arkın. In 1966, Arkın would publish the short-lived Disney comics weekly Renkli Miki as well as a series of illustrated Disney story books.

SCAMP RUNS AWAY FROM HOME (1955)

Yes, this is not pre-war, but I think it's vintage enough. Below images are the first 5 daily Scamp strips, as published in Turkey's Milliyet newspaper, featuring the beginning of Scamp's first adventure:

Scamp had first appeared at finale of the animated feature Lady and Tramp (1955, and its comics adaptations from the same year) as the new-born child of the movie's protagonists. Later that year, he began to star in his own daily strip, scripted by Ward Greene and with art by Dick Moores. As can be seen from the above, the Scamp daily strips initially had entailed continuity adventures, but a gag-a-day approach would be adopted in the later years.

Scamp began to be published in Milliyet on Dec. 18th, 1955, starting with the original start of the strips from Oct. 31, hence with only a one and a half month delay from its debut in the US (*). It was retitled as 'Boncuk' [the Little Bead]. It was probably the first licensed publication of any Disney comics in Turkey. It was popular enough to be carried in Milliyet till March 2d, 1974.

From my own childhood, I recall that 'Boncuk' was still being published in some other Turkish newspaper by late 1970s or early 1980s.

A colorized and re-formatted version of this first adventure of Scamp would be published in no. 679 of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories in 2007.

(*) However, while the Scamp strip arrived in Turkey with almost no delay, the movie Lady and the Tramp, which had actually preceeded it, reached Turkey a year after the strip started! Below is the newspaper ad (from Milliyet) for its Turkish release on Dec. 26, 1956:

FIRST DISNEY COVER IN TURKEY AND OTHER DISNEY COVERS OF AFACAN (2ND SERIES)

Mickey Mouse gag panels had appeared on the covers of several issues of the first series of Turkish children's weekly Afacan (1932-34) but since that publication was of tabloid size, the said panels took up a small portion of the covers' area which they shared with other, non-Disneyic items and thus were not cover illustrations in the conventional sense. The first proper Disney cover of a Turkish publication came with the no. 3, dated Dec. 6th, 1934, of Afacan's 2nd series, whose scan is above. In the central illustration, Mickey is drumming to herald the coming of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The artist is unknown. The smaller figures at the top of the cover are apparently taken from yet-unidentifed foreign sources (the Horace in bondage figure at the upper left might have been cropped from a panel of Mickey Mouse daily strip continuity from 1931 featuring gypsies).

Despite the full-fledged Disney cover, the contents of the issue in question featured only one Disney comics, a gag from British Mickey Mouse Annual of 1933:

However, in subsequent years, Afacan would serialize several Disney comics, originating from Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly and at least two issues, no. 19 (Mar. 28, 1935) and 76 (Apr. 30, 1936), would feature covers of British origin, the former the cover of Mickey Mouse Annual of 1934 and the latter the cover of Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 8 (Mar. 28, 1936).

The next Disney cover in Afacan was in no. 134, dated June 10th, 1937, heralding upcoming adventures of Toby Tortoise ad Max Hare:

The art on this cover illustration originates from the cover of the 1935 Frech album Le liévre et la tortue by Hachette. The last Disney cover illustration in Afacan was at no. 204 (Oct. 13, 1938):

And this illustration is from the reverse of the cover of 1938 French album Blanche-Neige et les Sep Nains by Hachette.

DISNEY ILLUSTRATION ON THE COVER OF TURKISH CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1939

I give a break to my coverage of pre-war British Disney publications to post the above scan of the cover of a pre-war Turkish children's magazine which I acquired this weekend. It is no. 121, dated Jan. 13th, 1939, of Çocuk. The central color illustration is from the Disney Studio's Christmas/New Year's greeting card from 1931 (see post dated Dec. 5th, 2008 on vintagedisneymemorabilia.blogspot.com); if anyone can identify any other reprint of this illustration in any publication prior to its reprint in Turkey in 1939, I will be very grateful.

The contents of the issue in question does not contain any Disney comics or stories. However, several other issues, from 1943, which I also acquired, feature Mickey Mouse strips.

Çocuk was published by Dr. Fuat Umay, a parliamentarian who headed the public Children Protection Association. It is one of the very few (perhaps the first?) Turkish children's magazines based in Ankara, rather than in Istanbul.