Serbian comics

Serbian comics
Earliest publications	Later 19th century on
Languages	Croat-Serbian
Related articles
European comics

Yugoslavian comics are comics written and produced in SFR Yugoslavia. During the 1970s and 1980s many comics have been published mainly in Serbo-Croatian language.

History

Before 1941

The history of Yugoslavian comics began in the 19th century in the form of caricatures in children's magazines. The war period stopped the development of comics during the 1930s when Russian aristocrats fled from their communist government and came to Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovene. In that time the so-called Golden Age of Yugoslavian Comics began.

In the newspapers, comics gained popularity through the children's edition like Politikin Zabavnik. Others followed soon. On 21 October 1934 in the newspaper "Politika" a whole page of Secret Agent X-9 appeared just a month after the American premiere.

Mickey Mouse (cs. Mika Miš) was the first long term comic publication dated from 1935 until the war in 1941. It followed US-series like Popeye, Prince Valiant, Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon and others. In 1939 was published with Zigomar the first Yugoslavian superhero comic.

After 1945

After the Second World War comics were soon banned because of the negative view they gave on the Yugoslav communist government until the end of the 1940s.

The government in Yugoslavia didn't forbid western comics like many other former communist countries. In the beginning of the 70s and during the 80s the second golden age of Serbian comics took place. Most of them were World War II stories like "Mirko and Slavko". They sold in more than one hundred copies. Politikin Zabavnik sold over 200 000 copies. Comics like Cat Claw and Tarzan (Serbian Version) where translated and published in many other countries.

However, this "second golden age" could keep very hard with Italian comics like Alan Ford, Il Grande Blek, Zagor and others, they dominated the Serbian as well the Yugoslav comics scene for decades.

1990 - now

After economy crisis in the 90s, Yugoslavian comics once again achieved great significance, mainly due to the comic book Partizanska zakletva that was very popular. In 1995 "Vjesnik" published two superhero comics Protman and Lavanman.

List of Serbian comics

• Strari mačak
• Billy the Spit
• Cat Claw
• Dikan
• Faktor 4
• Generation Tesla
• Kobra
• Master Death
• Mirko and Slavko
• Tarzan (Yugoslavian Version)
• Technotise
• Zigomar
• Prijatelji

List of Serbian comic artists

• Branislav Kerac
• Aleksa Gajić
• Zoran Janjetov
• Dražen Kovačević
• Goran Milenković Cane

List of films based on Serbian comics

• Billy the Spit (1986)
• City Cat (1991), from Cat Claw
• Technotise Edit & I (2008), from Technotise
• Factor 4 (TBA)

External links

• The Golden Age of Serbian Comics (English)
• Konstantin Kuznjecov, Fairytale about Tsar Saltan/The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, 1940 (Serbian)
• UPPS - Udruženje za promociju i produkciju stripa / Comics publishing and promotion society (Serbian)