Mandra, the magician

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Mandra, der Zauberer ( English : Mandrake the Magician ) is an American comic strip and its main character, which was invented in 1934 by Lee Falk .

content

Mandra is an illusionist whose work is based on an unusually fast hypnosis technique. He gestures hypnotically and the goal of his hypnosis sees what Mandra wants him to see. In his spare time, Mandra uses his skills to fight the crime. Lothar, a disempowered African king, helps him with this. Mandra finds his strongest opponent in the black magician Cobra. Later, Mandra in love with Princess Narda from Cockaigne (Engl. Cockaigne ).

publication

The comic appeared in American newspapers from June 1934, and was distributed by King Features Syndicate . Lee Falk wrote the stories and Phil Davis was in charge of the drawings. Initially, it was portrayed in such a way that Mandrake actually has magical powers. After protests by Christian organizations, Falk reduced his skills to hypnosis. After Davis' death in 1964, the illustrator Harold Fredericks took over , who after Falk's death in 1999 also took over the writing of the stories. Longer stories with the character appeared in magazines of Dell Comics and King Comics. The comics have been translated into several languages ​​and have appeared in Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Spain and Turkey, among others. Parodies of Mandrake and other early US comic strips appeared in Italy in the 1950s .

In German publications, the figure is called "Mandra" and appeared for the first time in 1965 in two issues by Mauerhardt Verlag . From 1967 to 1968 six issues were published by Semic Press under the title Mandra, der Zauberer, and in 1980 an edition Mandra, der Magier by Condor Verlag . The strips also appeared in the “Buntes Allerlei” series and were printed in newspapers, for example since 1949 in the Hamburger Morgenpost .

Adaptations

The figure has been adapted several times in other media. First in a 1939 twelve-part film series produced by Columbia Pictures . 1940 to 1942 followed a radio broadcast on Mutual Broadcasting System with the character and in 1954 a pilot episode for a Mandrake the Magician television series was created, which was never produced further. In 1979 the television film Mandrake was made based on the comic. Also in the 1970s, the musical Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress was shown at the Lenox Arts Festival in Massachusetts .

1986 made the comic publisher King Features Mandrake together with other characters from his comics such as Flash Gordon and Phantom to one of the main characters of the television series Defenders of the Earth . In contrast to the comics, Mandrake not only has hypnosis techniques in this series, but actually masters magic.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Denis Gifford: Obituary: Lee Falk , The Independent, March 19, 1999
  2. ^ Andreas C. Knigge: Comics - Vom Massenblatt ins multimediale Abenteuer , p. 228. Rowohlt, 1996.
  3. ↑ Entries in the German Comic Guide: Mandra (Mauerhardt) , Mandra (Semic) , Mandra (Condor)

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