Tom Berry

Tom Berry - The clever vagabond with heart and Colt was a Western - comic series of Erich Pabel publishing house , which from 1968 to 1972 in the Federal Republic of Germany appeared. Stylistically, the strip was one of the funnies .

Creation and publication

The booklet, which was printed completely in color, was initially published every fortnight between 1968 and 1972 and cost 90 pfennigs (later 1 mark ) with 32 pages. The publisher was Erich-Pabel-Verlag, which offered the series of issues to fill the gaps in the comic magazine Fix und Foxi , which was temporarily missing in the program and which had moved into its own hands or to Gevacur at Rolf Cauca's endeavors . The changeover to a weekly publication took place after a few issues. At the beginning, the graphic implementation was distributed between Germany ( Max Reindl and Josef Dachsel , for example booklet 8) and Spain ( Carlos Giménez , for example booklet 1). Later, the Ortega studio in Barcelona was almost without exception responsible for the artwork , with illustrators such as Gimenéz, Francisco Diaz Rojo , José Castillo , Alfonso Borillo , Jaime Mainou and Jesús Blasco . In some issues, figures and scenes based on Lucky Luke volumes appeared (see for example Tom Berry issues 14, 45 and 47).

The series was discontinued with issue 218. During its term, two special editions of double size appeared. Two books (10 and 9 issues), thirteen Maxis (2 issues each) and forty-four anthologies (3 issues each) have also been published.

Content and development

The title character Tom Berry portrayed a blond cowboy with a tousled mane, argumentatively reliable fists and unerring Colts who, together with his blue horse Rosalie and the dog Schnuffi, who was added in 1969 (Volume 34), had adventures in the wild west.

Studio Karel Verschuere joined the suppliers of the comic pages from volume 78 and introduced the new style guide in the 100th anniversary issue , whereby the previously funny figure, strangely enough, was drawn more realistically. With issue 127, the editors and studios restored the familiar characterization at the request of the readers. However, it was only from issue 140 onwards that graphic consistency began to emerge.

Another figure in the booklet with its own sequel stories was Adlerfeder . This realistic series was thematically based on existing titles such as Bessy or Silberpfeil from Bastei Verlag , also developed by Studio Verschuere and was partially reprinted in Kauka's Lupo paperbacks.

Merchandising

In addition to large-scale prize puzzles, a range of by-products was brought onto the market via the so-called Tom Berry Store : wallpaper , car stickers , bicycle pennants , the TB silver dollar , quartet games , toy figures , beach balls, pens , greeting cards , and collection folders for the notebooks.

more publishments

In France , Benelux , Austria , Italy and Switzerland , the German-language original issues were partly delivered at the same time, partly with regionally different delays. In addition, the early adventures were translated in some European countries (e.g. France, Spain , Greece , the Netherlands , Turkey ) and distributed independently. Sometimes they appeared as a sub-series (as in 'il Giornalino') or reassembled in small-format pocket notebooks , sometimes also printed in one color. In the Netherlands the series was known as 'Jerry Lee' (9 issues by Nooit Gedacht , 1968), in Spain it was subtitled 'El "Tornado" del Oeste'. In Turkey, the series of booklets was renamed 'Mini Ringo', and at the same time it received newly designed covers by the popular illustrator Aslan Şükür, which were mainly based on the templates by Carlos Giménez. The French licensed edition was also partially distributed in Canada . Spain also supplied Mexico .