Condor Verlag

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The Condor Verlag, also known as Condor-Interpart, ConPart Verlag GmbH or Condor Verlagsgruppe Berlin, is a German comic book publisher that specializes in publishing translated versions of licensed foreign comics. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Condor held the license for German editions of Marvel comics, which included Transformers. Between 1986 and 1991, Condor published a very... interesting selection of both Marvel US and Marvel UK stories. Many of the comics also contain unique text stories... unique to Condor, that is. At least one of the text stories was also published in a M.A.S.K. comic, with swapped out names.

Overview

The Condor Verlag was founded by Wolfgang M. Biehler on January 1, 1973. One of their first titles was a licensed version of Spanish funny comic Mortadelo y Filemón (known as Mort & Phil in English), released under the title Clever & Smart. Other titles were satire magazines such as Kaputt (a licensed edition of Major Magazines' Cracked) and comics aimed at young children such as Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry or Schweinchen Dick (Porky Pig).

In 1979, Condor acquired the license to publish Marvel comics such as Die Spinne (Spider-Man), Die Rächer (The Avengers) or Die Fantastischen Vier (Fantastic Four) when the license of the previous German publisher, Williams Verlag, ran out. Most Marvel comics by Condor were published in a downsized "pocket book" ("Comic-Taschenbuch") format, which usually resulted in extremely truncated dialogue. Some of Condor's more popular titles were later expanded with additional oversized publications ("Comic-Album") about the size as the Marvel UK Transformers issues. Die Spinne was even given a third series (Die Spinne Comic-Magazin) which was more or less in standard US comic book format. Condor's Marvel licenses expired in 1996, after which the German branch of Panini became the new Marvel licensee, which it still is today.

Characteristics

Among German fans, Condor's Marvel comics are known (or, better put, infamous) for the following:

  • A confusing publication order. It was anything but unusual for Condor to start in the middle of a longer story arc, leave out parts of an arc or drop an arc before its conclusion. For titles released in several formats, multi-part stories could also be published across these formats (for example, Spider-Man's six-part Kraven's Last Hunt saga was published in one issue of the Die Spinne Comic-Taschenbuch, two issues of the Die Spinne Comic-Magazin and one issue of the Die Spinne Comic-Album). Worse, the individual titles frequently featured stories that were originally published years apart, which made cross-references and crossovers between the titles very confusing for readers. The translations often tried to cover this up by referring to a more "contemporary" story published by Condor instead. Needless to say, the results were anything but convincing.
  • Clunky by-the-numbers translations that, while usually grammatically correct, omitted anything that made the original dialogue interesting. That doesn't mean the translations didn't have their own style, however—the truncated dialogue from the pocket books is known in retrospect for oftentimes absurdly colloquial expressions and frequently recurring phrases (often local dialect) such as "Fort mit Schaden!" (roughly "Good riddance!", standard phrase to accompany a punch in battle) or "Fiese Möpp!" (very roughly "nasty dude", the standard "insult" for enemies in battle). In really extreme cases, the limited size of the speech bubbles merely allowed for nonsensical "dialogue" such as "So?" - "Ja." - "Hah!" - "Huh?" - "Pah!"
  • Very cheap-looking typewriter-style lettering (changed to computer lettering emulating the look of hand lettering in larger format publications around 1992).
  • Outrageous covers that were a mix of original covers with new background colors, composite "collage" images created from elements from several different original covers and unique, self-made covers that often even depicted off-model renditions of characters. Large caption boxes, ovals and other shapes pointing out that the comic was "NEW", a "first German edition" and contained "[number] action-packed full-color COMIC pages of the popular MARVEL SUPERHERO" were a common feature as well. Some titles (such as the Captain America Comic-Taschenbuch and the Die Gruppe X Comic-Magazin) also featured the "Marvel 25th Anniversary" frame (found on all US Marvel comics with a November 1986 cover date, including issue 22 of Marvel's Transformers title) as a standard cover element, often with multiple miscolored characters.
  • The infamous "yellow pages" which contained background articles about the history of the Marvel universe, major crossover events and similar topics. In retrospect, many fans interpret the majority of these articles as "stories Condor wouldn't publish but needed to tell the readers about in order to understand the context of their current publications". For example, Condor completely left out the Secret Wars crossover and relegated it to a two-page text-only retelling in several of their comics.
  • A lot of characters were also given German names, either literal translations of their original names (the Fantastic Four became "Die Fantastischen Vier", the Avengers became "Die Rächer" etc.) or names that got the general meaning of the original name across (Spider-Man was named "Die Spinne", i.e. "The Spider", the X-Men were known as "Die Gruppe X", i.e. "The Group X", Daredevil was "Der Dämon" i.e. "The Demon", thus explaining his "DD" logo). However, Condor was merely following an existing trend and used many names originally established by previous German Marvel licensees. As time went on, some minor characters (mostly villains) reverted to their original names ("Nashorn" became "Rhino", "Der Strolch" became "Prowler"), whereas other characters such as Captain America or the Hulk had never had German names in Condor's comics to begin with.

Transformers comics by Condor

Aside from funnies and Marvel superheroes, Condor also published various licensed comic book titles based on toy/cartoon tie-in properties such as M.A.S.K., Teenage Mutant Ninja Hero Turtles, Action Force and Transformers.

The first Transformers comics published by Condor was a three-issue limited series with the semi-translated title Die Transformer in 1986, which reprinted the first four issues of the Marvel US title (which meant that pages had to be reassembled). In 1989, when RTL plus started airing a dubbed version of the cartoon, Condor launched an ongoing title, now as the Transformers Comic-Magazin. Both titles were printed in a larger format than the US title, about the same size as the UK comics. Although issue 1 picked up where the limited series had left off, issue 2 suddenly skipped the rest of the first long story arc and jumped straight to issue 14 of the US title. The next four issues continued reprinting the subsequent US issues in chronological order... but with issue 7, the title suddenly switched to a reprint of UK stories, starting with issues 96 and 97. For a while, Condor continued reprinting UK stories in chronological order (but left out the extra-long story from issue 100, which contains a lengthy flashback that refers to Target: 2006, which hadn't been published by Condor). The Burning Sky!/Hunters/Fire on High! arc omitted both the beginning (Wanted: Galvatron — Dead or Alive!) and the finale, Vicious Circle!, because Condor never published any material from UK annuals. Condor continued to publish UK material in chronological (albeit skipping some stories) order until the Transformers Comic-Magazin was cancelled in 1992 with issue 24.

In addition, Condor published for pocket-book-sized issues of the Transformers Comic-Taschenbuch between 1990 and 1991, which picked up the US title where the Comic-Magazin had left off, publishing 16 more issues in chronological order. The last two US issues reprinted by Condor contained the US reprint of Man of Iron.

Finally, Condor also released three specials named the Transformers Extra Comic-Sonderheft between 1989 and 1991, which contained UK stories not published in the Comic-Magazin (such as Grudge Match!, Kup's Story! or Headhunt), the US story King Con! (originally published long after the last US issues published in the final issue of the Comic-Taschenbuch), the first part of the Ancient Relics! crossover that was continued in Condor's Action Force title, and the (chronologically) last UK issues published by Condor, namely the first part of Aspects of Evil! (but not the other four) and (Double) Deal of the Century!. Since the latter two had originally been published in black and white by Marvel UK, Condor took it upon themselves to color them... and the results were hilarious.

Characteristics of Condor's Transformers comics

Unlike the Marvel superhero comics, Condor's Transformers comics retained the original English names of the Transformers characters (the occasional typo notwithstanding). Even the Marvel UK-only "Jawbreaker" name for Overbite was kept for the German version of Enemy Action! (Condor's Transformers Comic-Magazin #19).

Notes

  • Die Gruppe X, Condor's licensed version of the long-time top-selling X-Men series, was the first major Marvel title Condor had to cancel due to bad sales—the Die Gruppe X Comic-Magazin in 1989, the Die Gruppe X Comic-Taschenbuch in 1992. It wasn't until Panini took over the Marvel licenses that the X-Men (now under their original name) became a major title in Germany as well.
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