A comic of my childhood

According to comics, each of us takes a certain position. He accompanies us from childhood, through school, to the family environment. Today we meet him every day as soon as we open any daily newspaper or entertainment magazine. The comic does not use words and sentences that would stimulate the reader's spirit, but uses the direct presentation of motives, characters and situations through images.

In many different ways, comics have influenced the general culture of the world.

In France, Pablo Picasso supplied comics to Gertrude Stein's friend, and he found inspiration in them for some of his paintings, one of which is "Frank's Dream and Lie" (1937), which is now in the Metropolitan Museum.

Roy Liechtenstein would cut a dramatic scene from a comic book, make a color copy, enlarge it, draw it again on the big screen and paint it. The result was a large image that looked almost the same as a clip from a comic strip. That is how he transferred his visions to the canvas.

Many will say that comics are a superficial means of entertainment. Ah, how wrong he is! Labeling comics with nonsense ignores its many possibilities. Although exposed to neglect, the comic slowly and surely gained in importance.

One of my favorite comics (there are more) is Commander Mark.EsseGesse is synonymous with three Turin authors; Giovanni Sinchetto, Dario Guzzon and Pietro Sartoris who created the new hero.They pulled Commander Mark out of the sleeve, a kind of twin brother of the Great Black (EsseGesse's greatest success, who burned and burned Italy in the mid-1950s).

During the Seven Years' War between France and England, in 1756, an English battleship attacked and sank not far from the coast of America a French sailing ship carrying the cream of the French nobility. The only two survivors were a little boy and one middle-aged gentleman who saved him from the waves. The survivors were rescued by the Pawnee Indians and received into their tribe. The man will become the boy's father, and the boy will be given the name Mark, after the letter "M" embroidered on his shirt.

Mark will spend his childhood in the tribe with his stepfather who will teach him to read and write but also fencing and the use of guns and rifles. As is usually the case, his father's tragic death (being hanged by the English) interrupts Mark's peaceful life among the Indians and he dedicates his life to the fight against the English, the struggle for independence.

He joins a group of patriots who soon elect him leader and who call themselves the Wolves of Ontario, after Mark's Indian name Mark Wolf. Commander Mark is the embodiment of a classic hero; charismatic and invincible, whether fighting with a weapon or chest to chest, likable appearance and physical appearance, elegant uniforms, tireless fighter but also a genius strategist who will always find a plan to defeat the enemy no matter what situation he is in.

The authors also added to it some human virtues such as the ideals of equality, justice and freedom, cheerfulness and sociability, gallant manners in dealing with the fairer sex, therefore, the complete opposite of the rude and simple Black. However, like Black, he has a comic duo with him who faithfully follows him. But unlike Black and especially Mickey where Rody and Ocultis and Smuk and Salasso are constantly in trouble and thus retaliating more than helping the protagonist, falling into a series of comic situations, Mister Bluff and The Sad Owl are much more important actors in Mark's adventures and often they play a crucial role in the unfoldings.

Mr. Bluff is a bald bearded man who does not like to talk much about his past, and the reader can only guess that it is because the person in question may have done some things that are not exactly in accordance with the law, as evidenced by his friendship with the former pirate. El Ganchom, also one of the permanent cast of supporting characters appearing in Mark’s adventures. Bluff is a generous altruist, ready to give his life for his ideals and also a capable fighter, a nice womanizer who probably knows every waitress in the Great Lakes area. Bluff's inseparable companion is the dog Flock, whom he saved from death at the hands of the English, to the great sorrow of the Sorrowful Owl, who is waging an eternal war with Flock.

The mourning owl is the great chief of all the Huron Indians but at the same time one of the most dangerous Wolves of Ontario whom he joined in the fight against the English after the latter committed a massacre in his tribe. It got its name from the fact that on the night the owl was born, it "cried" all night. It can be said that his name fits him perfectly because he is by nature an incorrigible pessimist who constantly cries and predicts the most catastrophic possible events (which become even more catastrophic if women are involved in the plot) and which of course always turn out to be incorrect.

However, it is also full of the wisdom once uttered long ago by his famous Chukundeda Healer who is often quoted ... Unlike Bluff the Sorrowful Owl is misogynistic and avoids them as much as possible because “women only bring misfortune”, i.e. said his great-grandfather the Sorcerer, "to flee before the enemy is cowardice, and before the woman is wisdom"! At the only moment when the Sorrowful Owl was attracted to the fairer sex, in the form of the black woman Bedelia, he of course heeded the advice of his wise chukundeda. The mourning owl was initially intended to play the role of one of the main helpers of the Ontario Wolves through their Indian tribes, but later, with the appearance of Flock, that option was left a bit aside.

Flock first appears in the eighth episode, as a combination of happy circumstances. The authors wanted to use the dog to reinforce the impression of the wickedness of the English and the kindness of ours who saved him from torture thus gaining his fidelity. They continued another issue with Flok and this obviously satisfied the readers who sent them a huge number of letters asking them to continue to “use” him in their adventures.

And so they had to put him in the plot as a supporting character and, of course, as a consequence, change the role of the Sad Owl, who thus becomes Flock's opponent. And so began the eternal struggle between the two of them, like those of Duško Dugoušek and Duck Dača or Tom and Jerry, which stops only briefly while they are in danger from the English when they do not hesitate to come to each other's aid, but as soon as the danger passes, everything continues. old.

Another very important character with whom we end the presentation of the protagonist of the saga of Commander Mark. It's about Mark's fiancée Bety. Until the mid-1960s, women in comics were almost exclusively protagonists from the background, and according to the author himself, her role was to give more space to female characters and thus obtain an additional source of screenwriting solutions. At first glance, Bety is a real housewife who takes care of the house and the kitchen, but she often finds herself involved in some of Marko's adventures. She is terribly jealous and the fearless Mark, who is not afraid of the English company, finds himself in trouble when he has to explain to Bety the presence of this or that girl who is hanging around him.

Commander Mark experienced decent success in our time and a large number of episodes were published, only a few remained unpublished by Dnevnik in the Golden Series (not counting specials), and after the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Croatian publisher Porin tried to reprint which infamously failed after a dozen numbers. At the same time, in Serbia, Horus seems to continue to betray Mickey, Black and Mark, but with questionable success.

Either way, the characters in this series have left their mark on several generations of adult kids in the 1970s and 1980s, and even today some phrases and expressions first uttered by Sad Owl are used in everyday speech, and if nothing else they remind us to an innocent and carefree childhood and a time when we fought with a gleam in our eyes against the hated Red Uniforms alongside Commander Mark and his fearless Wolves of Ontario!