The Phantom Head: Mandrake

Showing posts with label Mandrake. Show all posts

Saturday, August 21, 2010

English Version of Mandrake Daily D065 - The Million Dollar Loaf

The English version of Mandrake Daily #D065 "The Million Dollar Loaf".

This has been a unique project for me. Translating from a language which is completely alien to me was interesting when I began but became a little tiring and time consuming as the work progessed and once the initial phase was over the speed became slow. Because I was taking help of mechanical translator like Google Tranlation, the conversion was not very smooth, as I mentioned in my last post, but somehow I was able to complete it.

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Monday, August 2, 2010

Mandrake Daily Strip D065 - "The Million Dollar Loaf" in Hindi (लाख रुपये की डबलरोटी)

Presenting today Mandrake Daily Strip No. 65 - 'The Million Dollar Loaf' in Hindi. This strip was only available in French so far (as I know). I decided to translate it so that it can be read by readers of other languages.

Now, French is completely 'French' to me. How could it be possible? I knew nobody who could help me in translation of French. So thought, why not try with Google Translation service? First it appeared almost impossible task. To write all French dialogues (which didn't make any sense to me at all, as I do not know even the basics of this language) was a tough job. Secondly, google translation does not work as smoothly, as one would desire it to. The sentences I got back from machine were almost equally incomprehensible. Then I tried to convert them to both Hindi and English, and somehow it worked. Now I was able to infer something which made some sense. At some places I was also forced to use some common sense.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Mandrake Sunday Strip 072 - The Casino (year 1957) cleaned and coloured

First an announcement. I have joined twitter and my tweets are now available at twitter.com/phantom_head

And here comes a Mandrake Sunday strip illustrated by original artist Phil Davis. This is sunday strip No. 72 - "The Casino" from 1957. It's not a very long story but I found the story interesting enough to be taken for colouring.

I had downloaded the black and white strip pages from Lothar's blog, which is a fine blog dedicated to Mandrake strips. It seems that he had downloaded it from some newspaper archive and hence the quality of print was not good. A lot of black spots appeared on the pages which required treatment before the strip could aquire some presentable form. Out of eight pages, four were cleaned by somebody (most probably Lothar himself) when I downloaded it. But the remaining four were still in quite a bad condition.

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Preview of Mandrake Colored Strip (Currently Under Project)

Completed first 20 pages of the mandrake strip I talked about in my previous post. It is a classic Falk-Davis strip from 1939, 'D017 The Deep South'. Just posting a slide-show for preview purpose.

As suggested by friends, the entire strip will be available to download only when it is completed. You may want to take a look at the pages, so I am just giving a link for small (400 px wide) version.

Download first 20 pages

(400 px wide, just 1.4 MB)

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Original Black and White scans courtesy Balaji. See this post.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

TPH #047 The Hangman's Knot - Mandrake (Indrajal Comics #338)

First of all, condolences to Indian Hockey. After many years of untiring (without ever hinting at retiring) efforts, Mr. K.P.S. Gill has finally succeeded in securing a place for it in graveyard where it may lie in peace for ever. Thank you Indian Hockey, you gave us few (even in recent past) but proud moments to cherish. --------------------------------------------------- This story takes mandrake to the journey of deep ocean. Again the quality of imaginative thinking takes the reader to another world of fantasies where only the pen of Mr Falk guides the way for the mesmerized comic lover. Those who liked Mandrake's walk on clouds, would certainly love this one too. This is again a contributory post. Comic is scanned by Mr. Ajay Mishra. I have given some photoshop effects. Its better now. Enjoy.

Download TPH #047 (32 pages, 9 MB)

Friday, February 29, 2008

TPH #043 Battle of the Giants - Mandrake (Indrajal Comics #362)

Watched today a year old movie from disney studio "Bridge to Terabithia". It has been publicised as from the makers of "The chronicles of Narnia". While that one was between ok and good, this movie immensely bored me. Just couldn't get the whole idea. In fact couldn't wait for the end screen to display and put off the player. Surprisingly the movie has managed some rave revies from critics. See this or this. But someone has put it in better words:

That's what worries me- kids are going to be expecting Narnia or Harry Potter and get something completely different. As a result, they won't like it, when they might have liked it if they had had different expectations.

Presented now is another mandrake story or rather two stories. This time scanned by someone else probably by Mr Ajay Mishra.

Download TPH #043 (27 pages, 7.12 MB)

Thursday, February 28, 2008

TPH #042 Registan Ke Garbh Main - Mandrake (Indrajal Comics #V21N06)

Discoverd this wonderful wildlife photogrphy blog by Kalyan Varma. Stunning images. Also liked this photo blog by Suneel Deepak. The man lives in Italy and writes at least four blogs, one each in hindi, english, italian and this photo blog. -------------------- This is a very special Indrajal Comics for me. This is one of those very few surviving members of my original IJC treasure. Well, there are few other but this one is extra special because I still remember the day when I purchased this copy from a nearby book shop. It is 24 years now and much has changed but that shop is still there, though now his son is the owner. I think I have a reasonably good memory when it comes to comics. There is one more comic that I remember purchasing, will be putting it here soon. A good mandrake story this. First I read it as a sunday strip in 'Hindustan'. Sunday strip 171 'El Dorado'. (Deepwoods says its Sunday #149)

Download TPH #0042 (29 pages, 1024px width, 7.53 MB)

Sunday, February 17, 2008

TPH #038 Aatank Ke Ghere - Flash Gordon (Indrajal Comics V20N16)

----------------------------------------- [Update: 19 Feb 08] Comic Crazy has prepared this wonderful header for TPH. Fantastic work. Thank you comic crazy. ----------------------------------------- A lot many two part indrajals appeared on different blogs this month. I am going to do the opposite. Here comes an IJC with two short but complete stories. The Flash story is a sweet one. No fighting, no acrobatic flights, but a simple but imaginative story about some prisoners who were sent to another planet as part of their prison term but in an attempt to set themselves free, unintentionally reach another place and found the conditions not so unsupportive untill ... The second one is a very short mandrake story. Original strip number S169 Center stage terror. It ran for only 7 weeks from 7 Feb 1982 to 21 Mar 1982. IJC has full seven pages. The condition of physical copy is not very good, so scans are not of ultimate quality. In fact it was a challenge to scan this and I am happy that I could do that finally. My copy is also not having front cover so it is taken from ICC's post of covers of vol. 20. Thanks to him and to original scanner (if it is someone else). Adding Hindi title on cover is my work.

Download TPH #038 (28 pages, 1024px width, 7.75 MB)

Monday, February 11, 2008

TPH #037 Bandi Jadugarni - Mandrake (Indrajal Comics #V25N04)

----------------------- [Update, 17 feb 08] CW has sent few pages of diamond digest in which this story was published. I am putting those here. In his own words, "This Indrajal version is having many panels 'edited' due to space/culture compulsions. Starting full 2 pages are almost omitted in this Indrajal version." TPH I am sending you the scans of those 2 pages and of a 'other' page which is worth interesting to read." Thanks. ----------------------- [Update, 12 feb 08] Comic Crazy has designed a wonderful header for ACK blog. It has been put on the blog, take a look at it. Thank you comic crazy for this fantastic gift. ------------------------ The young lads are performing well. The two sharmas won it for India yesterday at Melbourne. First Ishant with very impressive display of fast bowling and then Rohit Sharma with a cool head ensured that India is out of troubled water. A very attractive offer for Ishant from a female Australian cricket blogger here. But Yuvraj is proving to be a liability out there. Not even the shadow of the man he used to be few months ago. Is something distracting him from concentrating? Poor Robin Utthappa didn't get a chance to show his skills in both the previuos matches. He is a man to watch to me. Gautam Gambhir is in good nik, but I still feel there should be one more experienced man like Saurav or Dravid in case something goes wrong. Now the comic. A good story indeed. Read it yourself. Strip No.: D204 Aleena and the Smugglers (Deepwood says its D194), ran for 17 weeks from 29 Sep 1986 to 24 Jan 1987.

Download TPH #037 (32 pages, width 1024px, 8.05 MB) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- < diamond version pages sent by CW >

Friday, January 18, 2008

TPH #031 Ashtank Ki Teesari Bhuja - Mandrake (Indrajal Comics #V24N42)

Another gripping story of "8". I scanned this one in a higher resolution of 1024 px width, so that this superb story could be enjoyed to the fullest. File size is slightly incresed due to this but I think it is still well under acceptable limit. This story was previously published in Indrajal Comics as #195 Messangers of Death (1973). The cover of old version is from CWs post of front covers. Hindi title is my work.

Download TPH #031 (8.42 MB)

Thursday, January 17, 2008

TPH #030 Chudail Ka Chakkar - Mandrake (Indrajal Comics #V20N44 )

Interesting mandrake story from indrajal comics. Marriage proposal for mandrake from a 'witch' but turned down as you would expect in favour of miss universe. Lothar has nothing much to do here except being a witness. Cover courtesy ICC post of covers (11 July, 2007). I removed the english title and put the hindi one.