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Sergio Bonelli Comics Discussion Thread

It is way too difficult to get any good arts, pngs or straight up images of any characters that aren't the main ones from Bonelli. Even Hellingen, that is the biggest Zagor villain, has a relatively small amount of usable images. Most are either too small, include multiple characters in one way or another or are straight up comic covers.

Also, was looking for interesting matches for Zagor, but it's been tough. DOOM Film Doomguy and 2003 movie Daredevil could be interesting but they're a bit lacking, I think. Zombie Jason could be very good and I'm tempted to do it, just gonna analyse a bit more before doing so, since it seems rather hard for Zagor to damage him without a lot of help. Funnily enough, I know that with option equipment he could OHKO Jason (Rakum's Bow wrecks), but I'll wait a bit.
 
Yes, it's really difficult to find any.

What I usually do is searching the authors' social media or the official Facebook pages of each series, all of which usually post scans of upcoming issues, their own pieces of work, commissions and so on.

The Bonelli website also gives 2-3 scans of each issue, althouth the more you go back in time with the issues the less of them you find.

Before throwing Zagor into a fight let's be sure to have our boy prepared and ensure his victory.
 
To be fair, Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep could take a much weaker form, but yeah, Bonelli's gonna be really unusual in that regard, lol

Actually, there's a video game called DUSK that has a Nyarlathotep that shouldn't be above 8-C. Great game, btw, Doom-styled and with a lot of exploration and diversity.
 
That's kinda cheating for Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep, though.

Dampyr's Nyarlathotep has a lot of haxes, like death stares, petrification, mind shenanigans and such; can become a giant (tens of metres) and in his human-sized form can fight evenly with master vampires, holding himself back just for the joy of the fight, but overall lacks pure demonstrations of power.
He did a pseudo Low 2-C feat by clashing his powers with those of another being, Hastur, causing a space-time vortex that dragged the universe they were into the fabric between universes (which would require a deeper explanation on the cosmology), but more than raw ap it seems to be a chain reaction of his hax and something he apparently can't cause on his own.

Him and other Great Old Ones (in Dampyr they are the same as the Outer Gods) originate in a sealed-off place that exists outside the Multiverse, but I'm unsure it can be considered higher dimensional. There are statements about it being a 5th or even 12th dimension, but only through the writings of past alchemists, making them no totally reliable, I think.

But thinking of it, Nyarla may be compared to Dampyr's Cthulhu, who caused the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake just by waking up in the past, which had an 8.5 magnitude, i.e. Small Country level for total seismic energy.
But that happened off-screen, so I don't know if it's usable for scaling overall.
 
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That's interesting. Personally I'd consider them as "possibly Universal+ or higher", as that chain reaction did cause an universal-scale event and they shouldn't be that much weaker, plus with those dimensional statements... It's a bit iffy, as you said, but it does warrant a "possibly" rating. It's hard to think that a being clashing against the other and making an Universal+ reaction without specific circumstances supporting not scale to it, even if only partially.
 
The iffy thing is that the chain reaction was caused by what Nyarlathotep calls "his own powers" and Hastur's science, and the vortex couldn't be stopped even by Nyarlathotep himself, who even admitted it.

That also is added by the wiki standards for stuff like that, where special powers that not necessarily scale to general AP, and that are unclear or iffy, are considered environmental destruction or plain hax (what comes in my mind are Broly and Gogeta's dimension destruction feat being space-time manip. or Fairy Tail Zeref's resetting a universe 400 hundreds years in the past "just" time manipulation").

Also, I don't know if it matters in this case, but that universe didn't came to an end immediatedly, even though it sank outside of reality in a matter of minutes, it was still "overtime".

Granted, I'm not against a possibly rating, just obsessed with precision and accuracy.
 
Oh, I see... Then it's a bit different. I still would consider it "possibly", but I'd explain that he couldn't perform the feat by himself, and that he himself said he couldn't stop it. Scaling to a considerably lower end of Universal+, methinks. Maybe it wouldn't even really scale to normal AP, but it is still a notable thing.

By the way, I'm finishing Zagor's second series and decided to read a bit of Nathan Never. Zagor has some more feats but nothing too crazy, stronger mind resist and he once again proves that humans are the stronkest animal by beating the stuff out of a tiger in melee. The nice part is that now I have enough material to make a profile for Bela Rakosi, which should be done soon. And Nathan Never is cooler than what I expected, it started a bit cheesy and generic but really hooked me by the end of the first issue. So far, Nathan himself is kind of average, but the tech in Nathan Never's world is crazy. An android straight up ripped out a very thick, futuristic reinforced steel hangar door with ease, and a dude had a monomolecular wire that could tear steel like butter. I have high expectations for 'em!
 
Nathan Never is one of the series that always fascinated me, I heard it has a strong continuity, with many plot twists, revolutions and stuff like that, but I couldn't follow nor truly start it for money reasons.

I'd like if Bonelli could make something like Marvel Unlimited, it really would help people to read, catch up, start or discover their series without having to spend money and time to recover hundreds of physical volumes, and they could even spread them better in other countries.
 
Nathan Never's pretty cool from what I remember, my father actually owns the very first issues of it but he's got them in some place I can't be bothered to go dig
 
Nathan Never is one of the series that always fascinated me, I heard it has a strong continuity, with many plot twists, revolutions and stuff like that, but I couldn't follow nor truly start it for money reasons.
Oh yeah, me neither. I found some issues in my house and read some more outside of it but I'm only able to read them because there are plenty of fans online in Brazil that try to scanlate the older, almost impossible to find nowadays stuff.

I'd like if Bonelli could make something like Marvel Unlimited, it really would help people to read, catch up, start or discover their series without having to spend money and time to recover hundreds of physical volumes, and they could even spread them better in other countries.
Indeed, I'd love if Bonelli did that. Perhaps with some time, if the series get more popularity they may do something like that. Who knows?

I'm personally excited to tackle the Bonelli universe's more unknown part for me. I was always more of a Tex and Zagor fan because all other issues were mostly unknown to me, but I've always wanted to know Dylan Dog, Nathan Never, Mister No, Magic Wind and Martin Mystére better, and this thread helped me find out not only many of those stories, but actually many other series I didn't even know that Bonelli made.
 
I used to read Dylan Dog since a long time, but never following the series in a proper way, then I fell in love for Dampyr some years ago, both because my mother reads them alongside Julia, while I've always been a manga and comics-guy for what concerns comics.

With the Dampyr movie coming out in some months, and the new Dylan Dog TV series (both in english as first language), maybe Bonelli will have the success oversea he didn't have until now, considering that they apparently invested a good amount in both products to make them good, unlike the awful Dylan Dog movie that has been made years ago.
 
I hope it indeed does better! The Bonelli universe deserves much more attention than before. (By the way, not the thread for this, but I'm beat down from Miura's death... Poor guy :c)

I've finished the second Zagor series, I'll just need to upload and evaluate each feat now more carefully. Also, I confirmed it on Bonelli's site, sadly for the villain I wanted to make a profile of, he's a far too old character to have a good image from the publishers, I'll need to cut it myself from the issue. But that's understandable, it was a very minor villain of a two-issue arc of the first Zagor series, while right now Zagor is well into his fifth series, more than 400 issues away from the one I talked about. Still, it's a shame, for a minor villain he was a very tough cookie for Zagor, completely dominating him in melee and having some very decent feats overall.

By the way, I love how in Bonelli works even the very minor villains are still mighty interesting characters and, in a VS-matches sense, still fully applicable, even if a bit lacking in feats. For example, in Nathan Never #1, there is a minor villain that is killed off near to the end, but until that point, had about 5 very solid feats.
 
I can't speak for all series, but even in Dampyr one-off villains have either interesting abilities or some transformation, or are at least related to some particular context, like a new location or something else plot-related, either by their own story or through some major villain they serve.

Also, I wanted to ask you some more info about this "Vecchi" you reference in the translation blog, I guess it's some kind of issue that hosts Zagor and possibly other comics, but I coulnd't find anything on internet, most likely because "vecchi" is the plural for "old", so you can imagine such search can't give great results (and I regret searching "vecchi brazil")
 
Eyup. Same thing with most other villains here.

By the way, I cut a striking comic panel that Rakosi appears, and for now it seems serviceable.

LOL, I'm not surprised. Vecchi was publisher here in Brazil that, if I'm not mistaken, has been down for a long time now. There is little information on it now since it has died down a few decades ago, this portuguese link is the best I can give. Zagor, here in Brazil, went into publishing by four different publishers: Vecchi, Rio Gráfica & Globo, Record and Mythos, with the latter to this day publishing Zagor editions. Those also published the Tex comics, but weirdly, while each publisher "reset" the edition count (For example, Zagor #1 for Vecchi is the Origin of Zagor, while Zagor #1 for Rio Grafica & Globo is The Accursed Treasure) in Zagor, in Tex they kept the count straight.

It is fairly easy to get the right issue number from italian comics with a little of searching, but I was ordering the blog as it was published here in Brazil, so if needed, I can adjust a bit! For Vecchi it is easy as they followed the series by the book, so no adjustment needed.
 
The panel looks good, it's something I'd look for and use too.

Thank you for the info, I don't actually know which type of issue should be best to use, as the scans aren't the italian ones, but I think adding on the blog the link to the Vecchi wikipedia page would be good, so people can easily know what it is without finding creepy photos of old, very muscular men on Google instead.
 
How do series work in Brazil?

I keep seeing you talking about first, second and so on series, while here in Italy the same series just goes on indefinitely without formally marking any difference between a first or second "season".

What we call "series" for a single characters are side issues, like specials, color volumes, spin-offs, maxi volumes and so on. It would be interesting to know how they are handled oversea, if they even arrive there.
 
That is a valid question. In fact, I'll try to, after finishing uploading, try to make a second addition to my blog, adding what the comic number would be in Italy, as it is the "mother country" of the franchise.

Answering it, I don't know the exact reasons why, and it is inconsistent franchise to franchise. As I commented before, Tex is more or less identical to how it is published in Italy. Tex "second series" is just a reprint with updated text, less art errors and the like, but otherwise, the only divisions are special editions like "Tex and the Adventurers", "Tex Gold" (Which itself is just a collection of Tex' best stories, colored), "Tex Special" and the like. From what I've garnered, it is the same for all other Bonelli series.

For some reason, Zagor is different. Vecchi was publishing Zagor issues until a certain point, when their publishing rights for Zagor were acquired by Rio Gráfica & Globo, another publisher here. Instead of following the issues, they reset it to #1. For example, if I'm not mistaken, Vecchi stopped publishing Zagor after issue #55, but when RGG took over, instead of publishing issue #56 as, well, #56, it reset the count to #1. All other publishers did the same. I think that Mythos may be an exception, as it has republished issues like the Origin of Zagor, but those may be the exception, rather than an attempt to publish them on the right order.

I'm distinguishing the series in my blog mostly for reference to myself, as otherwise I can get lost (I may be unsure if a feat is from #1 from Vecchi or from #1 published by, say, RGG), but I should add the "right" issue next to it, as it was published in Italy.

It is a fairly simple conversion as I just need to add (Issue 2 from RGG is just 55 published by Vecchi + 2 published by RGG, so #57). Sorry if I confused you in my explanation, it is a weird thing lol
 
Looking at the lifting feats, I have a simple calculation request, and for one it is a simple one that I don't have any problems with. On this panel, Zagor lifts a very large rock, albeit with a lot of difficulty (For reference, Zagor is 1,87 meters; right now Imgur is under maintenance but I think that's the right scan). I think Zagor should be Class 1 by consistently overpowering animals such as jaguars and managing to struggle with tigers, bears and stuff (There was one issue that I haven't gotten to yet, but that I know he managed to stop a buffalo on his tracks by sheer force alone, although only for some seconds and was getting overpowered), but this could yield good results, I think.

Class 1 would be consistent anyways with how outrageously strong Zagor is depicted and Class 1 being the greatest strength feats of deadlifters. Even men that are renown as "the strongest of town", much larger and burlier than he is, fail badly at measuring up to him.

This also reminds me that I oughta make a post discussing Lifting Strength someday. It won't really change anything, but I find that it would be useful for people to know that LS is a very, very general term. Different positions and methods of lifting something grant very different results, and that is not even getting into the differences between gripping, lifting, pushing, pinching and other types of strength...
 
I kinda do agree that gripping strength being equated to lifting and pushing is weird, but considering how many anime verses ride on that you're gonna get a fuckton of pushback.
 
Yeah, I don't really expect to change anything. In fact, it probably shouldn't since, if accepted, there would be several thousands of profiles that'd need to be re-evaluated. I can argue even that gripping shouldn't be that far off from lifting in very general terms and in lack of other feats, with special exceptions (Like Hanayama from Baki that has much higher gripping strength than lifting).

However, there is a severe disparity between each one of them. From lifting alone, by experience I had in gyms and martial arts, it is completely different picking something from the ground and lifting it, lifting something while squatting, lifting something with the legs while prone, while using halter bars... I mean, even when I was very young and weak, struggling to lift 5kg weights in each hand and doing a simple cross movement, I could lift over 40kg loads using the legs quite easily on a press bench, but conversely, using the legs on another machine whose nome I don't know in english was WAY more difficult with a 5kg load in total.

And that's not even going into pushing stuff that was way above my own weight (since pushing is quite easy on the body), or the strength required to throw someone over the shoulder in a judo move, or even the strength of a good grip. I've seen some really buff gym dudes that couldn't really throw each other as my bujinkan sensei could throw them in body throws, nor could they put as much force in their grip as my sensei did too.

Again, I'd need to give a lot more evidence, scans, links and research, for both real life and fiction, but that's kinda my point. Lifting alone can have very different yields depending on the circumstance and body part used, and different parts of what people consider "lifting" can have even larger differences.

In any case, for now I'll focus on evaluating Zagor's feat. Maybe I'll try to calc it myself, as it should be fairly simple, but we'll see.
 
I've updated the sandbox, writing the general "Power of the Verse" section.

On the top you see the version that might be ready to be shipped soon, featuring only Tex and Zagor's tabbers for now, without the "verse-specific characters section.

Below there is the first and more work-in progress one, which can be used to make experiments and as a basis from which take elements to update the main one.

Since everybody can edit it, feel free to add stuff, correction and the likes. I'd also like to ask you, Eliminator, to write a summary and a general "power of the verse" description for Tex and Zagor's tabbers, as you are the most suited person for doing it.

Obviously there's no rush, between real life, reading, making blogs and calcs, and everything, this is still already rather time-consuming, so take all the time you need.
 
It looks extremely good! I wish there was more to say, but really, I'm astounded!

I'm excited to help, and will do soon as soon as possible. I'm finishing the scan uploads, so soon I'll be able to help on that.
 
I tried to be concise, as that explanation is meant to cover all series, so my idea was basically to explain the "Bonelli archetype", with its shades and exceptions.

The tabbers are there exactly to talk more specifically of each series.

And thanks to help, I'm glad to see you so enthusiast.
 
Looks really good, but I think it'd have been better if you'd have translated them, then posted the profile. I like the profile tho
 
That's a good point, I forgot that I could make a sandbox profile before doing so, oof

But okay, if push comes to shove, I'll delete it and post the feats and stuff.
 
Looks really good and I have updated the prototype page to include him.

Funnily enough, over fiction many vampires' characterization often is about them ignoring most, if not all, traditional weaknesses, in order to make them more original, but paradoxically Rakosi feels like fresh air.

Top points: The overly-complicated ritual to bring him back, flexing over all the other broken resurrection haxes, and the goofy backbraker he performs on that guy. I bet he was fascinated by early wrestling once arrived to America.

Also, he would be perfect for a Zagor-Dampyr crossover.
 
Thanks! That looks excellent on the sandbox!

Oh yeah, that was something I noticed when re-reading the issues. It felt strangely recomforting seeing something that was just about exactly the traditional of vampires. Both his powers and capabilities are fairly grounded as far as vampires go. I'll do a match of him against some form of Dracula as soon as I finish translating the stuff, which should be soon!

Yeah, I really love how his resurrection ritual is complicated. It strangely gives more gravitas and presence to him, since it is so hard to actually make him appear. It also has some symbolism, such as it requiriring the blood of an enemy.

I'm translating the stuff on the profile right now, and after that, I'll update the sandbox with the Zagor and Tex stuff.
 
His ritual reminds me of Ganon's in Zelda II, where Link's blood had to be poured over Ganon's ashes in order to revive him.

There might be some ancient reason, perhaps tied to religion or folklore.
 
Indeed. It seems very symbolic, really. The blood of the one who defeated you is needed to once again make you rise. I ought to look into that later.
 
Indeed. It seems very symbolic, really. The blood of the one who defeated you is needed to once again make you rise. I ought to look into that later.
I saw your updates on the sandbox, nice job and thank you!

I took the liberty to edit something here and there, adding some bold and italic text, links to power pages and replace a could of words to make it sound less redundant.

I've also added Thunderman to the Zagor's characters list, and made some additional division for allies, villains and other characters for each series (they can then be further divided by sections). I put them only in the second version of the draft only because we lack profiles for good characters, but this division can be made later, if we want to publish the page once the summaries are ready.
 
I was going to tell ya that but I wanted to translate Rakosi's stuff (Which will take a while, the scans there have a LOT of text) before saying, in any case, the thanks is all mine! I'm honored by the opportunity to work on something like this.

Oh man, I gotta revise the Thunderman profile, but it'll take awhile until I get to the issue he appears in. I'm curious because there may be a Supersonic feat for Zagor if he actually dodged the electricity blasts, and Thunderman actually has a lot of interesting abilities, but very logical ones that derive from his electrical powers. Pretty sure Zagor also gets Resistance to Electricity from him, as he tanks blasts that are fully capable of burning someone to a crisp.

Side note: Hellingen will be a doozy to make. Even with only western-grade base tech, he ends up creating machinery like ballistic missiles that cover thousands of kilometers and are more precise than those nowadays, long distance computers, incredibly powerful electrical devices, paralysing rays, giant mechs, a submarine...

And I still haven't gotten to the issue that he does the craziest stuff and becomes some sort of Universal(?) abomination.
 
Hellingen would surely be interested, I've always seen stuff like robots and aliens having something to do with Zagor, without having the chance to really get what the deal was with them in a western setting.
 
There's an alien race whose name I forgot that both Zagor and Chico faced at different times and for wholly different reasons. It was a story arc that will happen later on, that Hellingen actually managed to make a communication tool that managed to reach far into outer space (Again, with only western-era tech as a base to work with!) and contact them.

Those aliens aren't really powerful comparing to most of fiction, but for Bonelli universe, they are staggering. Physically they are all very well into 9-B range, fully invulnerable to most forms of weaponry, Hellingen even emptied a revolver into one of them to prove a point. Zagor only managed to kill two of them by ambushing them, one by bashing his head repeatedly with a huge rock and even then it was one of the toughest matches Zagor ever had, and the other with Zagor breaking his jatpack mid-flight and making the alien have a very violent fall.

That is, until he got Rakum's bow and shield, that was crafted to precisely fight them. The shield nullified their paralysis rays and the arrows instakilled them. Their tech level is insane for a Bonelli work, MFTL+ travel ships, their "citizen-grade" weaponry being paralysis beams that can incinerate people, stasis tech, complex genetics manipulation... But of course, our boy Zagor proves that a strong fist and a good heart prevails over anything!

Chico later faced them on his own series on a much more comedic way. I can't even describe the plot but I'll say that, motivated by his desire to eat and toonforce, can easily cause planet-wide revolts...
 
Rakosi's profile is almost entirely translated! There are just a few bits here and there missing... Sadly, my university's new semester just started, so I won't be able to do as much.

Also, I'm planning here which feats to add for Zagor, and there's a really good enhanced senses one. Zagor hears the sound of a very small rock rolling just a bit from several dozen meters away and from a position that sound would be somewhat dampened, caused by a person that was actively sneaking by, while he slept right besides a huge campfire. He also has a very decent Wall level feat, throwing a dude against a thick wooden pillar so had that thing violently snapped in half.

I'll read Tex stuff from #1 to, and vary a bit so I don't get tired of Zagor comics. I'll be progressing a bit slower in general but my interest will stay piqued.
 
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Looking at the lifting feats, I have a simple calculation request, and for one it is a simple one that I don't have any problems with. On this panel, Zagor lifts a very large rock, albeit with a lot of difficulty (For reference, Zagor is 1,87 meters; right now Imgur is under maintenance but I think that's the right scan).
There's this one, if you want to calc it Armor 👀.

Anyway Eliminator, there's no problem with slowing don't, we aren't going anywhere and there's no rush, take the time you need.
 
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