Comics in Belgium and The Netherlands
As some of you might or might not know, i live in belgium. Great beer, chocolats and, not to forget, comics. The Belgian comics industry was next to the Americans the biggest and best European comic industry during the 50'-60'. Think of the countless names such as Hergé (Tintin) and Franquin (inventor of marsupilami - that was a good character untill disney transformed it into a terrifyingly bad cartoon show - and many others). I can go on naming, but that would not be the point of this topic, now would it. I'll discuss the Dutch Spiderman comics. They're not made by any Dutch comic artist, no, they're merely translated. But how they're translated, is what i'm going to tell you.
First of all, the series in Belgium and Netherlands are not as lineair as the series in America. There are several stories where you'll have to buy a different serie to see how it goes (wolverine stories and spiderman stories a.e.). And ofcourse, a big remark, the quality of the comics published here are from a far better quality than in america. America's buy-'n-throw-away comics (although that is getting better now) are mostly very easily damaged. The cover of the comics here are a lot thicker and better. Also, i've bought some american comics and i must say "whats up with all those commercials ?!". In our comics we almost don't have any commercials published into it. But then again, the avarage cost of a comic lies here between 4 and 5 euros, which makes about 6 to 8 dollars. It's a lot more expansive, but, here we get about 3 comics bundled into one. European comic readers are actually quite spoiled, always having hardcover comics of at least 32 pages and with no commercial. Due to this bundling-thing, the Dutch series are not numbered correctly and are way behind the american series.
Some scans, with some explanation :
This is the first serie ( not being published no more since all spidey comics melted into one serie 'Spiderman' due to lack of interest) i'm going to discuss. Peter Parker, De Spektakulaire Spiderman is known in america as Peter Parker, the spectacular Spiderman. This serie is first published in 1981. As you can read from the cover, it stands in giant letters, 100. Yes, this was number 100 in the america, but here, number 25. Pretty lame, isn't it ?
Another example :
[ Published in America as peter the spectacular spiderman nrs 75 and 76 ]
The famous number where the owl battles doc ock to death and felicia gets wounded. Here it is number 7, and if you can count a bit you'll ask yourself, what happened to the numbers before 60 in the serie of peter parker, the spectacular spiderman ? I have no idea.
[ Published in America as The Amazing Spiderman nr 281 ]
This serie, 'De Spektakulaire Spiderman', is better known in America as The Amazing Spiderman. Here again, number 86, and some reasonable counting brings you yet again to the conclusion that there are a lot of comics unpublished.
[ Published in America as Spider-man nrs. 1,2,3 ]
Aah, that great comic by McFarlane. The number 1 hype wasn't around here and people actually hated McFarlane, because they thought his stories are told too slowly and his drawingstyle could of been much better. The spiderman special series mainly published some random stories that didn't fit in any other serie. They also publish Untold Tales (excellent) in the spiderman special series, which shortly after publishing all of the untold tales, vanquished.
[ Published in America as the amazing spiderman 512 and Marvel Knights Spiderman 6 ]
The serie that ended all others; again this serie bundles other stories in a luxureous format. Enjoyable, but i.m.o. i think that the focus has gone too much to the coloring effects, producing some weak drawings.
There is also another short-lived serie, 'Web Van Spiderman' or Web Of Spiderman, but it was cancelled after a few years of weak sales.
Thank you for your attention 🙄