SAF reporter-2011_40 let_ENG.indd

A hilarious new comic series from
SAF – written and drawn by Mauro
Sera¿ni – is selling like hot cakes in
the publishing world.
Roberto Totaro, who writes and draws
“The Jungle Journal” comic series for
SAF, has already made history. He
became the ¿rst Italian comic artist to
have his original creation published
in Arabic.
Egmont in Norway publishes 5,000 copies
per title for the “Hombre” series.
The cover of the Israeli edition.
The cover of the ¿rst Arabic volume.
SAF has sold the publishing rights to
“Jungle Journal” in eleven Arab speaking countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE,
Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Egypt.
SAF’s western series “Hombre” –
written by Peter Wiechmann and
drawn by Rafael Méndez – will most
likely become the comic series to be
published in more countries than any
other western produced in Europe.
“Hombre” has already been sold in
France, Norway, Germany, Greece,
Italy and Turkey... with negotiations
currently going on with publishers in
dozens of other countries.
“School for Monsters” is also raising
a lot of interest in Hollywood. Some
companies are interested in producing it as a full length animated feature, but there are many more
who want to turn it into an animated
TV series. So, we’re hopeful that in
the next issue of our newsletter we
will be able to report who has bought
the animation rights to this property
from SAF.
The Magazine and the Book
The ¿rst issue of comics magazine “Strip Art” appeared forty years ago, or
more precisely on November 3, 1971. At the same time Ervin Rustemagiü, the
magazine’s founder and Editor-in-Chief, formed an international licensing
agency for comics called SAF (Strip Art Features).
SAF soon became a publisher, too, and in 1974 published Ervin’s book “Professional Secrets of Comics” (“Profesionalne tajne stripa” in the original language), which was the ¿rst book about comics ever published in the former
Yugoslavia. Over a period of ten years the book had ¿ve editions and sold
more than 6,000 copies.
The “Strip Art” magazine had been published
with great success in the former Yugoslavia in
the 1970s and 1980s, in two publishing cycles.
Since the book was out of print for quite a long time – except for many pirate
editions that are still being offered on the Internet – and since Ervin was resistant to the idea of reprinting the book (he considered it to be out-of-date),
some friends tried to persuade him to write new chapters and add them to the
original book. He ¿nally decided to do it and publish a new, extended edition
of “Professional Secrets of Comics” for the 40th anniversary of his company.
This was quite a dif¿cult task due to the fact that all of SAF’s old archives and
photographs were burnt when SAF’s of¿ces in Sarajevo were shelled in 1992,
during the war in Bosnia. Therefore, most of the photos and illustrations that
had been made prior to 1992 had to be reproduced from old publications,
while some were supplied by friends.
There are a number of new chapters in this book, including a chapter where
eight of SAF’s most prominent comic artists and writers – Hermann, Alfonso
Font, Joe Kubert, Eduardo Risso, Martin Lodewijk, Sergio Bleda, Roberto
Totaro and Carlos Trillo – contributed their own articles, in which they explain why they became comic strip professionals. They also talk about their
daily routine and reveal some of their own secrets of craftsmanship.
“Prisoner of the Stars” by Alfonso Font
The new edition of “Professional Secrets of Comics,” which never had the
ambition to teach someone how to draw – because “if you’re not talented,
nobody can help you” – consists of 144 pages, with a 16-page introduction
from Ervin. On the following pages of this newsletter you can read a shortened version of that introduction.
“Vampire Boy” by Trillo and Risso
“Agent 327” by Martin Lodewijk
“The Nurse” by Zalozabal
Forty years of SAF
This year marks the 40th anniversary of my company
SAF (Strip Art Features), and in order to write this piece,
I decided to go back to the place where it all started. So,
here I am again – in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina –
writing these lines. I came back here hoping to ¿nd inspiration and to remember some of the details that I wanted
to jot down.
Here, in Sarajevo, I started to publish and edit my comics
magazine ‘Strip Art’ in 1971. The magazine was distributed throughout the whole territory of the former Yugoslavia and was very well received among comics fans, gaining a kind of cult status. When I ¿rst began publishing
‘Strip Art,’ I had already spent a lot of time with people
who worked at the printing plant of the Oslobodjenje
Company, the of¿cial state publisher and distributor of my
magazine. All of the knowledge and resourcefulness that I
learned from the people who worked in the pre-press and
with printing machines (all masters of their work) was an
immense bene¿t to me, and helped SAF survive the “battles” with our rivals in the world market of comics. Especially since many people in the “opposing camps” were
mostly editors, businessmen and administrators who had
no clue about the technologies of pre-press and printing.
I remember the day when we sold the rights of Joe Kubert’s “Abraham Stone” to Marvel Comics and delivered
to them offset ¿lms with 70-line screen (180-line screen
in the U.S.). Marie Javins, their editor at that time, who
was a very intelligent and kind person, called to tell me
that Marvel’s production department was going to return
our ¿lm and that we had to deliver them new, 48-line
screen ¿lm (120-line screen in the U.S.) because their
printer couldn’t print color with such a ¿ne screen. I asked
Marie to hold off on returning our ¿lms and then immediately called the director of the printing plant who did the
printing for Marvel at that time. I told him what Marie
said and asked him if they had indeed given instructions
to Marvel only to use ¿lm with large 120-line screen. He
laughed and replied that possibly they had been given
such instructions 20 years ago, but since then no one from
Marvel ever checked with them, and so didn’t realize how
far the technology had evolved, and that they could print
color with a ¿ner screen. So, of course, that printer ended
up printing the Marvel edition of “Abraham Stone” using
our ¿lms with ¿ne screen.
There were numerous examples similar to that one over
the years. Jean Deneumostier, president of Editions Dupuis, once invited me to lunch in Brussels during the mideighties, trying to ¿nd out the secret of how SAF manages
to deliver black and white copies of their comics to all the
publishers within 48 hours, while Dupuis and all other
my secret, even though he told me that Dupuis would
gladly pay me a generous consulting fee to solve this major problem.
Marvel Comics had published SAF’s series “Abraham Stone”
(written and drawn by Joe Kubert) in two volumes in 1995.
European and American publishers and licensing agencies need ¿ve, six or even more months to do so. The
reason was simple. At that time all of them produced black
and white copies of their color comics by making a contact copy from a black line negative ¿lm to a photosensitive paper (called “bromide” in English; “bromure” in
French). It was a long, arduous and expensive process,
working page by page in the dark room, and they often
had pending orders for several thousand pages. And with
new orders constantly arriving, their so-called stripping
department – which could only produce about one hundred such copies a day – suffered constant delays, in some
cases dragging on for a year. In addition, they were charging publishers $5.00 (U.S.) per comic page for the photo
copies. That was their material and workmanship cost per
page.
Then it happened. One European publisher ordered black
and white copies of three albums of “Jeremiah” from SAF
and at the same time he ordered copies of three albums of
“Buck Danny” from Dupuis. After three days he received
the copies of “Jeremiah” from us, but after more than ¿ve
months the copies of “Buck Danny” had still not been
delivered. The publisher complained to Jean Deneumostier about Dupuis’ slowness. Which is why Jean, who was
a brilliant businessman and an outstanding economist, but
did not know much about production and technical details, wanted me to tell him over lunch how we did it. We
knew each other well, as Dupuis published a number of
SAF’s comics in French, so I wanted to be polite and stay
on good terms with him...without letting him know the
secret. I started off comforting him by pointing out that
Dupuis wasn’t the only one with slow delivery; all the
other European publishers and agencies needed several
months to prepare and deliver black and white copies of
their comics, while publishers had to wait 8-10 months to
receive black and white copies of comics from Marvel
and DC Comics in New York. Of course, I did not tell him
Jean is now retired and enjoying his life in the south of
France, growing grapes and producing wine. When I see
him next time I will reveal my secret to him. It may have
caused him so much trouble in the past, but today, in the
age of digitalization, it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.
In fact, it was all so simple, that I ¿nd it hard to believe no
one else could ¿gure it out. We simply gave the order to
the printing plant who was printing SAF’s color comics to
turn off three aggregates on their printing machine when
printing each sheet of our comics on each side. This meant
their machine’s cylinders with blue, red and yellow colors
were not in motion, so that each sheet was printed in black
color only. This way the machine was running 50 prints of
black line art of our comics. There normally were eight
comic pages on each sheet on one side. So, after they
printed every sheet in black, they gathered all of them together and then cut the individual comic pages into A4
formats. Therefore, they delivered to us a set of 2400 perfect black and white prints of our comic pages for a standard 48-page album. It took just an hour or two of work to
do it with each SAF album, because the printing plates
Top quality black & white copies of comics were always
of great importance. Even the U.S. comic book edition
of “Jeremiah” has been published in black & white.
were already in the machine and paper consumption was
negligible. Printers always calculate the waste of paper
needed to ¿x colors and registers before printing any
forms, so we were never charged any money for this little
favor. The printer was happy to have a regular printing job
with SAF’s books and that was enough for them.
At the same time, our competitors in New York, Paris,
Brussels and Barcelona needed a month of work to make
the same 2400 black and white copies in their stripping
departments, where they usually had two people working
full time. For those 2400 bromides they had to charge the
publishers more than ten thousand dollars just to cover the
cost of their production and photo material. SAF didn’t
charge publishers anything for the copies, because in our
case such expenses did not exist. We only needed some
space for their storage, which we had in the attic of SAF’s
building at Georgi Dimitrova 49 street in Sarajevo (that
street is now called Andreja Andrejeviüa).
As a result, the publishers that usually published black
and white comics – like Semic Group in the Scandinavian countries – preferred to buy comics from SAF. But
we did use our superior delivery of materials in our negotiating for publishing rights, so the prices which publishers paid to SAF were usually higher than those of other
agencies, publishers and copyright owners from Europe
and America.
Rafael Martinez, owner and president of the Norma publishing house and agency in Barcelona, was one of the
rare publishers and agents who had certain knowledge
about the technologies of pre-press and printing, but who
admitted to me several times that he envied me for coming up with some ideas he didn’t think of at the time.
When we printed SAF’s catalogs and sent them to hundreds of publishers around the world, we always secured
the shipment by putting solid cardboard in the envelope,
which was slightly larger than the catalog, in order to protect it and ensure it reach its destination intact. We noted
that publishers used our cardboards for their own shipments that they sent to others, and even to us. So in 1983
– when we were printing the catalog for Hermann’s new
comic series “The Towers of Bois-Maury” – we printed
an enlarged drawing from the comic on the protective
cardboard, with the title, Hermann’s name and SAF’s
copyright on it. These cardboards were printed in the silkscreen printing technique, on a German SPS machine
which we had here at Georgi Dimitrova 49. With those
boards we protected each of the 700-800 catalog shipments that we made throughout the world. The catalog
was printed in English, French and Italian.
After receiving our catalog with that cardboard, Rafa
Martinez received the same cardboard in another 3-4 shipments which various publishers sent to him in their own
envelopes containing material that had nothing to do with
SAF or our comics. He told me that he was angry with
himself for not coming up with such a simple idea. It had
to be tough for him, because he is not the kind of person
who admits defeat very easily.
So, can you now guess who was the publisher that bought
the rights from us to publish this new Hermann series in
Spain? Well, it was Rafa Martinez and his Norma Editorial!
The cover of the ¿rst catalog of “The Towers of Bois-Maury” (left)
and its protective cardboard (above).
SAF’s series “The Partisans,” written by Djordje Leboviü and drawn
by Jules Radiloviü, had been published from 1977 - 1989 in Oberon’s weekly magazine “Eppo,” whose print-run was 200,000 copies.
“The Partisans” albums sold more than 15,000 copies per title
in Holland. But the best sales were achieved in Indonesia, where
PT Gramedia, the publisher, sold 30,000 copies per title.
We always made sure that all of SAF’s shipments were
well packaged and that they looked nice. We used to place
the SAF logo, sticker with the address, stamp and everything else on the envelope or package in symmetrical harmony. I always thought that the effort and time invested in
achieving those things were merely a part of our daily job,
not anything special. So, I was quite surprised when I was
told by a top executive at the Dutch publishing company
Oberon that SAF’s shipments and their nice look were a
topic of discussion at a recent meeting of their board of
executives. Oberon was the biggest publisher of comics in
the Netherlands, and it was a part of V.N.U., at that time
the largest publishing group in Europe. Oberon regularly
bought the comic series “The Partisans” from SAF, and
occasionally some of our other comics. They were paying
SAF a comic page rate that was three times higher than
they were paying Marvel or Dargaud for their comics. I
still wonder how much those high prices, which SAF
achieved all over the world, were inÀuenced by the look
of our envelopes and packages, in addition to our superior
service in delivering the material.
fered and sold, but if it is also well-packaged, it is much
easier to get a better price. In the mid-seventies I was invited to lunch in New York by George Pipal, president of
United Press International. At that time UPI was an overseas sales agent for many U.S. syndicates that were selling daily comic strips and Sunday pages. A few of his
colleagues who joined us stared at me curiously, wondering why such a young man from Sarajevo was invited by
their president to such an expensive restaurant. And the
¿rst thing that George said when he introduced me to them
was: “When I got the ¿rst letter from Ervin, I couldn’t
stop looking at the envelope and the letterhead, which had
a logo and design worth at least a thousand dollars.”
In this business the “Presentation” is almost as important
as any other element of production. Of course, the most
important thing of all is the quality of what is being of-
Our ¿rst logo was drawn by hand in 1971.
It was 35 years ago and that thousand dollars would certainly represent many more thousands of dollars today.
That ¿rst logo of SAF was designed and manually drawn
by Jules Radiloviü from Zagreb, the artist of the comic
series “The Partisans,” who also designed our ¿rst envelope and letterhead.
In 1997, the Italian publisher Sergio Bonelli told me that
for thirty years he consistently traveled around the United
States, with a suitcase full of comics, offering them to all
comic publishers there, but never succeeded in selling any
of them. I immediately called my friend Mike Richardson
and persuaded him that his Dark Horse Comics should
publish three mini-series with Bonelli’s titles in America.
Mike agreed and sent me a signed contract to Milan, without even seeing or reading these comic books. FedEx delivered the contract just in time for my meeting with
Bonelli. And then Decio Canzio, the company’s managing director, told me that Hugo Pratt was the one who
recommended me to them, saying that SAF is de¿nitely
the best agency for comics in the world. It was a few years
after Pratt’s death, and I was very sorry that I never knew
he held such a high opinion of me and my work while he
was still alive.
Hugo and I saw each other very often, but there were always a lot of people around him, so we never had the opportunity for a private conversation. He was a special person and his good spirit was unforgettable. I remember a
dinner in the house of our mutual friend Alvaro Zerboni
(publisher of the comics magazine “Eternauta”) in Rome.
Alvaro’s brother, a book publisher in South Africa, was
also present at that dinner. Hugo urged him to publish
“Corto Maltese” in South Africa, but Alvaro’s brother
awkwardly tried to explain that he might have some problems with the local regime, since the blacks in this comic
were positive characters. Hugo found a solution right
away: “Then, why don’t you print ‘Corto Maltese’ in negative, and my blacks will become whites?!?”
One day in the late seventies at the comics festival in Lucca, Hugo asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with him
outside of the city. We drove to a remote location somewhere in the mountains and had lunch in a village ‘trattoria’ with good food and domestic wine, which he knew
from before. We talked about things that were not related
to comics and work, and the conversation extended late
into the night, so we ended up having dinner at the same
table as lunch. We returned to Lucca before midnight and
while we were driving to the Hotel Napoleone, Hugo suddenly said: “Please continue sending me your catalogs
and when I change the address, Traini or someone else
will notify you of the new one.”
And that was all that he said in those 9 to 10 hours of our
being together that was related to comics. Many years
later, during the war in Bosnia, while Hugo was ill and
living in Switzerland, I heard that he persistently urged
the French and Italian governments to get my family and
me out of the besieged Sarajevo. Hermann and André
Franquin told me that they were making such appeals to
the French government together with Hugo and that they
talked every week with the French Minister of Culture.
Hugo Pratt at the Lucca Comics festival in 1975.
Hugo Pratt was one of the comic authors who didn’t work
with SAF, but who received SAF’s catalogs on a regular
basis, as well as our holiday cards. When SAF was based
in Sarajevo, we used to send around 2000 holiday cards
each December. Every year we had one of SAF’s artists
make a special drawing for our holiday card. But we were
doing it differently than everyone else. Publishers and
agencies usually began to think about holiday cards in
November or early December, rarely in October. However, those three months have always been the most important for our business, because that’s the time when the
agreements with publishers for the next year are being
negotiated, and there was no time to waste on holiday
cards. In addition, the Frankfurt Book Fair has always
been in October, along with Lucca and many other events,
including business trips, all of which were far more important than spending the time working on holiday cards.
That’s why we always prepared our holiday cards in July
or August, which were the slowest business months. At
that time we wrote the addresses on all envelopes, signed
the cards, packed them in the envelopes and then put them
in alphabetical order in four long wooden boxes, which
were made by a local carpenter just for this purpose. I remember that the envelopes for the European countries
went into two yellow boxes, for the U.S. we had a red
box, and for all other countries we used a fourth box, but
After moving to Slovenia we continued with our tradition of printing and sending holiday cards by post. This is the drawing which
Sergio Bleda did for our card for 2010. The characters are from our series “The Wednesday Conspiracy.”
I can’t remember which color it was. Although I’m now
writing this text in the same room (former SAF mailroom)
in which these cards were packaged and sorted into boxes,
it still doesn’t help me remember the color of the fourth
box. For us it was very important that the envelopes were
sorted by country and also alphabetically, because if in
the meantime – before we sent them – someone changed
the address, or passed away, then we had to ¿nd the card
that was addressed to that person.
At that time there were no computers, so we had to type
the addresses one by one on the envelopes, using the red
electric typewriter IBM Selectric, which can now only be
seen in some movies from the late seventies and early
eighties. It was a huge task, which required a great amount
of effort and attention. People often asked me why we did
it; why we sent so many cards each year. Well, there was
no direct bene¿t, but it sometimes happened that I needed
some sort of information or service from an editor, agent,
or an artist who I hadn’t seen or talked to for several years,
but who regularly received holiday cards from us. And
when I called that person, he or she would always respond
to my call with pleasure and enthusiasm and would gladly
help us.
Another dear friend of mine among the artists with whom
we didn’t work was Gianni de Luca, who was drawing the
popular detective series “Commissario Spada” for the
Italian magazine “Il Giornalino.” He was also famous for
his cycle of comics based on motives from Shakespeare’s
works. We never worked together, but we went out for
dinner or coffee from time to time. Gianni was a quiet and
modest man, but very educated and an excellent artist. A
few years after his death I had a coffee in Rome with his
daughter who works as an editor at Radio Vatikan. She
told me then that my name was constantly before her eyes
while she was living with her parents, because her father
always put my holiday cards on the shelf above the phone
and no one was allowed to remove them from there.
All of these instances, and many more which are too numerous to be included in this text, required a great amount
of time and effort, which is why I’ve worked 16 hours a
day, seven days a week. And there were years when I
spent seven months on the road. Because of this my wife
and children have suffered the most. It’s why I couldn’t be
with my children while they were growing up, and then
all of a sudden they weren’t that small anymore.
Now, I can say that I gave my whole self to the comics
and that I’m pleased with what I have accomplished so
far. Maybe – if I could turn the clock back – I’d have done
some things differently and put more thought into some
important decisions. But I doubt that I would have chosen
differently in terms of the authors and comics which SAF
has produced and represented, and continues to represent
throughout the world. There were, however, some very
dif¿cult moments, such as in the case of Warren Tufts. In
the mid-seventies SAF got the worldwide rights to Tufts’
extraordinary western series “Lance,” which we sold in
many countries. “Lance” was involved in yet another
memorable deal we made, this time with comics magazine “Spirou,” which published the series in French and
Dutch. Charles Dupuis, founder and owner of the publishing house Dupuis, who published “Spirou,” was a big fan
of Warren Tufts since the time he wrote and drew the dai-
ly western comic strip named “Casey Ruggles,” which
was published in hundreds of newspapers in America and
throughout the world. That was probably the reason why
he had no objections to the high price that I set per page.
Consequently, Warren Tufts received an amount of money
from SAF for “Lance” that he never even dreamed of.
That was back in the summer of 1977, when I was getting
ready to visit him for the ¿rst time.
Back then, Warren was living near the small town of Placerville in northern California. The nearest airport was by
Lake Tahoe, but they advised me not to Ày there, because
planes were often caught in rough turbulence due to winds
and had problems while landing, sometimes causing pilots to head back or land at another airport. So instead I
Àew to Sacramento from San Diego – where I was at the
Comic-Con – rented a car at the airport and drove east to
Placerville, passing by the big billboards which were directing tourists to the famous Ponderosa ranch, where
they had shot the cult TV series “Bonanza” (which also
aired in Yugoslavia). Warren and his wife were waiting
for me at a restaurant, and were surprised when I entered
the restaurant at 4:00 p.m. sharp, as agreed. Their house
was located in a forest on a hill and when I woke up in the
morning I looked out the window in the courtyard and
saw a deer quietly walking around. That morning, after
breakfast, Warren took me to a small hangar that he built
near the house to show me where all of the money that he
got from SAF went to. In the hangar, there was a skeleton
of the aircraft that he was building.
Since Warren was very satis¿ed with the work SAF was
doing with “Lance,” he decided to also give us all the
world rights to his “Casey Ruggles,” which he got back
from United Feature. In the following months, SAF sold
Warren’s works in Brazil, France, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, India and other countries. This brought Warren a new
wave of money, which I hoped would get him writing and
drawing again. But instead of sending me the ¿rst pages
of his autobiographical graphic novel “Thunderhawk,”
which we agreed he would produce for SAF, Warren started sending me plans for a new light aircraft, the “Tufts
T3,” which he began to develop and build. It took him a
few years to do it. Then one day I received an envelope
that I thought was a new letter from Warren. But inside I
found a newspaper clipping from “The Sacramento Bee”
and a short note from his wife Lyn: “Dear Ervin, this article will tell you all.” I froze when I read the headline:
“Famous comic strip artist killed during a test Àight with
the plane he built.”
It was one of the saddest and most tragic moments I’ve
experienced in all my dealings with this business. Warren
Tufts was one of SAF’s ¿rst authors on the American continent, and in the words of Bill Blackbeard: “His ‘Casey
Ruggles’ was the best western comic ever made.”
Ervin and Warren in front of the hangar in which this great American artist and passionate aircraft designer
was building his “artistic version” of the Pursuit ¿ghter from the 1930s.
A Sunday page of “Lance” by Warren Tufts.
In these forty years of SAF we have worked with hundreds of comic artists and writers, most of whom were
from Argentina. And, if we were to organize SAF’s own
Olympics of comics, then the Àag of SAF’s Argentinean
team would certainly be carried by Carlos Trillo, just as
Hermann would carry the Belgian Àag, Joe Kubert the
American Àag, Alfonso Font the Spanish Àag. The Italian
Àag would be carried by Robert Totaro, Marin Lodewijk
would wave the Dutch Àag, the Àag of Uruguay would be
in the hands of Zalozabal, etc. But it was Carlos Trillo
who wrote scripts for the largest number of artists and
comics whose publishing rights SAF sold and is still selling all over the world. His ideas are endless, his way of
storytelling is very particular, and all are Àavored with a
touch of smart and unobtrusive humor, though often very
dark. Once I was sitting with Carlos in the restaurant
“1234” in Buenos Aires, so named because it is located at
1234 Avenida Santa Fe. Argentinean comic authors who
live in Buenos Aires traditionally meet there for coffee or
lunch. There were some of SAF’s Argentinean artists with
us that day. We talked about business and I was scribbling
on a piece of paper, which is one of my old customs, giving them examples of prices that various comics magazines pay per comic page or for the magazine cover, as
well as different amounts of advance payments that we
get for albums in various countries. My paper had ¿gures
of $100, $250, $500, $1,000, and $4,000 written all over
it. While we sat there and talked about business, and while
I was writing on that piece of paper, the waiters who were
bringing us food and drinks occasionally listened to our
conversation. But they could only hear small parts of it, so
they couldn’t understand what their everyday guests were
discussing with a foreigner who they never saw before.
After several hours, when we were leaving the restaurant,
Carlos asked for my pen and then returned to the table
where we were sitting and started to write something on
my piece of paper. Only later on the street did he tell me
that the waiters would immediately come to the table to
see what I wrote on that paper, so he returned to add three
zeros to each one of my numbers. Now the waiters would
¿nd there amounts of $100,000, $250,000, $500,000,
$1,000,000, and $4,000,000!
Buenos Aires, 1998: Eduardo Maicas, Carlos Trillo, Juan Zanotto, Ervin Rustemagiü and Carlos Meglia.
The opening of the ‘Angoulême 2’ festival in France (January 23, 1975). From left to right: André Leborgne (Belgium),
Roland Chiron (mayor of Angoulême), Ervin Rustemagiü - member of the international jury (speaking), Francis Groux (director of the
Angoulême festival), Rinaldo Traini (director of the Lucca festival in Italy), Claude Moliterni (co-founder of the Angoulême festival and
the editor of “Phenix” magazine at that time), David Pascal (U.S.A.) and Edouard François (France).
Comic-Con in San Diego, Lucca, Angoulême, Barcelona
and other comics festivals and conventions, which I used
to attend regularly, played a signi¿cant role in establishing contacts with new authors. Some of SAF’s most important projects were agreed upon at those events. There
were also some speci¿c situations in the past where I committed to a venture, often for reasons that were not business related. Chances are I would not have decided to do
it if I was not there at that time and in that particular situation. In 1989, comic artist Doug Wildey came to ComicCon in San Diego only because he wanted to meet with
me. He had completed a graphic novel called “Rio Rides
Again” (drawn in direct color), for which he could not
¿nd a publisher and he wanted to see if SAF would be
interested in world-wide licensing for this graphic novel.
Although he worked on some well known comics, Doug
was primarily known as the creator of the acclaimed animated TV series “Johnny Quest,” which by then had
ceased production, so he returned to comics again.
I really liked Doug and his wife Ellen, so I agreed for SAF
to take over the rights to “Rio Rides Again.” We agreed
that I would visit them when I came to Los Angeles after
San Diego. They lived north of Los Angeles, so the day
before I was returning to Europe I drove up there to pick
up the originals of “Rio,” so that we could scan them in
Sarajevo and make color offset ¿lms. It wasn’t until then
that Doug told me that his lawyer had spent six months
negotiating with Marvel Comics about releasing the
graphic novel, but without any success. Things even got
heated between him and Marvel at the end.
I changed my travel schedule that same afternoon and decided to stop in New York on my way back to Sarajevo,
and to stay there for one day only. I arranged a meeting at
Marvel with their then-vice-president Mike Hobson, who
was a longtime friend of mine. Mike was initially opposed
to what I was requesting due to the awkward situation of
already having said no to releasing the comic, but he ¿nally agreed for Marvel to publish the album “Rio Rides
Again” only because it was now an SAF property. When
I called Doug to tell him the good news, he couldn’t believe it. He said I was crazy to even offer the comic to
Marvel. But later on, when he received a big check for
1992. My wife and I watched our of¿ces burn from a balcony in a neighborhood district called Dobrinja. Around
14,000 pieces of original comic art disappeared in that
¿re. Forever. Some of them had dedications written to me
by Harold Foster, Charles Schultz, Don Lawrence, André
Franquin, Al Williamson, Mort Walker, Maurice Tillieux,
Victor de la Fuente, Alfred Andriola and many, many other big and famous artists. Since then I no longer cared
about any new collections of comic art. However, I must
admit that now I proudly keep Doug’s original page from
“Rio Rides Again” on my of¿ce wall, along with an original drawing that my great friend Will Eisner sent me when
he heard that I managed to escape Sarajevo with my family during the war. When we settled in Celje, in Slovenia,
at the end of 1993, Eisner (whose middle name was Erwin) drew for me a drawing of his Spirit who was rising
from the ruins and ashes of Sarajevo and greeting me.
The cover of SAF’s promotional brochure for “Rio Rides Again.”
that American edition, he was ecstatic. After that we sold
“Rio” in several European countries. But then the war
came in Bosnia, and I lost contact with Doug, as well as
with many other authors. When I moved from Sarajevo to
Slovenia during the war, Doug got sick and died soon after. His wife Ellen, who was with him during his last days
in their new home in Las Vegas, asked for my new address in Slovenia so she could send something that Doug
had left for me. Soon I received her package which contained an original page from “Rio Rides Again.”
I lost all of my enthusiasm for collecting original comic
art after SAF’s of¿ces in Sarajevo were shelled in July
SAF’s of¿ces in Sarajevo after the war.
One of the publishers of SAF’s comics who was amongst
the ¿rst to visit me in Celje was Andreas C. Knigge, Editor-in-Chief of Carlsen Verlag in Hamburg. He told me
that I picked the worst possible time to start up again, because the comics market situation was so bad that it
couldn’t get any worse. Andreas, who hasn’t worked in
the comics industry for more than ten years now, probably
has no idea how wrong he was. Because, over these past
16 years the situation with the comics market has worsened progressively. In spite of analysts of¿cially announcing that the sales of comics have “reached the bottom and
couldn’t fall any further,” the crisis would continue to
deepen so much that comics managed to ¿nd a new bottom each year after that.
Still, I have no reason to complain or worry about the situation in the comics market, because SAF’s own business
is better today than ever before. It does, however, sadden
me when I hear news from publishing companies that
their editors – whom we worked with for decades – have
been ¿red. I’m really worried about them, and whether or
not they will be able to ¿nd another job in their ¿fties or
sixties.
Angoulême 3, 1976: Gordon Bess and Ervin.
And so, here I am at the end of writing this text. I’m taking an afternoon Àight from Sarajevo to Ljubljana in Slovenia, leaving behind lots of untold memories in this city,
only a few of which I’ve shared with you in this article.
Sarajevo has always been a city full of good spirit. If only
someone would’ve written down the things you would
hear in the “Dubrovnik“ theater in the seventies during
movie screenings – while there was absolute peace and
quiet in all normal cities around the world – it would make
for a hilarious comedy. Imagine a comedy in which there
are only parts of the viewers’ faces visible in the pitch
dark, lighted only by the projector’s bulb. At the beginning of the movie, the MGM lion would appear on the
screen. But before the lion even turned his head to roar,
you could hear a disappointed voice from the crowd say:
“Oh, I’ve already seen this movie!” Or, sometimes before
the end of a very intense movie, which would ¿ll the “Dubrovnik“ theater to its last seat, amid scenes of horror and
suspense, somewhere from the front row you would hear
a voice: “Is there a doctor in the theater?” And then a voice
from the back row would answer: “I’m a doctor!” Then
the voice from the front would say: “Hey, doctor, how do
you like the movie?”
At the time Claude Moliterni was one of the biggest authorities
in the French comics industry.
I guess I was “infected” by that kind of Sarajevo humor,
so I sometimes use it in my informal meetings with authors and publishers, and usually get a good response
from most of them. Once, while in Paris, Claude Moliterni invited us to a party in his lavish house in Rue Jussieu,
and Gordon Bess (the creator of the hilarious daily comic
strip “Redeye”) advised me to leave the comic business
and come to the United States to write sitcoms, because it
would be the quickest way for me to get rich.
I’m glad I didn’t listen to him.
Ervin Rustemagiü
Sarajevo, 8. 8. 2010
Frankfurt Book Fair, 1988: Richard Marschall, Blaženka Papiü,
Zlata Grujiü, Martin Lodewijk, Ervin, Hermann and Jacques Post.
Bruxelles, 1979: Hermann, André Franquin and Ervin.
Angoulême 2 (1975): Jacques Tardi receives
the award for the Best French Artist.
International jury for the Comics festival in Gijón, Spain, 1973:
David Pascal, Osvaldo Cavandoli, Luis Gasca, Ervin Rustemagiü
and Antonio Martin.
Sussex, 1981: James Herbert, the bestselling British horror writer, complained to
me that he always confused journalists when they asked who was the writer who
inÀuenced him the most, and he would say that it was Warren Tufts. James said,
incredulously, that none of them had ever heard of Tufts.
Lucca Comics 1997: Martin Lodewijk, Don Lawrence and
Ervin at a big exhibition of Don’s original art.
Bruxelles, 1976: Reviewing animation cels from the “Lucky Luke” animated feature “Daisy Town” with Morris, the artist of the comic.
Barcelona, June 2006: Maja Rustemagiü with her father and Sergio
Bleda. SAF controls all the world rights to eight books from Bleda.
Bologna Book Fair, 2009: Edvin Rustemagiü with Pia BanerjeeRikkonen, Business Area Manager of Egmont Finland (left), and
Marjaana Tulosmaa, managing director of the company.
Lucca Comics, 1984: Ervin receives the “Yellow Kid” award as the Best Comics
Publisher in the world in 1983 and 1984.
At the same festival, Burne Hogarth, the artist of “Tarzan,” received an award for
illustration, and Lee Falk, creator of “The Phantom” and “Mandrake the Magician,”
received the “Yellow Kid” for his lifetime achievement.
The “Yellow Kid” statue, or what was left of it, was
found in the ashes of SAF’s of¿ces in Sarajevo.
It is now at SAF’s of¿ces in Celje, where it stands
on a piece of brick also found in the ruins of SAF’s
Sarajevo building.
SAF continues to welcome guests
From the time SAF was founded in Sarajevo in 1971 and until the war started in
1992, we used to have numerous guests from the world of comics visit us every
year. Unfortunately, we do not have photographs from Sarajevo from that period,
except a few that were published in our old newsletters. After his visit to Sarajevo,
the French comic writer François Corteggiani wrote in an article that he was not in
Sarajevo, but in SAFajevo, because he was so swamped with work while at SAF’s
of¿ces that he barely saw the city.
When we moved to Slovenia, and SAF began its operations again in 1994, we continued with our traditional hospitality, so that every year we have guests here, too.
Hermann and his wife Adeline visited us in Celje in 1994 (photo on the left) and
came again several times after that. Joe Kubert and his wife Muriel did the same.
Muriel and Joe Kubert in front of the SAF of¿ce building in Celje during their second visit in the summer of 2001.
Celje, 2009: Ervin and Mike Richardson, the owner and president
of Dark Horse Comics. This was his second visit.
SAF’s Argentinean artist Eduardo Risso with SAF’s Jožica
Klinar and Josip Gudlin in Celje, 2010.