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Differently from other countries (for example, in Brazil), the Bonelli comics published in Spain never had a great success. Let's find out the reasons why.
Bonelli comics in Spain by Ramon Aznar with a little help from Marco Gremignai (text) and Fabrizio Gallerani (graphics) translation by Marco Spitella
1993, July: Nathan Never, tied to a strange machinery, watches little Ann, his daughter, which walks away.
Years before the same thing happened to other Bonelli characters, e.g. Ken Parker (which presented unpublished covers) and Martin Mystery. Neither Nathan Never nor Dylan Dog will be successful: on the other hand, even the fifty years old Tex hadn't succeed, published occasionally in the '50's, as Texas Bill, and in most recent times.
What happens to Bonelli comics in Spain? What are the differences between Spanish and Italian comics reader?
Cover of a Tex strip
1) The progressive ageing of the public fond of this comic genre, public that hasn't found a generational replacement. Comics, in Spain, are not read as in the '50/'60 (with comics like El Capitán Trueno, El Jabato, Aventuras del F.B.I., Hazañas Bélicas...). In that time comics enjoyed the interest of almost the whole family, read either by fathers or by children. Today, video-games, TV and computers keep busy new generations' spare time and reading has become nearly a burden or an activity reserved for school. Young people are not interested in classical comics: that's why turn their attention to manga or to new adventures of American superheroes.
3) The quality of drawings in Bonelli editions is not always constant, since – for reasons connected to monthly periodicity of the issues – comics are created by a team of designers and scriptwriters that don't always guarantees the same artistic level. In short, this is not a question of "author's comics" where can be always find the designer-creator of the character. This change of design in every issue hadn't allow to Spanish public to become fond of characters.
After all, these are the reasons of the scarce success of Bonelli comics in Spain. Perhaps there are others as well, but the result doesn't change: the attempts to publish Bonelli comics in Spain stop only after about twenty issues for every heading, leaving the collector without any chance to carry on the reading of the marvellous adventures of his favourite characters.
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