[crashryan]

Recently in the Reading Group we discussed the post-WWII Australian comic Grey Domino, which was written and drawn to appear like a comic imported from another country, in this case England. This set me thinking about other international comics that pretended to be what they weren't.

This sort of play-acting seems to have occurred mostly during the 1930s and 1940s. There were two versions of the scam. The first was a local comic masquerading as a foreign reprint. The second was an imported comic pretending to be locally-produced. In either case the intent was to lure readers who felt that either imported or locally-produced comics were superior, depending upon their tastes. Sometimes this trickery was also used to avoid government regulation.

The Grey Domino is an example of the first version. From research I've learned that during the postwar period the Australian government discouraged the import of foreign comics, sometimes banning them outright. The laws were ostensibly to encourage local enterprise, though censorship seems to have played a part. Unfortunately readers remained convinced that overseas comics were better than the home-grown kind. So the Grey Domino's publisher ran a cover blurb calling it "The famous comic!" The story was set in England and written as if by an English writer, creating the illusion that it was a reprint of an English newspaper strip.

I stumbled across an even more outrageous example in an Italian comic published shortly after WWII. The Italians had always liked American newspaper strips. Banned during the War, American strips and comic books returned during the Occupation. The public loved them. So one enterprising publisher ran huge banners on his books saying "Comics Made in USA!" and even used a stars-and-stripes design motif. The two I saw--a Western and a science-fiction adventure--were pretty well done. Despite the phony American credits I'm sure any savvy Italian reader would have known these were local productions. They just didn't look like American comics.

I've seen the second version of the scam, pretending imports are homemade, mostly in Italian and French comic papers from the 1930s. In Italy the Fascist government became increasingly hostile to the super-popular American comic strips. Eventually Mussolini banned them altogether (except Mickey Mouse, which is a story of its own). In the run-up to the ban publishers tried to soothe the censors by pretending imported strips were Italian-made. Usually this meant Italianizing the names of the creators. For instance Ella Cinders writer William Conselman became Guglielmo Conselli. Mexican American artist Al Carreno (Ted Strong) became Aldo Carreni. Brick Bradford, renamed Giorgio Ventura in Italy, deep-sixed both William Ritt and Clarence Gray and was attributed to Amadeo Martini.

France seemed to have had similar feelings about Italian material. One French comic I have reprints the Italian mad scientist strip Virus, which was drawn by the brilliant Walter Molino. However by the time he'd crossed the border Molino had morphed into "W. Molineaux"!.

[paw broon]

We touched on this when we were discussing Grey Domino and while I have some opinions on the subject, at this point  I only want to mention that comic characters crossed European borders, often with appropriate name changes.  This wasn't done to make readers think that the comics were created locally, it was simply a language requirement, and also occurred in the '60's and '70's.  This doesn't address the suggestion of making English language readers think that a comic was American, or, as you mention, British.  The prime example of this is Dick Fulmine, the Italian created character, who became Juan Centella in Spain and Alain le Foudre in France.  And, I think, but can't find the reference, was also published in Dutch in the Netherlands.
This cross border reprinting was prevalent throughout Europe with many British strips, and American strips, being reprinted, often with name changes and in different formats, particularly pocket library size.  Oddly, many of the French reprints of D.C. Thomson and A.P., and some D.C. material have no mention of the original publisher and copyright owners.  We see this phenomenon with the recent chat about The Spider, where he is variously called Flierman; Spiderman; Spider; De Spin; Blackman, depending on country of reprint. 
Sorry this isn't getting to the nub of your point, crash, but I thought it might be a bit more background to add to your mention of Virus.
We'll get to Blue Beetle, Superman, Nembo Kid and the British comics which very deliberately set out to look like American comics soon.  I hope others get involved in this 'cos it's interesting.

[crashryan]

Of course you're right, Paw, character names change from country to country and I wouldn't call that trying to fool the reader. My arbitrary rule of thumb for imported material is whether, if creators are credited, they are the real thing. Gordon Flasce (as Flash Gordon was called in its first Italian appearance) "by Alex Raymond" is playing fair but "by Alessandro Raimundo" isn't. Still, everything's on a sliding scale. I don't get the impression that the publisher of the Amok comics wanted readers to believe the strip was imported from the States. But he did seem to want them to believe "Tony Chan" (Antonio Canale) was an American artist.

Like you I've seen American and English strips reprinted in other countries without a hint of their origin. I've wondered if they were licensed but the agreement didn't require ackowledgment; or whether they were pirated. Looking back I marvel at how much easier it was in the pre-Internet days to get away with piracy. A copyright owner would have to stumble across the pirated work in its home country. How likely would it have been (to use a hypothetical example) for a Marvel representative to run across pirated Atlas weird stories from some small publisher in Greece? The major factor limiting piracy was expense. Shooting films, retouching them, burning plates, and printing pirated comics was so much more money- and labor-intensive than today's scanners and digital prepress.

[paw broon]

I had intended to come back to this but a broken tooth and a visit to the dentist put it out of my mind.
Dennis Gifford has many examples of British comics being produced to look like American ones, and we have a small sampling of them on site.  Although they sport colour covers, the interiors are b&w and often the covers have text suggesting they are a bit more exotic than they really are.  There were huge numbers of this type of comic created in UK, not counting the piles of reprint of American  titles, the vast majority of which were b&w inside.  None of the above should be confused with the truly original weeklies that were created here and were so obviously British comics.  All that despite some of them having some American reprints included. 
Even allowing that many comics "suggested" they might be American, I'm not at all sure that that was a problem.  A marketing ploy, certainly, but, as American comics were not available, officially, in UK till late 1959 (and that date is subject to argument), there was nothing else but the "imitations" and the weeklies.  As most kids had little idea of what "real" American comic looked like or read like, these British ones weren't even a taste of the real thing and for real quality, they had to go to the weeklies. Actually, in the 1950's you would be more likely to find some Australian imports, ratther than American comics that had turned up via a military base.
To most kids, their comics entertainment came from weeklies - Lion, Eagle, Radio Fun, Girls' Crystal  etc. and pocket libraries.
I have been looking through some books on fhe subject and there is no doubt that many of the imitation titles were hurried out, often with little care and often with a strange mix of content.  Fortunately, some of them were well done with decent and sometimes really nice art.
This hasn't really advanced the discussion, but I enjoyed writing it.