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[nzumel]

As some of you may have seen, I've been translating the first series of 1950s Filipina superheroine Darna into English, an episode at a time. I've been putting them out as PDFs, because that's more accessible to the readers of my blog.

Now that it's done, I've compiled the whole thing into a CBZ file and put it on Dropbox. I've also included links to the Filipino-language source scans (some are here, others on the Video48 blog). Episodes 15 and 26 are missing, but they've been summarized.

Note that you don't have to log in or sign up for Dropbox to download the file (they are trying harder and harder to hide that fact). You can pop the "log-in or sign up" box. It asks you again after you hit download, but then you should see the “Or continue with download only” link.

This is the first time I've worked with a comic book format, so please forgive the imperfections. I also wrote a post about my thoughts on the story, after having translated it:

https://multoghost.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/retrospective-thoughs-on-1950s-darna/

It's full of spoilers, so don't read it until after you've read the comic.

[nzumel]

I got curious about the Darna film that was advertised in the comic. It did come out, in 1951, but then got lost. As far as I can tell, all that's left is 40 minutes of the film, which some journalists discovered in Thailand, in 2005.

Here's 30 seconds of clips from the movie. Looks like the movie followed the comic quite closely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Bu4ysE5uY

According to this article, Cristina Aragon, the actress who played Valentina, wore a headdress of live snakes! Yikes.