Routsos and the Second Tarzanid Age: So Bad It's Good Part 3

Part 2

From the very beginning, everything is a given in advance. The magazine, now entitled "GAUR - TARZAN" with a strong patriotic orientation that emphasized it with the slogan "Honor and pride that you were born Greek" and a permanent Greek subtitle "Weekly" magazine of patriotic spirit ", had on the cover a central black and white image depicting scenes according to the content of this issue, while around there was a monochrome frame, with a different colour in each issue (successive alternations in green - red - yellow - blue, with different shades). 

In this context were the figures of the main heroes of the reading, while at the top was the title of the magazine, with the heads of Gaur and Tarzan right and left. Although the story began with jungle reading standards of the time, even with bizarre creatures he had arbitrarily added to the jungle world, he ran into science fiction fields competing with the "Superman" of Anemodouras who was circulating at the same time.

The publishing rivalry between the two publishers-authors is perhaps the only one that has been recorded so obvious and intense in the chronicles of the children's popular publication. The interior illustration was by Aptosoglou (Byron), initially, who also designed the cover images in all issues - one of his best works in black and white sketch - and then Bostanzoglou (Bost). the portraits of the heroes of reading.

For a series of issues, the main two-page, the living room, as they say, hosted an independent comic about the funny adventures of Tsichlibochlis, of a hero, whose adventures did not go down in the history of Greek comics, but his name, in the 50's, at least, was synonymous with the idiot who joked in his youthful vocabulary.

   

During this period only 52 issues were published, instead of the 113 planned by the author-publisher and as usual he pre-published a list of all future titles. His original plan was not completed, for reasons that are not present to be mentioned. To these issues, perhaps, should be added the eight 16-page issues that were published in parallel with the magazine "Gaur-Tarzan" with the main character Pokopoko, who also maintained a personal column in the magazine! It was undoubtedly the great vendetta that threatened Gaur's popularity.

With "Gaur-Tarzan" of his own edition, Nikos Routsos opened new avenues of communication and links of magazine-readers with competitions, gifts, Gaur-Tarzan associations. Based on what we have already mentioned, it is easy to see that the readers were divided into Tarzan fans (yes, there were those even though the game was clearly set up) and Gaur. He was also the first in Greece to give his readers the opportunity to get to know the tape recorder by inviting them to record audio messages about Hellenism abroad, which he would take care to send to America, Africa and Australia. The first issue of the magazine was published on Tuesday, October 16, 1951 and the 52nd and last on Tuesday, October 7, 1952.

It was released, that is, for exactly one year. The following Tuesday, October 14, in the place of "Gaur Tarzan", Routsos launched the short-lived "Koursaros". Among the promotions implemented by N. Routsos to get a share of traffic was to ... print inflation money!

The opposite was of course for internal consumption. In fact, they were scores of Tarzan fans. The Gaurians also had a corresponding bank account to pay them with the same ... currency! But also figures of the shadow theatre bar, where he would give dialogues to be played in the numerous courtyards of the Athenian neighbourhoods at the time, were employed in the tricks used by Routsos to attract and retain regular readers.

THE GREAT PERIOD

What he had not succeeded in the first two editions of Gaur-Tarzan, that is, to complete the more than one hundred previously announced titles - where coincidentally one edition from the other had a longer lifespan of only one month -, he succeeded in the second period of his collaboration with "Ankara" by Apollon Papadimitriou. This is the third period of the magazine. The title of the 1st issue of the third period is essentially a semantic variation of the title of the second period. Maybe to show that everything starts all over again. The 3rd period of "Gaur - Tarzan" began with the issue "Duel of Giants" on Thursday, October 8, 1959, seven years and exactly one day after the cessation of the publication of his own publishing attempt to publish "Gaur-Tarzan".

From the universe of the Gauro-Tarzan jungle, some continued in this period, some did not, while new faces entered in minor roles. One could say that neither the writing style has changed, nor the titles, which in several cases referred to science fiction or splatter thrillers with bizarre monsters, while recycling episodes from adventures of previous cycles are also found.