Weird, Old, and Rare Comic Books from Ukraine and my Past (With Translations)

[Azifri]

May I ask what exactly caused that? I'm thinking back at the comic but fail to see the parallels

[Kelheor]

Skinny bald alien Jesus

reminds me of Ronan xD and the Flying Space Spermatozoid somehow reminded me of Ego

[Azifri]

the Flying Space Spermatozoid somehow reminded me of Ego

I died. Can't unsee it now!

[Nail]

Thanks for the responce! The thing with soviet, post-soviet countries, considering weirdness... it... it's just there. Especially in cartoons, but I don't even want to start about. But science fiction, fantasy, horror, that only appeared at the end of 80's, it just has that tint, and even though I am myself grew up in of those countries, for the most part have no idea, what' going on there.
About political symbolysm... No. I'm pretty sure there's non of that. I'm going to cover russian comic reries "Muha" (The Fly) of that period, and the sams thing is going on there too. Basically the thing is that for decades of social realism stuff like this was pretty much supressed, so now creative people had possibility freely explore and create purely fanasy world and use those as an escape from reality.
And yes, I'm going to do more. Thereare a bunch more I've either just discovered recently or just don't have a phisical copy on hand.

[Nail]

Well, there you go!

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[Nail]

The thing that amuses me the most in this comic is that the ponytail guy AKA Yas' is completely useless. The 4-boobed lady attacks, he tries to intimidate her but she goes flirting with him ((this panel is only partialy present in the book, but in the video you can see it whole). BTW, this is why she holds the flower on the cover art.) He get's saved by the Spirit.
So, then the tribesmen attack and steel the woman - he's completely subdued by them and gets saved by Lupria.
Then he steps into lake to save Yuna and just falls on the ground cause it's, well acid, and begins crying out of how useless he is. Then the Spirit comes and literally sacrifices himself to help her get higher on the pole. And luprias come and take her to the shore. And than he's like: "Hey! I know how we're going to get home - the lake will give us a ride!" He's completely, utterly useless.

[Azifri]

That's hilarious, she never wanted to eat them, it was all just a cultural misunderstanding xD

I love how in the end they just happily fly off into the sunset.
After Zimra saves Yuna, MC gives her a kiss in a vampiric way, and Yuna doesn't seem to be bothered by it (I assume she's Yas girlfriend or something like that?), so I imagine them living a happy poly relationship on that island.

[Nail]

MC gives her a kiss in a vampiric way, and Yuna doesn't seem to be bothered by it

Technically they are just two random ship wreck survivers.
Also at the end he just says that the lake is no longer dangerous, yet... it might still be made of acid... And they're all just tripping away from the island...

[JamesLSarandis]

I love stuff like this. It reminds me of when one of my coworkers taught me about the Zagor comic.

[bakasama25]

Yeah, I've seen some examples of Russian pop fiction. Some of that goes to some very strange places. I've seem some Alternate History novels from Armada Press. I think my favorite one is the isekai novel about Stalin who's transported to another world that magic and dragons.

[Cavechan]

Poor Zimra being friendzoned at the end.

[Nail]

So, I planned to write about "The Valley" next (the one with driving dude on the cover), but while researching some info I came across this little thing on and decided to do it first.

https://forum.comics.com.ua/download/file.php?id=24020
This two-paged comic based on Ukrainian folk tale was published in the very first issue of educational journal for children "Sonyashnyk" (Sunflower) in January 1991. The journal continued to exist up untill 2007 and usually contained puzzles, poems and nowels, excercises on maths and English hence the byligual presentation of the comic.
But if you've just read the comic and you're a bit confused thinking: "What? Is this the end? What the story wasw about?" like I did - there's a reason for that. And the reason is that this comic is not only based on a folk tale but also on a critacally acclaimed sovied cartoon from 1982 "There Once Lived a Dog" or "Once Upon a Dog", and, although I like the artstile of the comis, I must to say it's quite literal and imaginative adaptation of the cartoon, that being stripped of all it's clever animation and humor, kind of feels like it lacking a substance to fullfill your need of a story. IDK, what I'm trying to say, but it's just a little comic for kids, so it doesn't mater.

[Nail]

But now about the cartoon. It was created in 1982 by Eduard Nazarov and has won a few prestigious international and domestic awards. I remember watching it as a kid, a lot of people remember watching it as a kid, and now it obtained a sort of a cult following. Animation is great, humor is brilliant, and the story is kind of sad yet touching, and it all is complimented with great folk songs. It's absolut must to watch.
There are quite a few versions of it on Youtube, and here's one I found narrated in English:

Aparantly the at the soviet times cartoon was voiced in few different languages. Upon a quick search I couldn't find the USA version, But I'll keep digging because I really want to see the wolf voiced by Cris Kristofferon

[Kelheor]

Wolf's looking very strange in the comic More like a huge rat or smth. And the whole comic doesn't have... you know, the look like it's for the kids. The cartoon is a pure gold

[Nail]

Ok. "The Valley"

There were two issues of this comic book that came out in 1993 and1994. It features three stories based on novels of popular science-fiction writers. The main story is "The Valley" after Roger Zelazny's... actually, I couldn't find out what piece exactly it based; "Jacob's War" is based on Joe Haldeman's short story "Private War of Private Jacobs"; and "Picnic on the Moon" after Rick Gauger's "The Vacuum-Packed Picnic".
As far as I can tell these books are extremely hard to find and it is not known how many copies there are. The one I have is the first issue feturing alternative cover art. And I know it is a rip-off of a certain American post-apocalyptic movies'poster, and I saw it , like a year ago online, and I thought: "Hey, maybe I should save the picture?.. Nah... It'll not a problem to find it later..." I can't find it. So if you know what movie this is from - let me know.

In 1993 I was about 5y.o. On the way from the kindergarden there was a book shop we were often visiting when my mom was ttaking me home. In one of those day I saw this comic and she bought it to me. We moved to the other part of city since then but that book shop still exists and the same owner lady still works there. My uni was situated not so far from it and I've been often going there to use their photocopier and buy paper for drawing; and at school times we were buying schoolbooks and office suplies in that place. It feels like time has stopped there each time I'm visiting it if happens to walk nearby.
So, I'm going to translate this comic, but I'm not going to do it by the issues, but rather by separate sories. First - I'll do "Jacob's War" then "Picnic on the Moon" and then, maybe "The Vally" - it's long and it has a lot of colored text bpanels, which would be a pain to clear out.
But if you're impatient and can read in Russian, there are full scans available to watch online on oldcomics.ru:

https://oldcomics.ru/comics/dolina/dolina-voyna-djekoba-1993/online/

https://oldcomics.ru/comics/dolina/dolina-2-piknik-na-lune-1994/online/

[Nail]

"Jacob's War" is based on short story by science-fiction author Joe Haldeman "Private War of Private Jacob". You can read it here:
https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=u0JOBQAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=ru&pg=PT86#v=onepage&q&f=false
And I recommend to read it. The comic took some creative liberties with the story, but for the most part it feutures straight forward lines from the original text. I took my own liberties with my translation though. English words are shorter than Russian, so I used it in some parts to cramp in some extra lines from original story.
Anyway, here it is, "Jacob's War" translated:

A link to download PDF:
https://dropmefiles.com/nF1Qn

[bakasama25]

There were two issues of this comic book that came out in 1993 and1994. It features three stories based on novels of popular science-fiction writers. The main story is "The Valley" after Roger Zelazny's... actually, I couldn't find out what piece exactly it based

From the images of that one, if it features a biker going from Los Angles to New York in a post nuclear American landscape in an armored personal carrier. That might be Damnation Alley. It might actually be closer the to the novel than the movie version of it.

[Nail]

Damnation Alley

Yes, I looked it up, it is Damnation Alley. Thank you. I haven't seen the movie but I'm going to watch it now.

[bakasama25]

I realized the Russian comic book version of Damnation Alley is the only comic book version of it.

[Nail]

Western science-fiction authors were very popular during 80-s in USSR. Even now I keep buying books with collections of short stories from those times on flee markets.Since comic books became available here as a media it wasn't a big stretch to adapt some of that sci-fi to it.