One boring night in August of 2014, I again found
myself running eBay searches. Suddenly, I saw
something on the screen that made my jaw hit the
floor. A seller from Mexico had a lot of five books
listed. In that lot was a copy of Mi Gran Aventura
#2-154 (Swamp Thing #10). I couldn’t believe it.
Finally, I was going to be able to complete my run!
As fast as I could, I hit the “Buy It Now,” and immediately paid for the lot.
Now, after almost five years, I own what is very
likely the only complete run in the United States
of Mexican editions of the Wrightson and Wein
Swamp Thing series. They’re great books, and one
of the highlights of my collection. Anyone who collects foreign comic books would be lucky to have
them. If for some reason you decide to start hunting
them down though . . . be warned . . . it will be a
lengthy, frustrating trek, and there’s no telling how
long you’ll be out in the swamps looking!
Mi Gran Aventura #5 (Swamp
Thing #5) has a pale yellow
header which contrasts the red
background nicely making it
another stand-out book.
Novaro changed the header
color for Mi Gran Aventura #7
(Swamp Thing #7) to red from
the original reddish brown and
again, it really makes this book
stand out.
Sizing “Things”
up
For Mi Gran Aventura #2-153
(Swamp Thing #9) Novaro went
with a lighter green header than
DC and it contrasts the red
background nicely.
Mi Gran Aventura #2-154
(Swamp Thing #10) took 5 years
of searching to locate. To this
day I only know of one other
copy that’s turned up!
When I first started collecting foreign editions, I
didn’t realize there were so many surprises in store
for me. One of them being that some countries
published in various size formats. This practice even
carries through with some publishers over time, Editorial Novaro being one of them.
The first of the Mexican Swamp Thing issues I
acquired was Relatos Fabulosos #160 (House of
Secrets #92) published in the Revistas format and
measures 10” high by 7” wide, about the size of a
standard American comic book from the same time
period. No surprises there. The next ones I was able
to lay my hands on were Mi Gran Aventura #1, 2 &
3 (Swamp Thing #1, 2 & 3). I found these in a lot
from a seller out of Mexico and when they arrived, I
noticed they were slightly different in size. They’re
in the Avestruz format which measures the same 10”
high but are only 6 1/2” wide. It was a bit unusual
to see such a minor change to the size format but I
didn’t think much of it. That is until I was able to
get Mi Gran Aventura #152 & 153, which are in the
Aguila format. They’re considerably smaller and
measure 7 3/4” high by 5 1/2” wide. These threw me
for a loop. Up to that point I hadn’t seen anything
Mi Gran Aventura #4 (Swamp
Thing #4) wasn’t altered at all
and bears the closest resemblance to it’s American counterpart.
Mi Gran Aventura #2-152 (Swamp
Thing #8) is the 1st issue in the
Aguila format (see inset article)
and the yellow header is a striking
change from the original solid black
of the U.S. edition.
This copy of Mi Gran Aventura #6 (Swamp Thing
#6) is a stunning example of the book from an
original owner collection that surfaced in Mexico City.
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in a drastically different size and was curious about
why there was such a difference.
A while later I came into contact with Gustavo
Medina who worked for Novaro for a time (you may
remember him from FCC #4). Matt (Define999) and
I were able to have a conference call with him one
night and he explained that the changes in size were
made in an attempt to reduce production costs due to
the increasing costs of paper.
There was one more size that Novaro published
called Colibri, which is an even smaller size than
the Aguila books. Unfortunately, I don’t own any
of these so I’m unable to give exact dimensions on
them but to give you an idea, they’re almost small
enough to fit into the palm of your hand. You don’t
see them very often, and I’m sure the reason for that
is a good number of them simply didn’t survive over
the years.
So there you have it, a quick run down of the various size formats used by Editorial Novaro in Mexico, three of which were used during the timeframe of
publication of the classic Wrightson & Wein Swamp
Thing run.