Catalan Communications
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Catalan Communications was a New York publishing company, operated by Bernd Metz, which mainly focused on English-language translations of European graphic novels, presented in a series of high-quality trade paperbacks.
[edit] Company history
The company published through the 1980s from a large loft located at 43 East 19th Street. Metz was the editor, and Elizabeth Bell provided English translations for the French titles, including Max Cabanes' Colin-Maillard (Heartthrobs). In 1990, the Cabanes graphic novel was the winner of the Grand Prix at France's Angoulême International Comics Festival. One of Bell's translated books for Catalan revealed errors in an earlier Heavy Metal translation of the same story. James Keller translated the German edition of Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs (Guido Crepax) in 1991, the year the company released its last titles. Tom Leighton was another Catalan translator.
Some outstanding books published by Metz were Jacques Loustal's Love Shots, Lorenzo Mattotti's Fires and Barcelona artist Marti Riera's The Cabbie, with an introduction by Art Spiegelman. Published in five languages, Trip to Tulum by Federico Fellini and Milo Manara, with essays translated by Elizabeth Bell, was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best trade paperbacks of 1990. PW reviewed:
- A beautiful woman falls into a pond chasing Fellini's windblown hat. Under the water's surface is an eerie world of preserved shipwrecks and planewrecks, a resting place for ghostly references to Fellini's films. Inside a submerged seaweed-encrusted 747 the woman is astonished to find Fellini himself. He sends her off with a very handsomely drawn Marcello Mastroianni--Fellini's alter ego--to make a movie of unknown content. They stop in Los Angeles and finally reach a grand hotel on the Mexican coast where magical transformations abound. Fellini and Manara have brought the dreamlike beauty of Fellini's cinematography to the comics medium. A consummate linear draftsman, Manara's deft portraits of Fellini and Mastroianni are complemented by his dazzling imaginary architecture, his characteristic lyrical eroticism and the playfully self-referential exchanges between Fellini and the characters in his story.
Around 1988/89, Catalan expanded its line with the "Comcat" line of comic albums aimed at all ages, focusing on non-adult European comic albums such as Blake and Mortimer, The Adventures of Yoko, Vic and Paul, Code XIII and Young Blueberry.
[edit] Catalan titles
- Adventures of Rocco Vargas: Triton (Daniel Torres)
- Adventures of Rocco Vargas: Whisperer Mystery (Vol.2) (1990)
- Adventures of Rocco Vargas: Saxon (vol.3)
- Anarcoma
- Ape (1986)
- Baciliero: The Talking Head
- Bell's Theorem
- Billy Budd, Kgb
- Bodyssey (1986) (Richard Corben)
- Boldlight
- Breakthrough
- Burton & Cyb
- Companions of the Dusk
- Dark Tales
- Deep City
- Den, (Richard Corben)
- Den Vol. 2: Muvovum (1984) (Richard Corben)
- Dies Irae, part 2
- Dorm Girls
- Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
- Edgar Allan Poe, (Richard Corben)
- Erma Jaguar
- Exterminator 17
- Ghita of Alizarr
- Gods in Chaos
- Good-Bye
- Hearts of Sand
- Heir, The
- Hidden Camera (1990)
- Hunting Party
- Indian Summer
- Jeremiah 13: Strike
- Joe's Bar
- Justine
- Last Voyage of Sinbad (1988), (Richard Corben)
- Man from Harlem
- Mark of the Dog
- Matter of Time
- Mercenary: Cult of the Sacred Fire
- Mercenary: The Formula
- Morbus Gravis 1
- Necron (1990)
- New York/Miami (1990)
- Orient Gateway
- Outer States
- Perchance to Dream
- Peter Pank
- Pioneers of the Human Adventure
- Ranks of the Black Order
- Raw: High Culture for Low Brows
- Rebel
- Richard Corben: Underground
- Shooting Stars (hardback)
- Specialist: Full Moon in Dendara
- Squeak the Mouse (1989)
- Stella Norris: Hurricane
- Superwest Comics (1987)
- Survivor, The (1990)
- Talking Head
- Tex Arcana
- Torpedo
- Town That Didn't Exist
- Valentina
- Venus in Furs (1991)
- Video Clips (1985)
- Werewolf (Richard Corben)
- Woman Trap
- Zeppelin
[edit] Comcat titles
- Adventures of Blake and Mortimer
- The Adventures of Yoko, Vic and Paul
- Code XIII
- Magic Crystal, v 1-3 (retitle of Altor)
- Young Blueberry
