Christa, Wieczór, Egmont

When taking high-resolution photos of Christa’s illustrations for The Spirit Journey, I noticed that old strips in Wieczór Wybrzeża differ slightly from Egmont’s albums. I understand that those subtleties will not be that important for an average collector who enjoys owning Christa’s comics books. Still, perhaps some of you will find them interesting.

In Egmont’s comic books, the reproductions (although beautifully crisp and clean), luck in places that masterful subtlety of most refined lines that Christa produced with his ink pen. The process of newspaper printing (made on etched metal plates) gave the strips from Wieczór Wybrzeża particular character (or look), unlike digital printing. 

Then there are more apparent differences where some parts of the original illustrations are missing altogether (those I have found on several occasions). Here is one example:

And there is, of course, the size difference! Christa’s originals are considerably larger than those in Wieczór Wybrzeża; Egmont’s strips are the smallest of them all. For seeing the mastery of Christa’s drawings, I prefer the larger sizes of the strips.

I still ‘though, greatly appreciate and admire all the effort that went into gathering and publishing Janusz Christa’s works by the people who brought expertise and passion to Egmont’s publications. The ease of reading Egmont’s comic books is so simple and immediate compared to the cumbersome size and fragility of my aging collection from Wieczór Wybrzeża. And yet, the enjoyment of handling those (now yellowed by time) pages and smelling that familiar aroma of ‘time that once was’ is… worth a little comparing.

Excerpt from my journal, Yandoit, Australia 2021.