Ervin Rustemagic and his company, SAF Comics, has made this publication possible. Ervin is Joe Kubert’s friend of many years and is the person featured in Joe’s graphic novel, FAX FROM SARAJEVO.
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EXCERPT FROM ERVIN’S INTRODUCTION:
“………My friend, Sergio Bonelli, the biggest Italian comics publisher asked me to try to persuade Joe Kubert to draw one of the “Tex” books for them. For those who do not know it, “Tex” is a western comics series – created by the late Giovanni Luigi Bonelli, Sergio’s father and Aurelio Gallelppini – that has originally published in Italy, on a regular monthly basis, for more than 50 years. “Tex” was and still is so popular in Italy that some people there use to say that every true Italian family must treasure some of the “Tex” books in their home. And if they don’t, then their real Italian origin is questionable. Consequently, more than half a billion copies of all “Tex” books have been sold world-wide so far, the most in Italy. This series is also extremely popular in countries like Finland, Norway and Brazil.
So, I introduced Joe to “Tex” and told him how much I was proud of it that my company handles and controls all the publishing rights to “Tex” in the entire world – outside Italy. Still, Joe was not willing to take on the commitment to draw a western story that has 224 comic pages. Therefore it took me quite a while and I had to make quite a few visits to New Jersey to finally convince Joe to do it. However, as he was concentrated on working on “Fax From Sarajevo” and some other of his projects at that time, it was only in late 2000 that Joe was finally able to complete his work on this really big artistic undertaking in his extraordinary career. However, I must mention here that through the years of his work on “Tex” – when he was delivering installments of his original art to my office – Joe kept telling me how much he was enjoying working on it and how much he liked the script by Claudio Nizzi.
In the end, I have to say that I am very happy now that Sergio Bonelli Editore and SAF Comics can bring this excellent work of my dear friend Joe Kubert to the American public and also introduce this great Italian comics series to the readers in the country where the western genre comes from
Ervin Rustemagic” You may now purchase TEX (containing 240 black and white pages), signed by Joe Kubert (with a dedication if desired) or unsigned. |
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