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| Some of the Linneman team that is somehow still hanging around after fortysomething years... |
Happy Holidays all! I hope your season has been amazing so far and that you ring in the new year exactly as you most enjoy.
Tomorrow will mark 10 years since I published my first post on this blog. I kind of can't believe that...while I've had my lapses...it's something that's still a part of what I do and think about. It probably helps that many of the people I've met through blogging (even my meager and sporadic output) are some of the folks I'm happiest to know in this world of ours.
I've been giving a fair amount of thought recently into directions I might try steering things in 2026 in an effort to streamline my blogging focus and stumble into more completed projects along the way. So...we'll see how that goes, I guess...but in the meantime, I wanted to go ahead and share something else I've put a little time into lately. (I'd like to think of this as my "Christmas gift to the world"...or the first part of it, at least...but I do realize that its weight doesn't really merit that kind of lofty description...!)
To cut to the chase, these links will take you to an English translation of the first issue of Ekatón: El Pueblo Perdido del Espacio, a comic series included in the Argentine children's magazine Anteojito beginning (I believe) in 1980.
The longer explanation goes something like this:
The picture at the top of this post shows a selection of characters from a reasonably well-known set of cheap plastic space figures initially released in the late 1970s. While I'm not even sure if all of the names under which they were sold have ever been gathered together, they are now most often called the Galaxy Laser Team, or occasionally the Star Patrol. At this point, there's been quite a bit written (and filmed) about these toys, so I'm not going to dive into their history right now. If you're interested, you can find some great blog posts about them here and here, and plugging "Galaxy Laser Team" into your favorite search engine or video site search bar is sure to give you a number of informative results.
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| Another look at not-Chewbacca and one of the astronauts (to show a bit more detail than what can be seen above due to their color) |
Now, they may not look like much, but something about the sculpts and the coloration (some of my actual childhood figures are pictured here) made these toys pretty freaking memorable for those of us who played with them way back when. They're even being manufactured again (in loads of new colors) by Tim Mee Toy! The thing was, while they were obviously made to cash in on a specific cultural phenomenon of the late 1970s (one that still earns new fans today), there was never a background story to accompany the figures. Well...so I thought...until a few(?) years back when I found out that a children's magazine in Argentina, Anteojito, included a five-issue comic insert in the early '80s that featured characters based on the figures. (Or...maybe the figures were based on the characters...? I'm not sure if anyone knows for certain the order that everything took effect, but my guess is that the figures came first...)
While this comic series, Ekatón: El Pueblo Perdido del Espacio, has been widely available on the web for a while now and has even been reprinted fairly recently, I had never seen it translated into English. So, I've tried to correct that.
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| The "cover" of the English translation |
Some caveats(!!)
1) I do not speak Spanish very well, so this translation is mostly from ChatGPT. I did make some edits for syntax and flow, but nothing substantial was changed. This seemed to me like a reasonable use of AI, since the creative nature of the task is minimal, BUT I recognize that others may take issue with that choice. I hope you won't hold it against me too much.
2) It is, admittedly, kind of sloppy...especially the "starburst" word balloons. I made it in PowerPoint, and my efforts only roughened the already rough edges of the files I started with. It is meant to be more utilitarian than ornamental, though. And fwiw, I think the PDFs I have located of later issues are in better shape than the one I used for this installment, so as I continue this project, future editions may be a bit prettier.
3) On that note: I do not own any of this material. I got this PDF from Scribd, and scans of all the original comics can be found pretty easily with a web search. However, as noted above, this story has recently been reprinted in a deadtree form, and so it is possible there will be concerns about my posting it here. I hope that adding the English translation will give others reason to believe this is a worthwhile thing to make available, BUT...well, please let me know if you believe it's a problem!
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| Some figures near the characters they presumably inspired |
One final thing...not really a caveat, but a note...if you get some value out of this, please let me know! I will eventually make my way through all five issues simply because I want to know the whole story and be able to page through it like I would any other comic. However, if I know there are others who have enjoyed or are enjoying the project, it will certainly encourage me to work on those sooner rather than later. (And perhaps it goes without saying that I would welcome anyone else who wants to join the effort...or even take it over, since I'm sure there are others much more qualified than I to tackle the translation and layout challenges...!)
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| I'm hoping the Cosmic Spark will play more of a role in future episodes. |
With all of that said, I hope you enjoy! Those links again (and please let me know if they're broken...):
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Happy New Year, everyone!
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