Spøk og Spenning #21/1942
Spøk og Spenning #21/1942 marks a notable transition point within one of Norway's few comic-format periodicals to survive the German occupation: it is the final issue to carry the Secret Agent X-9 serial 'The Land of Disappearing Men,' after which two new strips replaced it, reshaping the magazine's lineup mid-run. Published under Nazi occupation while Norwegian publishers navigated wartime paper rationing that had already forced the magazine to shift from weekly to fortnightly production, this issue stands as a document of how American popular comics — Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Mandrake, and Tarzan among them — continued reaching Norwegian readers through the ingenuity of the syndicate Bulls Pressetjeneste even under severe wartime restrictions. Its very existence had been legally contested earlier that same year, with an Oslo city court ruling in February 1942 that the publication's serialized format distinguished it from standalone comic books, a precedent that allowed Magasinet for Alle to keep publishing.
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Spøk og Spenning was launched by Magasinet for Alle in 1941 as a vehicle for American syndicate strips licensed through Bulls Pressetjeneste, the Norwegian press agency that distributed King Features and other US material across Scandinavia. By 1942 the magazine was operating under the dual pressure of German occupation restrictions on American imports and a national paper-rationing regime that had already cut its frequency to fortnightly by issue 15. The strips it carried — including the Mandrake the Magician dailies reformatted as Sunday-style pages, Mickey Mouse and Goofy Sunday reprints, and Tarzan Sunday pages — were largely sourced via Bulls from Swedish intermediary channels, as direct US supply had been severely disrupted.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Spøk og Spenning was published by A/S Magasinet For Alle with comics rights held by Bulls Pressetjeneste A/S, and printed by Emil Moestue A/S in Oslo.
- Issue #21/1942 is the final installment of the Secret Agent X-9 serial titled 'The Land of Disappearing Men' (by Charles Flanders and Robert Storm); beginning with the following issue, it was replaced by 'Bobby Dazzler' (Bobby Gløgg) by Otto Messmer and 'Pussycat Princess' by Grace Drayton.
- The Mandrake the Magician story running through all 1942 issues — including #21 — is 'Blekkspruten' ('The Octopus Ring'), a Lee Falk/Phil Davis daily-strip arc reformatted into Sunday-page style, sourced via the Swedish magazine Allers.
- Mickey Mouse and Goofy appear in the magazine as reprints of King Features Sunday strips; earlier issues document these as sourced from the 1937 era of the strip.
- Tarzan Sunday pages were also running in the magazine at this period, though between issues #24 and #27 of the same year Tarzan would be replaced by Prince Valiant — making #21 one of the final issues before that substitution.
- By issue #15, wartime paper rationing in Norway had already forced the magazine from weekly to fortnightly publication; by issue #33 the page count would be cut from 16 to 12 pages.
- The magazine's right to publish American strips at all had been legally challenged and affirmed in Oslo city court in February 1942 — the same year as this issue — when a judge ruled that Spøk og Spenning's serialized format meant it was not a standalone comic book, allowing Magasinet for Alle to continue publication.
- The occupation-era context meant Bulls Pressetjeneste had to use unorthodox methods to keep American strip material flowing into Norway, including routing material through its Stockholm office and via Norwegian fishing vessels.
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Våre venner får hjelp av perlefiskeren til å finne hvor dr. Barker gjorde sin undersjøiske oppdagelse.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).