Mandrake - Il Vascello

Il Vascello - Mandrake was the regular series of Mandrake comic books published by the Italian publisher Fratelli Spada. Being the direct continuation of a similar series previously released by the (La Freccia) publications, it was also known as Il Vascello and Mandrake with a total of 474 issues released from 1962 to 1980. Although it was essentially the same publication for the entire run, it was relaunched with restarted numbering several times, dividing the run into four distinctive series.

History

First series (1962-1967)

The first issue is dated January 5, 1962 and the last (#140) February 19, 1967. The format was 15 × 21.5 cm for generally 32 pages but some issues had 80 pages. The title changed from #27 to Albi de Il Vascello - Mandrake. The material was mainly composed of stories drawn by Italian artists but American reprinted material was also published. A large part of the painted color covers are works by Mario Caria.

Issue overview

1962	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26
1963	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52
1964	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78
1965	79	80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100	101	102	103	104
1966	105	106	107	108	109	110	111	112	113	114	115	116	117	118	119	120	121	122	123	124	125	126	127	128	129	130	131	132	133	134	135	136	137	138	139
1967	140

Second series (1967-1971)

The first issue of this specific is dated March 4, 1967. The title was still Albi del Il Vascello - Mandrake and the same format size was kept, but the numbering restarted from #1. The number of pages was also 32 until issue #100. It increased to 48 pages from issue #100 to 110, before having 64 pages for the rest of the series. The series ended with the issue #206 dated April 18, 1971. Once again, it was mainly composed of stories drawn by Italian artists with some stories already published in the previous series. The covers sometimes represented others comic characters than the Mandrake and were less often painted. Unsold copies were later glued together and given new covers and sold as Raccolta Mandrake.

Issue overview

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Third series (1971-1972)

Beginning on May 9, 1971 with an issue numbered #1, it stopped on March 15, 1972 with the issue #32. This time the format size was reduced.

Issue overview

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Fourth series (1972-1980)

On April 16, 1972, this new start was founded on a larger format size and was entitled Albi del Il Vascello – Serie Cronologica – Mandrake, the word Mandrake being written predominantly as the main title. The Serie Cronologica issues 1-8 had a dual numbering; Serie Cronologica #1 was also Mandrake #33, continuing the numbering of the previous third series.

Until issue Serie Cronologica #40, a separate folded supplement of 8 pages was included which reproduced the Sunday stories in chronological order. These inserts were later glued together to form the four books named L'epoca d'oro di Mandrake. From issue 77 the serie was renamed to Albi del Vascello - Mandrake and the series continued until #96 on January 1, 1980.

Unsold copies were later glued together and given new covers and sold as Raccolta Super Mandrake.