Cover of the first part of the series - "Landing in the Andes".
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A history of "By Erich von Daniken" series (also known as "Gods from the Space") began in the middle seventies when Alfred Gorny, director of publishing house "Sport i Turystyka" bought from West-German editor "Econ Verlag GmbH" rights for publishing in Poland a book by Erich von Daniken, well known propagator of theory that creatures form the space visited Earth in the past. While conversation with director of "Econ", Dursthoff, Gorny get to know that there are plans of announcing ideas of the Swiss also in comics. Due to the fact that "Sport i Turystyka" had been publishing comics successfully for a few years it was decided that the comic would be drawn by Polish authors.
Co-scenarist of the series became Arnold Mostowicz - publicist, chairman of Daniken's ideas and UFO explorer. More complicated problem seemed to be chosing the proper drawer. Jerzy Wroblewski and Grzegorz Rosinski were the candidates. The latter drawn about 40 trial pages according to unconfirmed information. Finally Rosinski started to creating "Thorgal" and proposed Boguslaw Polch to draw "By Erich von Daniken" series. His drawing were accepted by Germans and one has to admit that it would be difficult to find better candidate for drawing a comic full of technical details. As we know well Polch is a real master in drawing such type of comics.
Cover of a non-published in Poland the eight part - "Last Order".
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Eight parts of the series were craeted. It gained great popularity in Western countries and was translated into 12 languages. In 1982 (after all parts were published in Germany) the series finally came to Poland, thanks to Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza. During next 10 years seven parts were published in Poland. The last part went through all stages of preparing to printing process, but was not published as KAW was dismissed. Ready to print comic is now waiting for printing in the archives of the former editor.
Comics present probable activities of visitors from the space on the prehisoric Earth. They were to be responsible for creating human kind and its later development, and signs of this interference are still visible: huge drawings on Nasca in South America are to be information for spacemen, Egiptian pyramids were built with their help and Babel Tower was to be emiter of superenergy which was used to control the space around the Earth. Many events described in the Bible and myths of different nations, in the comics is explained the activity of visitors. Everything, starting from the birth of human kind what happened thanks to genetic experiments, through flood caused by a huge meteor, ending with escape of Israel people from Egipt, was caused by visitors from Des.
The story should be treated not very seriously, however it has very interesting plot and various (but paper) heroes. The best in comic is drawing by Boguslaw Polch, technical world of Des planet and wild nature on the prehistoric Earth.
"By Erich von Daniken" is one of the best series created by Polish authors. Total issue of all parts published in Poland amounts to 1.6 million copies. Until today the series is very popular.
Supplement: in March 2003 publishing house "Muza" released comic book "Ekspedition" part 1. The hard-cover edition contains first four parts of the series. The other parts will be published soon.
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