Momo was based on a book by the same person who wrote The Never-Ending Story.
The first page of most issues of the German Mad is usually a color page with mostly text, titled Mad's Monatlicher Almanach (Mad's Monthly Almanac), and has a cartoon in the lower left asking you to guess the title being illustrated. Here it's Death of a Salesman.
Here's a clip from Momo, which I hadn't heard of either.
Their version of If Comic Strip Characters Were as Old as Their Strips from Mad #72, July 1962
Isnogud and Clever & Smart are bande desinée characters that haven't been translated into English.
Again things are redrawn to conform to a uniform style. Wally Wood was dead by then so they couldn't have him do new panels for this if they wanted.
I can't tell who this “Mozart” guy is supposed to be. Never heard of him, couldn't find anything about him on the internet. He must have been their President or something.
But seriously, If you were to search Mozart on Twitter, where many don't know who Paul McCartney is or the Titanic really happened, you'd find people that ignorant.
I read an english translation of MOMO around 1982 titled "THE GREY GENTLEMEN." It was not a bad story really but it was kind of cerebral and moody. The Grey Gentlemen were like media phantoms who robbed people of imagination and dreams and got them absorbed in junk TV. Momo was a brave little girl who defeated the Grey Gentlemen with the help from a tortoise that could control the secrets of Time. Something like that anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think the CLEVER & SMART characters originated in Spain, also by another name which escapes me.