Golden Age American Comics are hard to find. Golden Age Philippine Komiks...even harder! Unlike the United States, collecting local comic books in the Philippines in the 1950's was not a common pastime. So very few people preserved them. Prior to becoming a well respected Artist in the United States, the legendary Nestor Redondo was the illustrator of the most famous Philippine Superheroine of them all- Mars Ravelo's DARNA !
Originally written & drawn by Mars Ravelounder the character's original name- "VARGA", Mars Ravelo had a falling out with the Editors of the original magazine that featured the strip.
Since the previous publisher owned the name "VARGA" (although not the concept, design and premise) Ravelo relaunched and rebooted his creation under a new name- "DARNA". And this time, instead of drawing the strip himself, he let newIllustrator Nestor Redondo draw the strip. The character's design and origin looked essentially the same with a few tweaks to streamline her.
"DARNA" became a National sensation to the point that a film production company called "Royal Films" licensed the character from Ravelo so that they could produce the World's first honest to goodness Live Action SUPERHEROINE movie in the Superman tradition. The film starred the late Filipino-American Actress -Ms. Rosa Del Rosario (real name Rose Stagner) and the first ever Darna movie was in theatres in 1951.
Amazingly, unlike many of today's comic book adaptations, the first DARNA movie from 1951 was faithful to the original "komiks" material. There have been 14 DARNA movies ever since as well as 2 TV series with the most recent one starring Actress Angel Locsin produced in 2005.
But none of the modern movies were ever as true to the original komiks as the first and second films that starred Rosa Del Rosario.
As far as the Original DARNA KOMIKS, they were lost to the general public for decades. They have never been reprinted in komiks form ever since. But thanks to the Internet, DARNA fans everywhere can now read Chapters 1 to 4, Chapter 17where Darna fights a Kapre (Philippine Troll) and the complete grand finale/ confrontation between DARNA and her Classic Arch Nemesis- VALENTINA THE GORGON.
READ THE ORIGINAL DARNA KOMIKS at the Philippine Pop Culture Megasite- VIDEO 48 by clicking here:
http://video48.blogspot.com/search/label/DARNA
For more infornation regarding DARNA, visit:
www.marsravelodarna.com