The Buffalo Bill comic book series was published by Serieförlaget in Sweden from 1952 thru till 1953. The series contains 48 editions (numbers 1-12 in 1952 and numbers 1-36 in 1953), publishing comic strips featuring the comic book character Buffalo Bill. On the outside back cover, a collectible series of images were published titled Serietidningen Buffalo Bills Samlarserie (which translates to Buffalo Bills Comic Book Collector’s Series).
Serieförlaget was a Swedish comic book publishing company that operated for a relatively short period, from 1950 to 1955. It was established as a subsidiary of the well-known Swedish publishing house Åhlén & Åkerlunds Förlags AB.
The primary reason for creating Serieförlaget was that Åhlén & Åkerlunds reportedly wished to keep their main company name untarnished by association with comic books, which were perhaps not as highly regarded at the time. Thus, the separate imprint “Serieförlaget” (which translates to “Comics Publisher”) was created for this specific purpose.
During its brief existence, Serieförlaget published several popular comic titles, including:
- Fantomen (The Phantom): This iconic comic strip, created by Lee Falk, has a long and enduring history in Sweden and was one of Serieförlaget’s key titles.
- Blondie: The popular American comic strip featuring the Bumstead family.
- Buffalo Bill: Western-themed comics featuring the famous American frontiersman.
- Tarzan: Adventures based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ legendary jungle hero. Notably, the comic Tarzan also featured Mandrake the Magician as a backup feature during 1954.
Serieförlaget was preceded by another comics imprint under Åhlén & Åkerlunds called Alga (which ran from 1942 to 1950) and was succeeded by Åhlén & Åkerlunds Youth Magazines (from 1955 to 1962). The latter eventually evolved into the much larger and longer-lasting comic book publisher Semic Press in the early 1960s.
Interestingly, later in the 1980s and 1990s, another entity associated with Hemmets Journals förlag (which was part of the Danish Egmont Group) also used the name “Serieförlaget” or “Serieförlaget Svenska” for some of its comic book publications before the entire operation was integrated into Egmont Serieförlaget in 1997 following Egmont’s acquisition of Semic Press. The “Serieförlaget” name was eventually phased out of the Egmont name in 2003, with the company now known as Egmont Publishing.
Therefore, when referring to Serieförlaget, it typically points to the original publishing arm of Åhlén & Åkerlunds that was active in the first half of the 1950s and played a role in establishing some enduring comic book titles in Sweden.
Buffalo Bill comic book edition number 19 was published in 1952 containing black and white internal pages measuring 13cm x 17.5cm. The front cover of this edition can be seen below, published with a color cover.
The outside back cover of this edition contains an image of the Phantom, part of the Serietidningen Buffalo Bills Samlarserie collector picture series. The Phantom is seen in his blue costume as he’s known in Sweden. The image is designed to be cut away from the comic and displayed, with Serieförlaget printing a dotted white line indicating where to cut the image. The Phantoms Swedish title is seen below the image, Fantomen.
The illustration published is by George Camitz, originally published by Serieförlaget on the front cover of Fantomen comic book number 1 in 1951, which can be seen below.
An album to house the Serietidningen Buffalo Bills Samlarserie pages was released by Serieförlaget named ‘Buffalo Bills Samlarserie’, which translates to ‘Buffalo Bills Collector’s Series’. After the Serietidningen Buffalo Bills Samlarserie pages are removed from the Buffalo Bill comic books, they’re to be hole-punched and inserted into the album via 2 metal screws in the spine, capable of housing all pages in the set.
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