Condor Popular

Condor Popular is a comic book series published by Aguiar & Dias, Lda in Lisbon, Portugal from 1954 thur till 1972. Containing a run of 880 issues, the series was published under their trade name, Agência Portuguesa de Revistas (APR). It was created alongside other low-cost pocket series comic books such as Colecção Audácia and Colecção Tigre to capture the market of younger readers and commuters looking for cheap, accessible entertainment.

Aguiar & Dias, Lda. was a pioneering Portuguese commercial firm established in Lisbon on the 11th of February 1948, by partners Mário de Aguiar and Dias. Located on the Rua do Arsenal, the company was initially registered not as a traditional publishing house, but as a commercial agency specializing in the import, commission, and distribution of foreign periodicals. Operating prominently under the public-facing trade name Agência Portuguesa de Revistas (APR), the company rapidly transformed the landscape of mid-century Portuguese popular culture by bridging the gap between international publishing markets and local readers.

The firm achieved monumental success through its flagship comic anthology, O Mundo de Aventuras (The World of Adventures), which debuted on the 18th of August 1949. This iconic magazine became a cornerstone of Portuguese banda desenhada (comic book) history, running for an astonishing 1,841 issues across multiple series before its eventual conclusion in January 1987. Through O Mundo de Aventuras and its various specialized supplements, Aguiar & Dias introduced generations of Portuguese readers to globally renowned comic icons, including sporadic appearances of Lee Falk’s The Phantom, alongside major properties like Tarzan, Mandrake the Magician, and classic Western or adventure serials.

Beyond its flagship anthology, Aguiar & Dias expanded its portfolio significantly to capture diverse segments of the reading market. The company published long-running weekly and monthly titles such as the multi-genre magazine Condor (which spanned from 1972 into the mid-1980s with nearly 700 issues), Colecção Terror, Ciclone, and Aventuras do FBI. To maximize their massive distribution network, which boasted a combined monthly circulation running into the hundreds of thousands during the company’s peak in the 1960s and 1970s, they also diversified into foreign fashion catalogs, romance novels, cinema magazines, and highly popular collectible sticker albums (cadernetas de cromos) detailing Portuguese history and culture.

The legacy of Aguiar & Dias, Lda. remains fundamentally tied to the democratization of visual mass media in 20th-century Portugal. By skillfully navigating domestic distribution logistics and securing licensing agreements for both American syndicate strips and European pulp art, the agency shaped the reading habits of the nation during a restrictive geopolitical era. Although the shifting media landscape and changing consumer tastes ultimately brought an end to their editorial empire in the late 1980s, the company is still revered by historians and physical media collectors as a titan of Portuguese publishing history.

Condor Popular are commonly referred to as “formatinho” (small format), these books typically measured around 17cm x 12cm. They were printed on inexpensive, pulp-quality paper. To keep production costs low while maintaining visual appeal, the covers used a limited color palette, most famously a striking, high-contrast black and a varying color scheme on a plain background, which became a signature visual trait of the line. The first and last editions in the series can be seen below.

Condor Popular relied heavily on syndication and international licensing. It published a massive variety of content, ranging from American newspaper comic strips, such as Mandrake the Magician, Tarzan, and Flash Gordon, to British adventure serials from Fleetway/Amalgamated Press, Italian Westerns, and European adaptations of classic literature.

The Phantom was also published across the massive 880-issue weekly run in five editions. Agência Portuguesa de Revistas used a distinct Volume + Issue Number cataloging system for it’s Condor Popular, identifying specific comic appearances can get tricky. Collectors often track these via a compressed four-digit code (e.g., #7803 represents Volume 78, Issue 3).

The Phantoms appearance in the series relied on translating and formatting the classic American newspaper comic strips to fit the pocket-sized layout. The five specific editions of Condor Popular that featured the Phantom (published under his local title of “O Fantasma”) as the headline or standout story are detailed below:

1. Volume 78, N.º 3 (#7803)

  • Story Title: “Marcas Na Cara” (Marks on the Face)
  • Era: Late 1960s / Early 1970s.
  • Format: Standard 32-page pocket format, part of the late-series rotation where APR relied on King Features Syndicate material to fill out the anthology line.

2. Volume 79, N.º 2 (#7902)

  • Story Title: “Os Assaltantes do Ar” (The Air Robbers)
  • Source Material: A translation of the 1969 American newspaper Sunday strip story The Hijackers, written by Lee Falk with art by Sy Barry.
  • Content: Features The Phantom dealing with a high-stakes modern aerial hijacking plot.

3. Volume 80, N.º 4 (#8004)

  • Story Title: “Uma Velha Aventura” (An Old Adventure)
  • Source Material: A translation of the 1969 Sunday strip story Walker’s Table, written by Lee Falk and drawn by Sy Barry.
  • Content: A historic lore-heavy chronicle detailing the historical connection between Christopher Columbus and the lines of the 1st and 2nd Phantoms.

4. Volume 82, N.º 8 (#8208)

  • Story Title: “O Reino Doirado” (The Golden Kingdom)
  • Context: By this point in the series’ long run, issues often mixed shorter western, adventure, or sci-fi strips alongside a primary licensed American character.

5. Volume 86, N.º 9 (#8609)

  • Story Title: “As Areias de Oiro” (The Golden Sands)
  • Context: This stands as one of the last appearances of the Phantom in the Condor Popular series before it ceased publication in 1972. It features classic Sy Barry-era artwork reformatted into the tiny formatinho presentation.

All five editions featuring the Phantom can be seen below in order of release.

Condor Popular comic books were printed on highly perishable paper stock and meant to be slipped into a pocket, read on a train, and traded among friends, making them affordable and highly accessible at the time. The series stands as a prime example of how European publishers successfully repackaged global adventure fiction into affordable, localized pop-culture formats.