Condor Revista Semanal

Condor Revista Semanal (which translates to ‘Condor – Weekly Magazine’) is a magazine series published by Aguiar & Dias, Lda in Lisbon, Portugal from 1972 thur till 1986. 696 editions were published, containing a variety of comic book characters. In its earlier decades, Aguiar & Dias frequently collaborated with the Agência Portuguesa de Revistas (APR) to handle its massive nationwide distribution networks.

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.

The Phantom was published in two editions containing 64 pages measuring 12cm x 16.5cm. To keep the weekly production cost-effective for young readers, the interiors were printed entirely in black and white, bound in thin, vibrant, full-color paper covers.

Both editions featuring the Phantom published Lee Falk and Sy Barry classic Phantom comic strip stories, with edition number 1 containing ‘The Gladiator’ and edition number 26 containing ‘Luaga’s Undercover Tour’, which can both be seen below.

Condor Revista Semanal did not rely on a single flagship character; instead, it operated as an anthology series that rotated through a massive roster of Westerns, sci-fi, war, romance, and costumed hero strips. It largely pulled syndicated content from American newspapers, British IPC/Fleetway libraries, and Italian fumetti.

  • Westerns & Adventure: A massive portion of the 696-issue run was dedicated to classic Italian and Spanish cowboy strips, featuring lone-gunman short stories, Texas Rangers, and frontier survival tales (often cataloged under sub-series variants like Condor Popular).
  • British and European Serials: The magazine routinely adapted various action-adventure and sports-themed comic strips popular across the UK and Franco-Belgian markets during the 70s.

Today, Condor Revista Semanal is highly regarded among Portuguese comic historians and vintage Banda Desenhada (BD) collectors. Because they were printed on cheap, high-acid newsprint meant to be read and traded, locating high-grade editions is difficult.