My Christmas wish was answered when I received an email from a new friend, Santiago. He sent me a link to a blog that featured a Portuguese version of KEVIN THE BOLD published in a magazine titled Cavaleir Andante. The magazine’s title translates to Knight Errant—“a medieval knight wandering in search of chivalrous adventures“—a perfect description of Kevin. The comic strip itself was retitled Pela Cruz e Pela Espada (By the Cross and by the Sword).

I don’t own a physical copy of the magazine, but it seems to have been primarily a collection of comic strips, with color covers and some color pages inside. My assumption is that the magazine was a weekly.

Pela Cruz e Pela Espada ran in 41 issues of the magazine (issues No. 5 through No. 46), and started on February 2, 1952. It began with Kevin’s debut adventure about the Moorish pirate raiders.

The first couple of episodes ran in full-color versions, with the magazine providing its own color scheme. These were followed by episodes in black and white or in two colors.

The two-color approach brings to mind the religious comics Collins created for the Methodist Publishing House in the mid-1940s.

The penultimate episode in the introductory story arc contains one of Kevin’s classic lines, as he uses his sword to mark a “T” into the face of the treacherous Bull Blackie (“T is for traitor!”)

In this Portuguese version, the dialog changes slightly: “You will be marked forever, traitor. And now, goodbye!” Not quite as punchy as the original, but still very dramatic.

In the original version, the story arc ends with Kevin receiving his title (“…the Irishman who wields this sword shall be known as Kevin the Bold!”), but here it becomes “Kevin, with this sword we will perform valuable feats! God bless you!” The change makes sense because the strip is titled not after its lead character, but for his actions (By the Cross and By the Sword).

The 41 episodes represent the first three of Kevin’s adventures. In addition to the chapter with the Moorish Pirates, the others feature his battle against the Count de Falcon and Kevin’s quest to rescue the Count’s sister, Sadea.

I hope your Christmas wish came true too. Happy New Year, and Happy Birthday (tomorrow) to Kreigh Taylor Collins.

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.