The Merchandise Guide
Comics: Zack Comics
Compiled by Martin Willey

• Zack
• Zack comic
• Zack comic stories
• Zack Parade books
• Zack Box albums

---

Zack Box

European comics introduced the concept of publishing large format albums, containing a long complete comic story, in parallel with their weekly or fortnightly compilation titles. The tradition started with Tintin albums in the early 1930s. In 1961, the French comic Pilote started La Collection Pilote album series, starting with Asterix. In the US comic publishers started the album format in the mid to late 1970s, settling on the term "graphic novel".

The Zack albums are 22 x 29 cm, with card covers and 48 colour pages inside. Price was 4 DM. There were 43 in total (originally named "Zack Comic Box" from 1-18). There had been 4 Star Trek albums (8, 13, 21 and 22). Two 'Mondbasis Alpha 1' titles appeared (31 and 32).

These original stories are juvenile space opera, and the art and story are very much 1930s pulp science fiction. In the first, disembodied brains want to transplant themselves into Alphan bodies (slightly recalling Mission of the Darians, Helena is captured and readied for transplant). The second the Alphans fight a planet of giant ants, like in the first Look-In story.

Zack Box 31 (1978) "Invasion der Roboter" ("Invasion Of The Robots").	Catacombs	Mondstation (partial translation)	thanks to Angelo Finamore
Zack Box 32 (1978) "Planet der Riesen Ameisen" ("Planet Of The Giant Ants")	Catacombs	Mondstation (partial translation)	thanks to Angelo Finamore.