Zagor's real name is Patrick Wilding; he is the son of
Mike and Betty. He is a western character living in a forest named Darkwood,
located in Pennsylvania, in the northeastern United States. His name Zagor comes
from its Indian name "Za-Gor Te-Nay", whose fictional meaning is
"The Spirit with the Hatchet". Though the writers don't mention exact
dates, Zagor is supposed to be active during the first half of the 19th
century, around 1825–1830. Zagor fights to maintain peace over all his
territory, where he protects the Indian tribes and hunts down criminals. Son of
an retired army official he now lives as a pioneer and trapper in the forests
of the northeast, Patrick Wilding sees his parents die at the hands of a band
of Abenaki Indians, led by Salomon Kinsky. Taken in by a middle-aged trapper
nicknamed "Wandering Fitzy", the boy grows up with only one thought
on his mind: revenge. Fitzy teaches him how to make a deadly weapon out of a
hatchet, and when he is old enough to fulfill this he finds out that his father
had himself slaughtered many Indians, and the boy's understanding of the
relativity of the concepts of good, evil and justice compels him to transform
himself (with his accomplices the Sullivans, a family of acrobats who are his
image makers) into Za-Gor-Te-Nay. Better still, it is shortened to Zagor. He is
a kind of avenger always ready to side with the weak and the oppressed, whether
red, white or black, whoever they may be. Moving his shack to an island
surrounded by quicksand in a marshy area of Darkwood Forest, Zagor begins his
work as a peacemaker. He takes the Darkwood tribes under his wing earning
himself a distinction of the Lord of Darkwood, beloved and respected by
peaceful natives and trappers, and feared and hated by anyone who would
endanger the peace between reds and whites. Zagor isn't your typical western
character, there's a mix of horror and sci-fi side by side with a bit of humor
coming mostly from his sidekick Chico, a short, fat Mexican man who became his
best friend. His full name is "Don" Chico Felipe Cayetano Lopez
Martinez y Gonzal
The Zagor character became an Italian comic book hero
created by editor and writer Sergio Bonelli (pseudonym Guido Nolitta) and
artist Gallieno Ferri. Zagor was first published In Italy by Sergio Bonelli
Editore in 1961. Even though Zagor is popular in Italy, he is even more popular
in Croatia and Serbia, where it is still being published to this day, being
also published in other former Yugoslav republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia and Slovenia. In former Yugoslavia, Zagor was published by the
Serbian publication Dnevnik in its Zlatna Serija edition from 1968, now there
are more modern publishings in these countries like M-comics for Macedonia.
Although not as popular, Zagor comics are also published in Austria. Zagor has
been one of the most popular comic heroes in Turkey since the 1960s. Three
unofficial Zagor movies have been produced in Turkey during the 1970s. Zagor
was also published in Greece and in Israel in the 1970s, where, during that
time, Tex Willer was published as well.
In 2015, Epicenter Comics released the first English
language edition of the three-part story Zagor! Terror from the Sea, including
extra essays, introduction texts and original covers.
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