Seleçóes de Terror (Taika, 1st Series)

    (Taika, 1967-1970)

Editora Continental / Outubro / Taika were 3 names used by the same small publisher in Brazil. The work of artists Jayme Cortez & Miguel Penteado, they decided to form the company in 1959 after working several years for Editora De Selva, and getting tired of taking the bus to work while their bosses kept buying new cars. About 2 years in, Continental was hit with a cease-and-decist order from some other publisher who had apparently filed for registration of the name "Continental". As a result, they changed their name to "Outubro". Sometime in the mid-1960s Editora Abril (April) hit them with ANOTHER "cease-and-decist" order, as they had registered a trademark on every month of the year, including Outubro (October).

Bering forced to change their company name for the 2nd time in under 5 years, they hit on "Taika", the name of one of their nieces. Sadly, around that time, Cortez & Penteado had a major falling-out, which saw Cortez going into advertising, while Penteado also left to form a new company of his own, Graphic Editora Penteado (GEP). This left the once artist-driven company in the hands of their business partners-- the accountants. The company continued on for another decade, although the number of reprints increased exponentially, and the quality of their printing (and cover design work) steadily nosedived. Among the growing number of reprints though were a number of new covers by Nico Rosso, who also became the main artist on their long-running "Dracula" series.

While Continental/Outubro/Taika published a variety of genres, horror was their big thing, and their anchor title for it was Seleçóes de Terror. Whatever else might have been included over time, every issue featured Dracula.

For a period of time in the late-1960's, Taika began lumping issue number for similar titles together with a "group" or "production" series numbering in the indicia, which differed from the individual title series numbering on the cover of each title. To add to the confusion, in 1969 they began putting both numbers on the covers (ex. "Numero 236 / 88" on the cover of issue #88), leading to confusion for collectors and online databases.

-Henry Kujawa via Professor H's House of Horrors blog
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