In 1959, Adnan �akrak's Bilgi Yay�nlar� [Bilgi Publications] began publishing Red Kit comics. The weekly Red Kit comics began in the summer of 1959; however Bilgi also published a separate series titled Red Kit'in Maceralar� [The Adventures of Red Kit],which might have been an album-style series and whose start date appears to have preceeded the weekly series.
Below right: No.4 of �akrak's Red Kit from 1965 which featured Mandrake in filler pages. All art signed by Hayri.
It should be noted that in the summer of 1962, color editions of Lucky Luke with license were serialized in the comics magazine Arkada�, simoultaneously with Bilgi's unlicensed, black&white editions. It is striking that the title and name 'Red Kit' was used in Arkada�'s licensed editions as well; such must have been the popularity of unlicensed Red Kit.
Bilgi Yay�nlar� seems to have closed down in late 1963. Meanwhile, another low budget publisher, Yurdag�l Yay�nlar� had began publishing its own weekly Red Kit as early as 1962 and continued in Bilgi's absence as well. Meanwhile Suat Yalaz's Karao�lan comics magazine used Red Kit as filler space at least between 1964-65.
The �akrak family appears to have resurfaced in the comics market in late 1964 or early 1965. This time, the ownership of the magazines had passed on to Bilge �akrak whose Red Kit started in 1965.
From 1962 onwards, the last panels of most of the new Red Kit stories (first in Yurdag�l Yay�nlar�'s, then in Bilge �akrak's magazines) are signed by calligrapher Ferdi Say��man whom it can be assumed to have been responsible for the tracing job. Covers continued to feature art by Hayri, often more elaborate and better-looking than those in Bilgi Yay�nlar� period, with higher-quality paper and techniques used in cover printing (other artists besides Hayri, such as B.kurt, Berkay, Ferdi Say��man also penned Red Kit covers in this new period)
Over the years, �akrak's Red Kit continued in various weekly series with various formats (pocket, standart and larger-sized), featuring reprints of older stories as well as new ones as they accumulate. In 1969, �akrak finally claimed license to Lucky Luke, but the claim was dropped next year (In 1971, licensed, color editions were serialized in the short-lived Amat�r daily). �akrak appears to have gone out of business in 1973.
Over the course of the years, a few obscure Red Kit / Lucky Luke short stories and gags also appeared in the pages of Red Kit comics for filler purposes. Some of them might be traced versions of little-known original early Lucky Luke stories and perhaps some of them might even be completely pirate stories. Click here for details -and please inform me if you recognize any of them or have any ideas, however speculative they might be, on their possible sources (any input will be fully acknowledged and properly credited in updates of these pages).