Our little girl Johnny is still feeling under the weather, so my Halloween plans have been shelved, unfortunately. So as long as I'm home looking after her, I thought I'd go a-postin'.I purchased this a few days ago and just had the chance to read it. Up until recently, I didn't even know Marvel ever did a Kull b/w magazine. I guess since Savage Sword of Conan was, for a while, Marvel's most profitable publication (according to a CBA interview with Roy Thomas, who oughta know), it made sense to do more magazines based on the Robert Howard characters Marvel had licensed.
Kull, as a character, was always a little indistinct compared to the straight-ahead Conan, but I don't think that would have mattered if they had done more issues like this. For only a measly buck, 70s comic fans could have gotten this issue, with work by Bernie Wrightson, Gil Kane, Alan Weiss, Neal Adams, and Howard Chaykin! A more fantastically talented artistic line-up would be hard to find.
After the really nice cover (Marvel mag cover artists tended to overdue the heavy blacks, so it was nice to see a brightly colored one like this), it opens with a frontspiece of Solomon Kane by Wrightson, then the lead Kull story, "The Teeth of the Dragon", by Gerry Conway and someone named Jess Jodloman. I've never heard of Mr.(?) Jodloman before, but his work here is nice and highly detailed, reminiscient of Alfred Alcala, and perfect for this format.
Next up is a Solomon Kane story by Roy Thomas, with pencils by Alan Weiss and inks (!) by Neal Adams. Some of the times I've seen Adams ink someone, he's tended to dominate the pencils, but here he pulls back and let's Weiss's extremely expressive faces and body language to shine through. Following that is a one page feature on someone named Dawn Griel, who attended comic cons of the time dressed as Red Sonja--*rrowwrr!*
Speaking of, next is a Red Sonja story by Thomas and Howard Chaykin. Seeing how popular Sonja was, seemingly second only to Conan, it's a wonder why this magazine wasn't named after her rather than Kull. Next is another installment in Gil Kane's text/comic series Blackmark. It all wraps up with a fun, two-page spread ad for all of Marvel's other b/w magazines, like Planet of the Apes, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, Dracula Lives!, Conan, and Monsters of the Movies. Even Marvel could make ads look like content.
All in all, a fantastic magazine, I can't believe these issues aren't more valuable, considering what you get for your money. The next issue, #3, was sadly the final one. I guess Kull and the Barbarians was a big flop, sales-wise. It certainly wasn't quality-wise.
No comments:
Post a Comment