Comic Book History

To Be Cont'd ...

Or you will, when you click this link.Dead Earth: Sanctuary is the third book in the series written by David T. Wilbanks and me. The first was the introductory novella Dead Earth: The Green Dawn. The second was Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road. Both are available by clicking on the titles.For those who don't relish scrolling down a few entries, here's the book's description:After stopping a madman who controlled an undead army and barely surviving the destruction of the aliens responsible for the plague that decimated humanity, Jubal Slate leads a small band of humans across the shattered landscape of America, fighting off the forces of the living and the dead. The group races north pursuing a legend, a post-apocalyptic fairy tale: a town protected from the walking dead. Tired of the war and his nomadic life, Slate follows the path to Sanctuary, even while doubting its existence. Along a journey filled with hordes of zombies, Slate and his companions face new enemies and find themselves pursued by the final weapon of the vanquished necros. Is sanctuary even possible on a dead Earth? And if so, is the cost more than Jubal Slate is willing to pay? Even after alien invasion and zombie armies, Slate will discover that the worst horrors are home grown.Here are some other Dead Earth: Sanctuary links to make it convenient for you to purchase the book in whatever format you prefer:PaperbackKindle NookAudiobookKoboI hope you enjoy the novel, which is chock full of action, blood and guts and zombies, and maybe--just maybe--some nice character moments. As always feedback is appreciated.

Before I launch into this, I want to cover a couple of things, in case I review more of these new adventures of Doc Savage.First, the books cost too damn much. $24.95 is a hefty tag for a trade paperback. There are probably some financial necessities at work here. They’re selling to a niche readership, so they won’t be moving Stephen King numbers. Also, everybody has to make money. I get it. I just wish the price was closer to $14.95, so I don’t have to do so much soul-searching (and wallet-searching) before I order.Secondly, these new Doc novels are generally (with a couple of exceptions) way too long. One of the appeals of the original Doc pulp novels (and most pulp novels, for that matter) was the length. You could easily cruise through one in an afternoon or two. The best of Lester Dent’s Doc Savages was the literary equivalent of being duct-taped to a rocket and blasted to the moon. Again, I’m assuming publishing conditions demand a longer product to justify the price. I’m just not sure the Doc Savage fan is getting the best possible product.Now that I’ve gotten my objections out of the way, I’ll tell you that neither complaint applies to Doc Savage: Skull Island.This is an original novel by Will Murray, author, pulp scholar and agent for the estate of the late Lester Dent, Doc Savage’s original main scribe.The novel in brief: Doc Savage meets King Kong. The novel begins after the fall of Kong from the Empire State Building where, as we all know, Doc Savage operates from the 86th floor. Doc was out of town during Kong’s rampage, but returns during the aftermath, and it falls to the Man of Bronze and his crew to remove the great beast’s corpse. Kudos to Murray for the nice role given to Renny, my favorite among Doc’s men, who engineers Kong’s transportation out of midtown.Doc reveals to his men that he has met Kong before, and that he and the big ape saved each others’ lives. The rest of the novel is the retelling of that saga from 1920, when Doc, a veteran of the Great War, joins his father to search the seas for Doc’s grandfather, the legendary and near-mythological clipper captain Stormalong Savage.To reveal any more of the plot would deny you the delight of this excellent adventure.Murray has been writing Doc novels since the 90s, and this is easily his most ambitious and most successful. Unlike many of the Murray’s earlier Docs, this one does not feel bloated, nor does it suffer from the slightly disjointed narrative that has occasionally occurred, I assume, from trying to make Dent’s original prose fit into a Murray novel.Instead, Doc Savage: Skull Island reads like one of Murray’s Destroyer novels: loose, fast-paced, thrill-a-minute. If this is what he can do with Doc when freed from the constraints of following 80-year-old plots and discarded bit of Dent’s novels, then I hope Murray can find a way to produce more Doc Savage novels whole-cloth from his imagination.Doc Savage fans will love the many bits of lore revealed over the course of the book, from family history to the name of Doc’s mother. Fans of adventure novels will cheer a story that reads like Clive Cussler with the boring parts removed. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Murray tried his hand at a mainstream adventure thriller in the near future. Doc Savage: Skull Island is that good. For King Kong aficionados, there are many nods to the 1933 film, and the action on Skull Island is worthy of Burroughs or Robert E. Howard.I only have one gripe: the author is inordinately fascinated with Doc’s trilling sound, the one affectation of the original pulp novels that I’ve always detested. On the other hand, if you’re down with the trill, then this book is practically blemish free.Doc Savage: Skull Island is mandatory reading for Doc fans, and well-worth the price. It should be the same for anyone who loves a good, old fashioned adventure novel.

To Be Cont'd ...

I do not know a single thing about The Magic Servants by the Brothers Grimm, but I spotted this cover and I am very intrigued. Sharp-eyed fans of the Legion of Super Heroes might do a double take when they see this one. Is that Bouncing Boy? Elastic Lad? Colossal Boy? That one guy has ears just like Chameleon Boy. Even the one in the back with the bowl cut looks as though he's wearing Mon-El's costume. Can all of this possibly be a coincidence? Probably, but I'm a sucker for a good conspiracy, so I want to track down a copy to see if there are any other similarities between these servants those super powered teens from the future. The hunt begins.

I've always loved Dave Cockrum's art. One of my first exposures to his work is when he drew Marvel's Star Trek comic in the early 80's after the first movie came out. His style was perfect for Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise crew's adventures. He drew these neat costume guides for the new style Starfleet uniforms, which were pretty much abandoned a couple of years later when Star Trek II came out.It's a shame Dave's no longer with us. I would have loved to have seen what he could have done with J.J. Abrams' version of the classic crew. I bet it would have been great, just like these pieces were.

Boy, did I ever get bait and switched on this one! A quick scan of the cover led me to believe this was a Sherlock Holmes tale. Considering that a couple of earlier issues in this try-out series were actual Sherlock Holmes stories, who could blame me? What I got, however, was a dull modern day Holmes-clone named Hodiah Twist. I get it. This was supposed to be a clever nod to Arthur Conan Doyle, but it completely misses its target. The main problem is the author: Don McGregor. The older I get, the less patience I have for his overly verbose prose. He pushes word balloons to their absolute limit. In terms of the artwork, Colan's storytelling is a bit of a mess, especially as the action ramps up over the last few pages. Overall, this was should have stayed in the unused inventory heap. The second story 'Death By Disco' seems to be fondly remembered by fans of the Gerber/Colan team. It is not terrible, but I have never been a fan of Lilith and Gerber seems to have been taking advice from McGregor in terms of his prose. This is essentially a 5-page story stretched out over 20+ pages. Colan's artwork is quite nice here, but this is definitely a sub par effort by this particular team. Required reading for completists only.

What's a great occasion for a party? How about our seventh year of blogging! And what better way to celebrate than by a week of low content! Stick around while I try to move 90% of my crap over the weekend, then try to get all situated in my new home. Have fun and be back soon!

Wow. Talk about the "big one!" Dig this repugnant painting I whipped up (in 1980 at age 15) of the ever-incredible Hulk and his cast of thousands! Inspired by the work of Jim Steranko, as well as the many wrap-around panoramic paintings that adorned such books as the HULK! magazine of the day, I wanted to include every darned Hulk friend and foe in one big (18 by 30 inch) watercolored wall-busting whopper! You can see I tried to tell the Jade Giant's tale, in a left-to-right fashion starting with his origin, his main cast (General Ross, Betty, Rick, etc.), then added his early foes, characters who appeared later in his drama-drenched strip, some of his superhero pals, even slipping in a nod to the then-current HULK CBS-TV series! Oh, to be young and have this kind of time and boundless energy again... Click to enlarge! Note the influence of actor Bill Bixby on my depiction of "Dr. Banner!" Bixby, of course, was then portraying the good doctor on the CBS HULK TV series! Bonus! Click below to see a pic of me, in 2013, holding up this oversized art, displaying the size of this colossal canvas! Al Bigley, holding aloft this 1980 watercolor-and-ink poster,elicits reactions on the streets of Detroit, Michigan!