Savage Tales

Publication history

Marvel

The first of the two volumes of Savage Tales ran 11 issues, with a nearly 2-year hiatus after the premiere issue (May 1971, then Oct. 1973 - July 1975). It marked Marvel's second attempt at entering the comics-magazine field dominated by Warren Publishing (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella), following the two-issue superhero entry The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1968. Starring in the first issue were:

• Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery pulp-fiction character Conan the Barbarian, adapted by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith (as Barry Smith)
• the futuristic, Amazon-like Femizons, by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist John Romita
• the first-ever appearance of the swamp creature Man-Thing, plotted by Lee and Thomas, scripted by Gerry Conway and drawn by Gray Morrow
• the African inner-city defender Joshua, in the feature "Black Brother" by Dennis O'Neil (under the pseudonym Sergius O'Shaughnessy) and penciler Gene Colan
• the jungle lord Ka-Zar, by Lee and artist John Buscema.

Thomas, who would shortly thereafter become Marvel editor-in-chief, recalled in 2008 that:

When the magazine eventually began publishing again years later (after Goodman had left the company) in the wake of a Conan-inspired sword-and-sorcery trend in comics, it starred the likes of Conan; fellow Robert E. Howard hero Kull of Atlantis; and John Jakes' barbarian creation, Brak. As of issue #6, the magazine cover-featured Ka-Zar.

The series featured painted covers by artists John Buscema (#1–2), Pablo Marcos & John Romita (#3), Neal Adams (#4–6), Boris Vallejo (#7, #10), Stephen Fabian (#8), Michael Kaluta (#9), and Michael Whelan (#11). A 1975 annual, consisting entirely of reprints, mostly from Ka-Zar's color-comics series, sported a new cover by Ken Barr.

Volume 2 ran eight issues (Oct 1985 – Dec. 1986), edited by Larry Hama. It featured adventure and action stories with a military fiction slant. Stories in the first and fourth issues, a feature called "5th to the 1st" by writer Doug Murray and artist Michael Golden, were the forerunners of the duo's color-comics series The 'Nam. A third installment of "5th to the 1st", initially unused due to the cancellation of Savage Tales, was published in The 'Nam #8.

Dynamite Entertainment

In 2007, American publisher Dynamite Entertainment started a new Savage Tales, a color comic book sword and sorcery anthology starring the character Red Sonja.

Footnotes

References

References

1. (2014). "American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s". TwoMorrows Publishing.
2. Sanderson, Peter. (2008). "Marvel Chronicle A Year by Year History". [[Dorling Kindersley]].
3. [http://www.comics.org/issue/24237/ ''Savage Tales'' #1] at the [[Grand Comics Database]]
4. Roy Thomas interview, ''[[Alter Ego (magazine). Alter Ego]]'' #81 October 2008, p. 21
5. Jacks, Brian. (May 25, 2002). "Interview: Doug Murray". Slushfactory.
6. Arndt, Richard. (June 2021). "The 'Nam Revisited". [[TwoMorrows Publishing]].
7. [[Cliff Biggers