Perhaps we have covered this ground before, but I find I am developing an interest in some of this material that wasn't there before.
That is, the more I hear from 1970s Marvel fans, the more that I hear there are some gems in the rough...that some great artists penned or drew a few outstanding solo stories in the brief experiment that Marvel conducted to try something different...something new (or old) to try to win new readers...the resurgence of horror stories in an anthology book.
To my knowledge, there were at least two or three of these series that only lasted about 10 or 12 issues. Tower of Shadows, Chamber of Secrets, and then there were mainly reprint books like Where Creatures Roam and Where Monsters Dwell. (I hope I got those names right, but I'm sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong.) I think most all of these "series" fairly quickly fell back on reprinting from the 1950s inventory or early 1960s stories, so the "original" features would probably all be front loaded in the lowest numbered books.
I recall as a teen seeing these roll out and turning my nose up at them. I recall just flipping through them, and being unimpressed. But I do recall a few of the covers. I didn't buy ANY of them.
Nowadays, people point to the first issue of Tower of Shadows as being important because of the swan song of Jim Steranko.
And the fifth issue of Chamber of Secrets has one of the first Jack Kirby written, drawn and edited stories, along with an adaptation of H.P.Lovecraft story and then something by Paul Reinman that is supposed to be quite good. So, there wasn't much to attract the high school aged Marvel fanboy in me, unless you were following REALLY closely which artists were contributing what And I wasn't.
What's your opinion of this experiment, and how great (or NOT) are these particular issues and "series?"
Replies
You've been reading my posts!
D'ja ever notice Martin Goodman always seemed to put out 2 bi-monthlies of anything, instead of 1 monthly? I figured this was because a bi-monthly could sit on the stands an extra month before being returned. He was concerned about sales, not quality. It's amazing how much trouble they seemed to have getting consistent quality writing and art in so many of these mags.
Same thing happened with the B&W magazine explosion. It started out intended as 1, but quickly became 2. But then, it was 4-- plus, a 5th book done as a digest (I think). And to knock out that much "product", all of them wound up with filler in the form of badly-written articles and badly-reproduced reprints from the 50's that NOBODY in the early 70's wanted to see at all.
I know it's confusing, but... after so many issues, those initial books had their names changed to CREATURES ON THE LOOSE and MONSTERS ON THE PROWL. The other 2 you mentioned with very similar titles, WHERE CREATURES ROAM and WHERE MONSTERS DWELL, were all-reprint from the start.
Also, the initial 1970 titles were TOWER OF SHADOWS and CHAMBER OF DARKNESS... both of which, I figured, riffed on DARK SHADOWS.
The only stuff I have of those initial comics are the one issue of COD (#5), and, the 4 Wally Wood stories which were all collected iand reprinted in a UK hardbound book, THE MARVEL ART OF WALLY WOOD, which was reproduced sligtly larger than the original comics, with much better line reproduction and color, and on better paper. (Take THAT, Marvel!)
I remember being aware of a monster explosion in the early 1970s, but it was years before I found out that it was due to a change in the Comics Code. That didn't explain the Marvel monster magazines, though, so perhaps it was also a change in popular taste.
Anyway, when Tower of Shadows and such launched, I bought them for a year or so even though I was aware that they were mostly reprint. I wanted those original stories, some by some of Marvel's biggest guns. There was usually only one new story per issue, so it wasn't a good buy, and eventually they became all reprint. At that point I dropped them.
Of more interest to me were the new superhero-ish monster books. I loved anything by Mike Ploog, so I was excited by Ghost Rider and Werewolf by Night (both of which started in Marvel Spotlight or somewhere). But when those characters got their own books, the quality of the art dropped off a cliff (I believe one of them was by Don Perlin, whose work I always found amateurish). Ploog lasted longer on Monster of Frankenstein, but when he left, I lost interest (and I wasn't alone, as the book was canceled fairly quickly).
I wasn't a big fan of Gene Colan at the time (heresy, I know), but I had to admit he was the perfect artist for Tomb of Dracula. I often didn't much care for the stories -- Frank Drake's whining drove me nuts, and I couldn't swallow that Van Helsing could effectively fight vampires from a wheelchair -- but I found myself enjoying it for much of its run. It also gave us Blade, who was destined for bigger things (although at the time he was kinda irritating).
Man-Thing was kinda boring from the beginning; given the near-mindlessness of the star, writers had to set up stories around the character, which was sometimes laborious and obvious. But I still remember the first story (in Adventures into Fear #10) fondly, for the Gray Morrow art.
Swamp Thing started off well with Berni Wrightson, once again when that artist left I kinda lost interest. DC also re-launched House of Mystery and House of Secrets as anthology horror boks, along with some other short-lived anthologies (Secrets of Sinister House, etc.). I didn't buy them, despite the sometimes awesome covers (many by Neal Adams), because I didn't care for books without continuing leads -- it was the ongoing story of a lead character that helped me past sometimes bad art, whereas anthologies had no such saving grace, and bad stories were just bad stories I regretted buying.
Oddly, I bought only one issue of House of Secrets in the early 1970s, and, happily, it was the one that launched Swamp Thing! I'm pretty sure it was the Berni Wrightson cover that did it, but I don't really recall. But lucky me, anyway.
Here are a few notable “firsts” for you, Kirk:
Monsters on the Prowl #15: First credited Steve Englehart story.
Monsters on the Prowl #16: First Kull the Barbarian.
Of course, Werewolf by Night gave us Moon Knight and Man-Thing gave us Howard the Duck.
I thought Man-Thing showed up in Astonishing Tales with Ka-Zar first, circa issues #11 and 12?
Yes, I had noticed Martin Goodman did tend to put out books in pairs...but I'm not sure why this was the practice...not all of them were bi-monthly. (Astonishing Tales, Amazing Adventures, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish)
Why does Where Monsters Dwell start with issue #9? What was it called for the first 8 issues?
My favorite "monster superhero" series was GHOST RIDER, though, in retrospect, they should have called him almost anything else. (It was a sacredlige against the original Magazine Enterprises character, and, Johnny Blaze had nothing to do with being a "ghost".) It seems crazy to me that Gary Friedrich dropped off after only about 10 episodes, while Mike Ploog left in half that time. Tom Sutton was a step down (he was always at his best working in B&W for Warren), but, crazy enough, MY favorite Johnny Blaze team was Tony Isabella & Jim Mooney. Now, when Mooney left, the book fell into CHAOS.
This is really the problem with corporate-owned comics series... the creators don't own them,. have no real incentive to stick around, and are treated as expendable and replacable. It's a miracle anybody sticks on anything for a long haul.
Hammer's DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968) was reportedly their biggest money-maker ever, and it always seemed to me that one film started the whole horror boom that ran from 1968-1975. For awhile, there was horror in the movies, on TV, in the comics.... you had Dracula, vampires, Frankenstein, werewolves, and anything else they could come up with. It was like the "spy" crazy it replaced-- too much in too short a space of time. It's no wonder it burned out after awhile. (Of course, during that time, you also had the shorter-lived "blaxploitation" fad-- and the even shorter-lived "kung fu" fad.)
...For a real bit of trivia , Henry , IIRC , either the most money-making Hammer feature , or possibly the most profitable against the initial cost hammer feature (Not nessecarily the same thing .) was...ON THE BUSES , a feature-length version of a Brit TV sit-com of the time !!!!!!!!!!! Was the feature even RELEASED in the U.S. ??????? There were two sequels to it , too .
The British movie industry frequently did this back then* , make feature-length spin-offs of currently ongoing BBC or ITV (Um , I think " ITV " was the name of one of the most prominent production companies that had time on the one Brit commercial channel at the time , not the channel itself - I think ?????????) series, I've never seen 'em , but TIL' DEATH US DO PART (ALL IN THE FAMILY's basis .) , PORRIDGE (ON THE ROCKS' basis) and the AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT Monty Python feature , which is not , I believe , as often written , simply an editing together of TV material but re-shot , on film rather than videotape , reworkings of TV material are three .
ON THE BUSES was Americanized into a Dom DeLuise series titled LOTSA LUCK , which lasted only one season , and the title song of which (" I useta buy a pickle/It only used to cost a nickel..." was a running joke between my brother and me...There's a complete DVD set of LL that I've always wanted to buy:-(...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_The_Buses
*-Of course , in the middish 60s the U.S. movie industry did this , too...MUNSTER GO HOME , Rick and Kris Nelson in LOVE AND KISSES (directed by Ozzie) , MUNSTER GO HOME...The BATMAN feature-length !!!!!!!!!!!
Henry R. Kujawa said:
Emerkeith Davyjack said:
...TOWER/CHAMBER indeed became MONSTERS/CREATURES (perhaps not in that order) , but , at least initially , still included new material although emphasizing reprints (Eventually , both had - a now-larger percentage of , perhaps eventually all of it - " monster/fantasy " SERIES replace thenew anthology material) from the marvel Monster Age .
I REALLY feel those two titles are underrated and I have suggested reprints of them many times before here !!!!!!!!!
Mostly in MSA's sub-forum , which , maybe , may not be that open to such suggestions...
Are there legal issues in reprinting them ?
(1) They did a certain amount of adapting prose stories , I guess , which could involve " Old contracts written before the ' graphic-novel ' era that would have to be renegotiated beginning from square one " , as with may old movies' play/novel basises(Sp??) and the now-difficulty of putting said movies out as DVDs I recall an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's " Pickman's Model ' very well...Specific to Lovecraft , however , isn't everything , at least , he published during his lifetime P.D. now ????????? I think these titles sort of predated Marvel's later-70s real push into prose adaptations , which I think was Roy Thomas' especial bee in his bonnet when he became higher-situated corporatly/in status at Marvel later...
(2) Oddly enough , speaking of Roy the Boy , those titles at least early on tried a variant on the " host character " concept...where the artist/writer themselves , realistically depicted , was the host of the story(Including Le Roy ~ and extremely rare post-EC comics artist , Johnny Craig .) !!!!!!!!! Perhaps there could be some legal issues with the (In many cases now deceased , I would think .) creators' likenesses in a book , although you'd think that whatever original legal agreement was made would cover that...
...I goofed , and put in two references to MUNSTER GO HOME above...instead of to MC HALE'S NAVY's TWO!!!!!!!!!!! features , as i meant to do .
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