Every once in a while my comics shop gets a stack of old, dog-eared, barely-stapled comic books and comic magazines that have been stumbled upon by someone cleaning out Uncle Rick's or Grandpa Steve's garage or attic.
These go on sale for a couple of bucks each. Ninety-nine percent of the shop's patrons are indifferent to them........they want the latest issues in whatever bloated, over-produced Crossover series Marvel or DC is promoting to the fanboys.
So it was that I recently came across a stack of old Marvel / Curtis black and white magazines: Savage Sword of Conan and Conan Saga, on sale for a couple of bucks each. Copies of these old magazines in Very Good or Near Mint condition can go for over $10 each, depending on the year of publication.
You also can find these old comics from the 70s and 80s compiled in trade paperbacks from Dark Horse. But these trade paperback compilations are several inches smaller in dimension than the original Marvel / Curtis magazines, and the details of the artwork tend to be so compressed as to be difficult to see (at least for aging people like me).
So I was happy to get a set of six issues of these old magazines, mainly because despite their wear and tear, the cheap grade of paper they were printed on, and the low quality of the printing plates, the artwork they contain remains impressive even after the passage of 40 years.
Artists such as Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, and Alfredo Alcala did outstanding work for these magazines. It's very rare to see equivalent artistry on display in most contemporary comics, including the Dark Horse reboot of the 'Conan' franchise.
I'm going to be posting 300 dpi scans of the content of these old SSOC and Conan Sage comics in the coming weeks and months here at the PorPor Blog.
Despite the warped and faded and sometimes discolored pages, the artwork looks good............but you can decide for yourself as the scans unfold..........?!
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