'Fantagor' No. 3

featuring 'Kittens for Christian'

‘Fantagor’ No. 3 was self-published by Richard Corben and something of an experiment for a horror / fantasy underground comic in 1972, as it was printed in full color. Even the high-end Warren horror magazines were printed in b & w, with color sections appearing on a sporadic basis. Indeed, it really wasn't until the advent of 'Heavy Metal' that a magazine-sized publication appeared on the stands with color comics as a staple of its material. 

With ‘Fantagor’, the color separations seem a bit crude today, but by the standards of the time they weren’t bad. Not as good as the mainstream comics from publishers like Marvel or DC, but still reasonably entertaining. And as an 'underground' comic, Fantagor didn’t have to abide by Comics Code regulations.

This issue featured ‘The Temple’ by Corben; ‘Fugue’ by Arnold’, ‘Kittens for Christian’ by Strnad and Corben; and ‘The Demon Gate’ by Dresser.

‘Kittens’ is a great little story and I’ve posted it here. The moral: when you see an albino kitten, you may want to think things over before adopting it….

Book Review: The Grotto of the Formigans

Book Review: 'The Grotto of the Formigans' by Daniel da Cruz

 

3 / 5 Stars

‘The Grotto of the Formigans’ (185 pp.) was released by Del Rey in 1980; the cover illustration is by H. R.  Van Dongen.

It’s the early 80s and anthropologist Maynard Griggs is finishing up a three-year sabbatical spent in a camp located in the darkest, deepest region of Zaire. One night he hears the sounds of a helicopter in distress; heading to the crash site he comes upon the lone survivor, a well-built young woman named Consuela Milan. 

Not only is Milan a major in the Cuban Army, but she’s carrying a substantial sum of money embezzled from her erstwhile employers. When the remains of the copter mysteriously vanish overnight, Griggs and Milan embark on a search of the area around the crash. They find themselves abducted by a small army of strange creatures resembling humanoid termites - the Formigans of the book’s title. 

Borne underground to the tunnel network of the Formigans, Griggs and Milan make the acquaintance of the Queen of this unusual nest. When the seemingly indolent Queen gives them the liberty to explore the nest as they please, Griggs makes a number of exciting discoveries that could provide him with overnight worldwide acclaim as the first scientist to ever explore this strange realm. Visions of Nobel Prizes, sponsored professorships, and television interviews fill Maynard Griggs’s head as he contemplates how best to reveal the grotto of the Formigans to the world at large.

But are the Formigan Queen and her cohorts of workers and soldiers really as defenseless as they seem ? Is the freedom given the two human interlopers genuine, or part of a devious plan made by a creature with the accumulated wisdom of centuries of a hidden existence ? 

Daniel da Cruz wrote a number of SF and action / thriller novels throughout the 70s and 80s, with several of these constituting the ‘Texas’ series of novels dealing with a near-future incarnation of that state. 

‘Formigans’ is a competent SF adventure, if not particularly memorable. The narrative moves along at a good clip, the dialogue is well-written, and the ecology of the humanoid termites is worked out with considerable insight. The overall tenor of the story evokes a kind of wry humor, and the two main characters are a likeable enough pair. By featuring a black man - Maynard Griggs – as a protagonist, ‘Formigans’ is also a bit more unconventional compared to the other SF adventures of its time. 

Readers looking for a quick, enjoyable read with lighter SF content may want to check out ‘Formigans’.

Killraven Amazing Adventures No. 34

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 34

(January 1976)

Throughout the 70s (and even, arguably, today) Marvel routinely used the 'death' of a main or supporting character to jazz up the covers of titles that needed a boost in their circulation. And so it was that for 'Amazing Adventures' No. 34 (January 1976) some of the supporting cast of Killraven's 'Freemen' were deemed expendable.

This issue features a script by Don McGregor and art by Craig Russell. Unfortunately, as was the case with many issues of the comic around this time, Russell's artwork is smothered by McGregor's overwrought prose. But enough of the art peeks through the verbiage to make this 18-page issue one of the better ones of the mid-70s. 

The Martian's top assassin, Skar, catches Killraven and his crew unawares and quickly deals some major injuries to Old Skull before our hero can react. As the series of pages I've posted below indicates, the ensuing battle is well-choreographed and has the kind of flair reminiscent of European SF comics of the 70s. 

While I won't spoil things by revealing who eventually survives, I will say that the body count is real and there is a downbeat ending to this episode that (hopefully) revived the Killraven franchise in the minds of the comic-buying public as 1975 drew to a close....

Book Review: The Deep

Book Review: 'The Deep' by John Crowley

5 / 5  Stars

‘The Deep’ first appeared as a hardcover from Doubleday in 1975; this Bantam paperback (176 pp.) appeared in January 1984 and has a cover illustration by Yvonne Gilbert.

The plot of this brief novel is straightforward. There is a strange world that resembles a giant dinner-plate atop an enormous pedestal, suspended over a formless void (the ‘Deep’ of the title).

[Think of the painting ‘The Titan’s Goblet’ by the 19th century Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole:]

Peopling this world is a small population of humans, living comfortably at a medieval level of technology, who are governed by one of two perpetually warring parties: the Reds and the Blacks. As the book opens, the Reds and Blacks are busy with another struggle over who shall rule their odd little realm. A wrinkle is thrown into their contest by the arrival of the Visitor: an android, a sexless, ageless, nameless being who happens to suffer from brain damage.

As the Visitor becomes drawn into in the political intrigue surrounding the successor to the deposed King Little Black, he begins to recover his memories, and an understanding of his purpose. It seems that someone, or something, connected with the Deep has an interest in the affairs of its people, and the Visitor may be a powerful tool for change…...or destruction.

I remember reading ‘The Deep’ in hardcover back in ’75 and I have since re-read it multiple times. It’s one of the best SF / fantasy books to emerge from the New Wave movement.

It’s true that Crowley’s prose style is not the most accessible. Many aspects of the politics and sociology of the world of the Deep are communicated in an oblique manner, and the narrative regularly switches from passages of straightforward exposition to those with poetic and figurative content, which can be frustrating at times . As well, the author’s convention of giving his major characters appellations that are based on variations of the same color – Red Senlin, Redhand, Old Redhand, etc., etc. – makes for confusion.

The landscape of The Deep is an interesting one, featuring a Northern Country-inspired setting that is simultaneously familiar, but also unique. While The Deep was his first novel, Crowley avoided succumbing to the New Wave error of sacrificing plot for lots of pretty writing; with every few pages, another twist in the political and military gamesmanship at work in the world of the Deep becomes manifest. The book's ending includes appropriate revelations about the nature of the Deep and its origins, and does so without being facile or contrived.

The novel's atmosphere is downbeat and permeated with entropy, reminiscent in many ways of another great 70s SF / fantasy hybrid, M. John Harrison's book 'The Pastel City'.

The result is a novel with more artistry in its 176 pages than few other SF or fantasy pieces from the 70s could provide in twice the page count. If you haven't yet read 'The Deep', you really should get a copy.

Realms by Paul Kirchner

'Realms' by Paul Kirchner

During the late 70s and early 80s some of the best comics to appear in the magazines Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated were done by Paul Kirchner, an artist from Connecticut. 

Kirchner, whose regularly appearing comic ‘The Bus’ was a prominent feature in the early years of Heavy Metal, had a knack for putting together stories with both great art and offbeat, wryly humorous themes. Kirchner was adept at working in illustrative styles from non-Western cultures, as attested to in the strips ‘Shaman’ and ‘The Mirror of Dreams’.

‘Realms’ was published by Catalan Communications in 1986 as a softcover, trade paperback of 80 pages. It reprints Kirchner’s non - 'The Bus' works from Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated. This is a big (8 ½ x 11”), well-produced book with good color reproductions.

Unfortunately, as is the story with many Catalan publications these days, copies in good condition have exorbitant asking prices from online vendors (at amazon, someone wants $56 for their copy). There are sellers on eBay who are asking only $20 for a copy. I was fortunate to score a copy of 'Realms' some years ago for about ten bucks. What can I say: keep an eye out for an affordable copy, and if you see one, don't hesitate, grab it !

[ Kirchner has his own storefront at eBay, titled stayingamused, where you can purchase newly issued reprint volumes, by European publisher Tanabis, of his past and present works, including his 'Dope Rider' comics from High Times magazine. ]

Back to 'Realms', where the entries include ‘Tarot’

‘Shaman’

‘Hive’

and ‘Mirror of Dreams’

There are b & w entries, including the longer comic ‘A Sprig of Thaxin’, as well as the shorter (i.e., 3 - 4 pp.) strips ‘The Temple of Karvul’, ‘Pillars of P—11507’, ‘Critical Mass of Cool’, ‘Survivors’, ‘My Room’, and the one-pagers ‘Judgement Day’ and ‘They Came from Uranus’.

 

All classic stuff, and well worth having in your personal library.

Heavy Metal magazine January 1981

'Heavy Metal' magazine January 1981

 

January 1981, and the FM radio is playing 'Hey Nineteen' by Steely Dan, '[Just Like] Starting Over' by the late John Lennon, and 'Rapture' by Blondie. 

The latest issue of everyone's favorite stoner magazine is out, and looking at the January Heavy Metal reveals that the columns so loved by recently departed editor Tim White all are gone, and the magazine has returned to its initial incarnation as a strictly illustration - based publication.

Among the strips appearing in the January issue are the continuations of 'Bloodstar' by Corben and 'Valentina' by Crepax. Also appearing are an odd b &w piece by Don Wood titled 'Bang, Hah'; 'The Ambassador of the Shadows', a new SF comic by Mezieres and Christin; and 'What Is Reality, Papa ?' by Ribera and Godard, a rather confused spinoff from the ongoing 'The Alchemist Supreme' serial.

But the most stoner-friendly piece in this issue is by far and away Jeronaton's 'Woman', which I've posted here. 

Apart from its excellent draftsmanship and coloration, this strip has some subtle satiric humor (which I think probably escaped the minds of the more cannabis- befuddled readers).

 

Secrets of the 70s: Genital Herpes
Part Two: Relief for the Afflicted

In 1977 a paper written by Gertrude Elion and her colleagues at the Burroughs-Wellcome Company in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the paper, Elion described a novel compound, 9-(2-hydroxyethoxymethyl) guanine, or ‘acycloguanosine’,  as an inhibitor of herpes virus replication in cultured cells. This was the among the first reports of an effective antiviral compound, and the discovery of what would come to be called ‘acyclovir’ (among other work) would earn Gertrude Elion the Novel Prize in 1988.

chemical structure of acyclovir

By 1979 acyclovir (also referred to as aciclovir) was being experimentally tested in human patients receiving the drug intravenously (de Miranda et al. 1979, Clin. Pharmacol. Ther.), and by the early 80s clinical trials were underway,  with the drug being administered orally as  200 mg capsules taken 5 – 10 times a day (True and Carter, 1984, Clin. Pharm.).

Not only did acyclovir reduce the intensity and duration of herpes lesions, but it could also suppress reactivation of the virus. The drug was effective in immunocompromised individuals, including AIDS patients, who were suffering from disseminated herpes infections. Side effects were minimal.

In due course, in 1984 the FDA approved Zovirax ointment, a cream containing a 5 % concentration of acyclovir, as well as oral formulations of Zovirax, for treatment of genital herpes.

At last, relief was at hand !

 

Fast forward to today. Valtrex (valacyclovir), a more bioavailable variant of acyclovir, is widely advertised and seemingly the drug of choice for the Hollywood set. 

 chemical structure of valacyclovir

Somewhat disturbingly, even the participants in so-called ‘reality shows’ are gobbling Valtrex like it was candy. According to 'Jersey Shore' producer Sally Ann Salsano, "We hand it [Valtrex] out like M&Ms !" She adds that the show's set is a 'herpes nest'. 

People in the 21st century can rejoice in the advances of modern medicine, something unavailable, an impossible dream, to those legions of 70s swingers.

Secrets of the 70s: Genital Herpes
Part One: The Intimate Agony 


NOTE: graphic photographs of Diseased Genitalia below !!!!!!

 

It may be 1972 and you’re looking forward to a forthcoming ‘key party’ at a neighbor’s house elsewhere in your subdivision, and when you arrive you notice that some of the other couples have chosen not to come; “they weren’t feeling well”….

Or maybe it’s 1974 and the last week in August and the gang has gathered at the beach house for one last good time party before the summer ends and you find that one or two of your friends are feeling a little ‘down’ and just aren’t into the festivities all that much….

Or maybe it’s 1976 and at your workplace you notice every now and then that some of your younger, hipper co-workers have those occasional days when they seem a little…unwell. They’re not blowing their noses or sneezing or coughing, they don’t sound congested, they don’t seem to have the ‘flu bug’ or the ‘stomach flu’ but they nonetheless seem lacking in energy, slow, tired…and when they think you’re not looking you may catch them furtively pulling at the front of their slacks or trousers or dress with a quick grimace passing over their faces….

Or maybe it’s 1977 and a professional athlete everyone was counting on to step up and deliver an impressive performance in the Big Game instead flubs the plays and trudges to the dugout or sideline or bench in a slow and tired manner….

Or maybe it’s the late Spring of 1978 and you and your chick have been attending Plato’s Retreat on a monthly basis now for several months of great ‘Swinger’ fun. But one morning you wake up feeling a bit flushed, a bit tired, and you notice that the shaft of your penis has a reddened, inflamed area and when you look closer you see what looks like a set of tiny blisters raised above the skin, and these blisters are painful and they feel like they are burning when you touch them. You think to yourself, dumbfounded: maybe I’m allergic to my girlfriend’s spermicide, or her diaphragm, or maybe that Tiger Balm we were using the other night….

Or maybe it’s 1983 and you’re lounging on the couch and a TV movie comes on starring the heartthrob ‘Luke’ from the popular soap opera ‘General Hospital’: Anthony Geary. The movie is titled Intimate Agony and as you watch, it becomes clear it’s one of those public service-type films and it’s concerned with…genital herpes !

 Ahhh, yes, genital herpes…also known as herpes simplex (not to be confused with herpes zoster, the viral agent of chickenpox). One of those things that pop culture references to the swingin’ 70s tend to avoid mentioning. One of those things that doesn’t get worked into the scripts for ‘The Ice Storm’, or ‘Swingtown’. One of those things that was a real part of life for many unfortunates back in the 70s….and worst of all, there WAS NO CURE.

 

The herpes simplex virus (electron micrograph) 

www.unc.edu/~jdglab/emphotopages/emicp8recombination.shtml

Millions of otherwise healthy, horny young adults spent multiple intervals throughout the year dreading the sensation in their private regions that meant the onset of a ‘flare-up’. They developed a low-grade fever, headache, muscle and joint aches, fatigue, and painful blisters and ulcers on the most sensitive parts of their bodies. With the exception of simple topical remedies, which really did little but dull the discomfort a bit, there was nothing the herpes sufferer could do but wait the infection out. With some luck, after a week (or longer) of abject misery, the blisters would resolve, the redness and inflammation would subside, and within another week or two, there would be no sign that that particular section of tissue had been teeming with herpes virus. 

Our young swingers could get back into their scene…..until, at least, the next flare-up came about. Because once you contract genital herpes, you have it for life: the virus resides in a latent form in the large, long-lived nerve cells that connect the spinal cord with the nerve network of the body. A waning in one’s immunity- triggered by illness, exposure to UV light, fatigue, or drugs – and the virus will travel down the nerve cells to invade the epidermal cells at the end of the nerve cell network. Once in the epidermal cells, the virus will replicate. 

The insidious thing is, there can be infectious virus present in the skin at this site of replication, even though the host may not yet be aware of any physical symptoms. So even if your 70s swinger didn’t have any visible ulcers or redness, he or she was still perfectly capable of passing the virus on during those Intimate Moments rolling around in the darkness on the shag carpet.

No one really knows how many people harbored genital herpes in the 70s. I've tried to find information on the prevalence and incidence of the disease at PubMed, but what few documents or journal articles are available from that era focus mainly on the management of symptoms. 

Genital herpes became one of those burdens of life you couldn’t get away from, like diarrhea, acid reflux, and migraines.

But in 1977 a ray of hope emerged. And that's the topic of Part Two: Relief for the Stricken.

Book Review: On the Symb-Socket Circuit

Book Review: 'On the Symb-Socket Circuit' by Kenneth Bulmer 

Ever since 1979, when I purchased Ian Summer’s book of 70s SF and fantasy art, Tomorrow and Beyond (Workman Publishing, 1978), I wondered what paperback book used this neat illustration by David Schleinkofer:

The answer was revealed when I recently found a copy of ‘On the Symb-Socket Circuit’ by Kenneth Bulmer. This Ace paperback (174 pp.) first was released in 1972. The copy in my possession (below) was published by Ace Books in August, 1977.

Matt Wade is a ‘coord’ (coordinator), one of a unique race of people gifted with a superhuman ability to intuitively understand computer / AI programming. Uneasy with his role as a member of the CIDG, the galaxy-wide Overmind that controls interstellar commerce and politics, Wade has fled to the planet Ashramdrego, where the Kriseman Corporation maintains plantations of an alien plant called geron. Geron pods produce a potent compound capable of extending the human lifespan to several centuries….a Elixir of Youth that governs the fate of billions throughout the Federation. 

Like all other colonists on Ashramdrego, Wade survives its atmosphere of toxic gases not by wearing a spacesuit, but by the aid of a ‘symb’: a ferret-like animal, native to the planet, whose circulatory system interfaces with that of the human host via a shunt in the carotid artery of the host's neck. 

Wearing a symb draped around one’s collar, like a sort of living scarf, permits the colonists of Ashramdrego to go about their business in the open air, free of the need for oxygen tanks and respirators.

As long as they have a symb attached to them, colonists can tend to the geron bushes, the once-a-year harvesting of which promises ample reward to those itinerant workers on the interstellar labor ‘circuit’. But soon after his arrival on Ashramdrego, Wade becomes aware of some troubling events that the Corporation seems overly willing to dismiss as random anomalies: for some inexplicable reason, symbs are abruptly abandoning their hosts, leaving humans at risk of dying in the lethal atmosphere unless they can be equipped with an emergency respirator. 

And out among the plantations, a plague of enormous wasp-like creatures known as ‘ruptors’ (depicted on the book’s cover) are tearing up the precious geron bushes and endangering the horticulturists responsible for ensuring a productive crop. Are more dire developments waiting to unfold on Ashramdrego ? For in their single-minded rush to exploit the gifts of the geron bushes, the Corporation may have made some flawed assumptions about the interplay of species on this strange world, assumptions that could threaten the survival of everyone on Ashramdrego….

‘Symb-Socket’ belongs to that subgenre of SF in which a Terran colony, or a crashed spaceship's crew,  finds itself in peril due to an inadequate, often chauvinistic understanding of their adopted home’s ecology. There’s nothing inherently wrong with author Bulmer’s placing another novel in this subgenre, and his use of the symbiont concept as a means by which humans can conduct affairs more-or-less ‘normally’ on an otherwise hostile world brings some innovation to the narrative.

Unfortunately, ‘Symb-Socket’ is a chore to read, because Bulmer relentlessly tries to make his prose too witty and precious, an affectation not unusual among authors succumbing to the New Wave approach to writing. He seems unable to decide if he’s writing a satirical piece in the mold of Ron Goulart, R. A. Lafferty, or Robert Sheckley; or a more conventional SF adventure, albeit one with ‘sophisticated’ literary intentions. Witness this paragraph:

Or- and how sneakily diabolical that would be- just for a moment turn on those circuits in his own brain he had switched off when he’d left Altimus and reach into the computer and pump the hysteresis cycles of ‘The little Preet had a treet whose feetless greetings calokreeted it’ directly into the scientific marvels of the computer’s innards.

These prose contrivances litter every page, and negotiating them left me wanting to abandon the novel well before its midway point. This is a shame, because there is a decent SF story lying underneath the stylistic encrustations of ‘Symb-Socket’. It just stays helplessly smothered under the weight of its author’s pretentions.

Only hardcore New Wave enthusiasts will want to search for this volume on the used book shelves.

2 / 5 Stars

Book Review: Inherit the Stars

Book Review: 'Inherit the Stars' by James P. Hogan

 3 / 5 Stars

By 1977, many fans had become tired of New Wave content and were eager to see a newer generation of hard SF novels come upon the scene. It thus was apt timing for Del Rey to issue ‘Inherit the Stars’ (216 pp., July, 1977), the first novel by British writer James P. Hogan. 

Hogan, who passed away this past July, met with considerable success with ‘Inherit’ and went on to write a number of well-received books, including the sequels ‘The Gentle Giants of Ganymede’ (1978), ‘Giant’s Star’ (1981), ‘Entoverse’ (1991) and ‘Mission to Minerva’ (2005).

Del Rey took pains to present ‘Inherit’ as something new and progressive in SF. The cover features a realistic, eye-catching illustration by Darrell Sweet, in marked contrast to the abstract artwork that occupied many New Wave paperback covers. The advertising blurb from Isaac Asimov compares Hogan to Arthur Clarke, then the reigning king of hard SF. 

In 2027, a UN expedition on the Moon comes across the space-suited corpse of a man lodged in a small cavern just under the lunar surface. Carbon dating indicates the corpse is 50,000 years old; his equipment is unlike anything ever manufactured on Earth, and the writing in his notebook is unknown to any linguist. ‘Charlie’ clearly came to the Moon from somewhere else. But where was ‘somewhere else’ ? And what implications does Charlie have for the origin of the human race ?

‘Inherit’ is unabashed hard SF. The main character is a physicist, his right-hand man an engineer. Any psychological angst generated by the narrative revolves solely around solving the grand scientific puzzle posed by the discovery of ‘Charlie’ in his crypt on the Moon. Labored dissections of personal relationships, thoughts, emotions, etc. are avoided. Conversations are to the point, and devoid of references to angst and despair, stylistic tropes much beloved by New Wave authors. 

At times the book can become quite didactic, although Hogan usually breaks his lectures off before the reader’s eyes can glaze over. Almost every chapter introduces yet another ‘cosmic’ revelation, with the reasoning behind these revelations presented with care and deliberation.

‘Inherit’ does indeed borrow some of its themes from Clarke, particularly 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Hogan does a good job with his story, however derivative; he writes as well as, if not better, than Clarke (and for that matter Asimov). 

Looking back nearly 34 years later, it’s easy to see how the fan base, tired of the more self-indulgent tenor of so much of mid-70s ‘speculative fiction’, was ready and willing to embrace SF that successfully updated the traditional mind-set of the genre.