Tapestry of Blood

Tapestry of Blood

by Ed Fedory (script) and Jose Rubio (art)

from Nightmare issue 15, October 1973

The Skywald comic magazines from the 1970s were chock full of rather goofy content. However, even the goofiest stories can be entertaining if combined with some degree of novelty. So it is that 'Tapestry of Blood', from the October 1973 issue of Nightmare, features carnivorous snails (?!) and a surprise ending.

Jose Rubio was a Spanish artist who, as a member of the Selecciones Ilustradas agency, provided artwork to numerous American publishers during the 1970s.

Book Review: Atrocity Week

Book Review: 'Atrocity Week' by Andrew McCoy

2 / 5 Stars

'What is it ?' Cameron demanded. Pacoe's body was blocking his curious view.

'Holland and Holland 600 Nitro Express', Curtis Bill told him.

'Jesus !'

Decker spoke softly, persuasively. 'Look, you can't hunt niggers with that elephant gun. What I mean is.....Look, this fucking cannon would blow a nigger into fine bits and there would be nothing left.'

'You wouldn't be able to take photographs afterwards' Curtis Bill added softly behind Pasoce.

Pascoe turned on him. 'But it's all I have ! I got six of them.' He sounded as if he were about to burst into tears, his face crumbling massively, his eyes watery.

The above excerpt communicates the quintessence of 'Atrocity Week'..............

'Atrocity Week' first was published in 1978 in the UK by Sphere. Subsequently Warner Books released a U.S. version in 1979, and Grafton, another UK edition in 1984.

The advertising blurbs for the Grafton edition make clear the novel's splatterpunk sensibilities, although the term 'splatterpunk' didn't exist back in 1984.

As a work of proto-splatterpunk, 'Atrocity Week' has gotten curiously little attention from the chroniclers of that genre of literature. The 'Splatterpunk Files' website doesn't mention it, and neither does Paul Sammon in his essay 'Outlaws', from his 1991 book Splatterpunks: Extreme Horror. So I nobly took it upon myself to acquire a copy and read and review it.

'Andrew McCoy' is the pen name used by the South African writer André Jute McCoy (b. 1945), who has published a number of novels, most of them set in Africa and dealing with wildlife, safaris, and big-game hunting. Other titles, such as 'Sinkhole' (1982) and 'Eight Days in Washington' (1986), as by Andre Jute, are thrillers. Jute's 1987 book 'Writing A Thriller' (1987) is an instructional text.

'Atrocity' is set in South Africa in the late 1970s. Chris Decker and Curtis Bill Bonham run a safari adventure firm called Ultimate Test, Inc., with a well-equipped base camp on the bank of the Limpopo River.

Decker and Bonham charge their clients a hefty fee for their safari services. But then, Decker and Bonham don't offer their clients the usual hunting experience. For Ultimate Test, Inc. gives its clients the thrill of hunting humans...........in particular, black African men who are unlucky enough to be discovered crossing the veldt with nothing more threatening than a shield and a spear.

[ Needless to say, a novel that takes as its centerpiece the hunting of 'niggers' by wealthy white and Asian men who crisscross the terrain in a helicopter, high-powered rifles in hand, is transgressive in every sense of the word. ]

Decker and Bonham have taken scrupulous care to conceal their activities from the South African authorities. But Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda and the leader of black Africa, has learned of the existence of Ultimate Test, and he has ordered a force of guerillas to descend on the camp and eliminate its inhabitants. Of course, Amin would prefer that none of the people at Ultimate Test die quickly........

McCoy clearly intended 'Atrocity Week' to be over the top in terms of its reliance on explicit descriptions of the torture, and violent deaths, of men and animals. These are salted with pornographic passages describing rough sex and rape. So there is no doubt that 'Atrocity Week' deserves enshrinement (if that's the right word) in the Splatterpunk Canon.

But as a novel, 'Atrocity' is something of a dud. The middle section of the book belabors one manhunt after another, while reminding the reader on a regular basis that the manhunters truly are reprehensible people.

The confrontation with the guerillas doesn't start until page 254 of the Grafton edition, and while the ensuing chapters deliver considerable action, and would seem sufficient to end the novel in an effective manner, author McCoy elects to prolong the narrative past a logical stopping point. He introduces additional chapters that feature plotting so contrived, and so dependent on comic book-style coincidence, that they undermine the narrative and induce eye-rolling on the part of the reader all the way to the final paragraph. 

[ For another review of 'Atrocity Week', readers are directed to the Trash Menace blog (warning: that review has some spoilers). ]

Summing up, if you are among the cognoscenti of splatterpunk or 'shock' literature, then searching out 'Atrocity Week' may be worth your while. All others can pass on this novel. 

Kull the Savage omnibus

Kull the Savage omnibus
Marvel, November 2021

I've been saving my dollars for this volume, and recently it arrived in the mail well-cushioned and devoid of damage - not always a sure thing with some online vendors.

Kull the Savage (952 pp., Marvel Comics, November 2021) is a compilation of all the King Kull comics that appeared in the pages of Marvel’s black and white comic magazines in the interval from Savage Tales No. 2 in October 1973, to The Savage Sword of Conan No. 233, May, 1995. Other magazines represented here include Kull and the Barbarians, Bizarre Adventures, and Marvel Preview.

Prior to this omnibus, if you wanted those black and white Kull stories you were either obliged to try and find the original magazines, or pay a rather steep price for the 2010 Dark Horse Books anthologies The Savage Sword of Kull Volume 1, and The Savage Sword of Kull Volume 2 (above).

Along with the comics, this omnibus contains pin-ups, advertisements, and selected articles dealing with the Kull franchise. Roy Thomas, Doug Moench, and Chuck Dixon provide introductory assays about their roles in bringing Kull to the Marvel portfolio. 

I should note that this omnibus does NOT contain any of the stories from the Kull the Conqueror and Kull the Destroyer color comic books that Marvel issued in 1973 – 1974. To get those stories, you have to purchase the two-volume Kull the Destroyer: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus, also published by Marvel in November 2021.

As for Kull the Savage, like the other Marvel omnibuses reprinting the content from the black and white magazines, it’s a well-made book, printed on quality paper stock with the best possible reproductions of the original artwork (or, more likely, scans of pages from printed copies of the magazines). 

The standout piece in this omnibus is ‘Demon in a Silvered Glass’ from Bizarre Adventures No. 26, May 1981. ‘Demon’ was illustrated by the UK artist John Bolton in one of his first assignments for U.S. publishers, and forty years later his artwork remains among of the best ever to appear in comics.

There’s lots of other fine pencil and pen work in the pages of Kull the Savage, from Barry Windsor-Smith, Ross Andru, Wally Wood, Marie and John Severin, and the gifted Filipino artists Sonny Trinidad, Vincente Alcazar, Ernie Chan, and Alfredo Alcazar. It looks all the better for being reproduced on a nice grade of paper, as opposed to the cheaper paper and printing processes used in the original magazines.   

Is Kull the Savage a worthy investment for comic book and graphic art fans ? In my opinion, yes. It provides a fine presentation of comic art from an era when black and white draftsmanship was in its prime in the pages of Marvel magazines. And it’s a great present for Christmas 2021 in the bargain ! 

Vintage UK Sci-fi Ads and Stores

Vintage UK Sci-fi Ads and Stores

Everyone remembers the geek store(s) where they went to get their comics and sci-fi paperbacks when they were young and first discovering the genre. For me, growing up in Upstate New York, it was at first a mixture of various pharmacies and convenience stores, before graduating to regular trips to Gordon's Cigar Store and, in downtown Johnson City NY, 'Fat Cat Books'.

Below, I showcase some interesting blog posts looking at how sci-fi and fantasy media were marketed and sold in the UK back in the 1980s. As a smaller country, the UK tended to have a comparatively smaller number of retail stores, but these elicited lifelong feelings of fraternity on the part of their patrons.

The Vintage Toy Advertiser and Darkest London blogs have a nostalgic look back at the signal comic and book shops that were the places for sci-fi geeks to go, back 'in the day'.

According to the Darkest London post about the Forbidden Planet store at 23 Denmark Street:

I only have to see a glimpse of the Brian Bolland artwork which used to adorn the plastic bags (and the associated t-shirt my dad bought me on one trip) and I’m straight back to the uneven wooden floor, the smell of pulp paper, the shafts of light streaming through the dust which hung in the air, and the vague unease of my mum as the till rang through each 75p I’d spent on the recent releases.

The Forbidden Planet store at 23 Denmark seems to have been the place to go back in the early 80s if you were a sci-fi fan in the London metropolitan area. It certainly had some great advertising support, such as a photo essay in which Torquemada, the archvillain from the 2000 AD comic 'Nemesis the Warlock', makes an in-store appearance:

The 23 Denmark Street and New Oxford Street stores also had their share of celebrity visitors, including Mark Hamill, Stephen King, Stan Lee, and Nichelle Nichols, among others.

American expatriate Dan Slott, who resided in London as a kid, remembers how things were when he had to patronize the Newsagent's stall, before the advent of Forbidden Planet:

Beano? What is this, where's my Spider-Man, where's my Avengers, where's Batman, why am I only getting this Beano thing and this guy Judge Dredd is kind of cool….....the pages would be in black and white for no reason.....!

A video clip featuring Slott's reminiscences is available here.

A more expansive post at The Vintage Toy Advisor covers a range of UK and US shops, mail order firms, and advertisements from the 80s.

If this back cover advertisement from a 1986 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is any guide, it appears that 'Forbidden Planet' had two retail outlets, with the one on Denmark Street devoted to sci-fi books and comics, while the St. Giles High Street retail outlet was devoted to cinema and television media.

Forbidden Planet has since moved to a larger and more presentable retail locale in Covent Garden. But it remains the 'go to' place in the London for sci-fi and comic fans. Maybe I'll travel there someday........

Book Review: White Trash

Book Review: 'White Trash' by Gordon Rennie (story) and Martin Emond (art)

Tundra, 1992

1 / 5 Stars

During the Great Comic Book Boom of the early 1990s all manner of independent publishers sprang up, their offerings available through the direct market of comic book stores then proliferating across the landscape. 

Among these indie publishers was Tundra, founded in 1991 by Kevin Eastman, the creator of the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' franchise and later, the owner of Heavy Metal magazine. The best known of Tundra's publications was the horror anthology 'Taboo'.

In 1992 Tundra released a four-issue series, titled 'White Trash',  by Scottish comic book writer Gordon Rennie and the New Zealand artist Martin Emond (1969 - 2004). The miniseries later was collected by Titan Books into a hardcover edition published in May, 2015.

The premise of 'White Trash' is simple: in exchange for being resurrected by the Devil, Elvis agrees to set off on a cross-country journey to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, there to give the greatest rock-and-roll concert in human history. Accompanying Elvis on his jaunt will be Guns n' Roses lead singer Axl Rose, referred to as 'Surfer Dude'.

The journey will not be a pleasant one, for a variety of malcontents are in hot pursuit of our rockin' duo. These malcontents include local law enforcement; the Ku Klux Klan; crazed Vietnam War veterans; inbred redneck psychopaths; and the FBI.

Will our heroes make it to Caesar's Palace in one piece ? And will Elvis wrangle his way out of his contract with the Devil and find freedom ? Will the witless, narcotized masses of the American public even care ?

'White Trash' was designed as the vehicle by which the Scottsman Rennie could make witty observations about life, and pop culture, in America, circa 1992. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; however, satire is always best when it is applied with subtlety. 

Unfortunately, Rennie doesn't know the meaning of subtlety. Within the first five pages his cliched, unimaginative approach to sarcasm set my eyes to glazing. Well before the book's halfway point things get relentlessly boring rather than humorous.

Emond's artwork is recognizably eccentric, but works best in small doses, as in (for example) the Lobo: In the Chair comic from DC in 1990. In the 126 pages of 'White Trash' it misfires. There are too many panels that are incomprehensible due to the overly sketchy, cramped nature of the artwork. And it doesn't help matters that the coloring in many panels is so dark and muddy that it's difficult to discern what is taking place.

The verdict ? 'White Trash' is a dud. The other writers at 2000 AD comics (where Rennie began working in 1993) such as Pat Mills, John Wagner, Alan Moore, and Alan Grant, all were more considerably more skilled at satire (including satire of American cultural and social mores) than Rennie. It's interesting to think what they could have done with the concept, had they been given the opportunity.

Book Review: Empire of the East

Book Review: 'Empire of the East' by Fred Saberhagen

5 / 5 Stars

‘Empire of the East’ (558 pp.) was published by Ace Books in July 1980. The rather mediocre cover illustration is by Enric.

A newer edition was published by Tor Books in 2003

Fred Saberhagen (1930 – 2007) produced a long list of novels and short stories in the genres of sci-fi and fantasy over an interval of more than 35 years, from the early 60s to the late 90s. His best known works – and the ones with which I was most familiar - are those in the ‘Berserker’ franchise.

Much like other writers of the same era, such as Harry Harrison, Mack Reynolds, Keith Laumer, Larry Niven, and David Drake, Saberhagen ‘wrote for a living’, supplying content for the sci-fi digest, and burgeoning paperback, marketplaces. 

While his writing career coincided with the heyday of the New Wave movement, Saberhagen was indifferent towards it, a stance which apparently was reciprocated by the movement’s foremost editors (Saberhagen never appeared in any of Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthologies, nor did he appear in any of the 21 volumes of Damon Knight’s Orbit series).  

 

‘Empire of the East’ is my first try at accessing the substantial body of fantasy literature that Saberhagen produced. It’s an omnibus edition containing heavily revised versions of three novels: ‘The Broken Lands’ (1968), ‘The Black Mountains’ (1971), and ‘Changeling Earth’ (1973; retitled ‘Ardneh’s World’ for this omnibus). 

[ Additional entries in the so-called ‘Earth’s End’ franchise include the ‘Book of Swords’ and ‘Book of Lost Swords’ novels and stories, which Saberhagen maintained into the early 1990s. ]

 

‘Empire’ is set in a future America, some 1,000 years after World War Three ended civilization. Magic now is the dominant force in the land, although the few surviving artifacts of the technological age are much prized by the inhabitants of the small settlements that constitute the population of the continent. 

All is not well in this future America. John Ominor, the malevolent Emperor of the East, is intent on conquering the communities of the West Coast and subsuming them into the eponymous Empire. From a redoubt in the Broken Mountains, Ominor's satrap Ekumen dispatches groups of soldiers to rape, pillage, murder, and enslave the free peoples. Unless a resistance can be mounted, the entire West will fall under the sway of the Empire. 

Rolf, a teenager from a small farm in what was California, has personally witnessed the depredations of the Empire of the East, and seeks vengeance. Allying himself with a group of rebels that includes Mewick, the master of combat; Gray and Loford, the most powerful mages of the West; and the single-minded generals Thomas and Duncan, Rolf will take the fight to the Broken Mountains…..the Black Mountains…..and beyond them, on into the East, and against John Ominor himself. 

In my opinion, ‘Empire’ is a five-star omnibus. I went through its 558 pages with unexpected ease. The fact that it was written in the late 60s – early 70s for the paperback sci-fi market means that it avoids the ponderous exposition and extravagant world-building that define modern-day fantasy novels (for example, 2007's The Lies of Locke Lamora, at 736 pages, is but the first of the three volumes, all over 700 pages each, comprising the 'Gentlemen Bastards' trilogy). 

With ‘Empire’, Saberhagen demonstrates that it’s possible to create memorable characters, involved in multiple plot threads, without needing to burden the reader with page after page of dense descriptive text. 

Saberhagen introduces continuous shifts and turns in the plot to keep the action moving. He also keeps the far-future setting of ‘Empire’, with its mixtures of magic and science, exotic and unconventional (for example, the latter chapters of ‘Ardneh’s World’ bring into play ‘cosmic’ entities that are derived from Lovecraftian themes). 

Summing up, ‘Empire of the East’ is an enjoyable example of a well-constructed fantasy adventure, written by an author skilled in storytelling and attuned to the commercial nature of paperback publishing. Not only do I recommend it, but I intend to investigate further the novels in the ‘Swords’ franchise. 

Predator Versus Magnus Robot Fighter

Predator Versus Magnus Robot Fighter

Dark Horse / Valiant Comics

1992

During the Great Comic Book Boom of the early 1990s crossover storylines between companies was a common practice. So it was that in November, 1992, Dark Horse comics, which owned the rights to produce comics based on the 20th Century Fox ‘Predator’ character, teamed up with Valiant comics, which owned rights to the 'Magnus, Robot Fighter' character originally published by Western / Gold Key, to produce a two-issue miniseries, ‘Predator Versus Magnus Robot Fighter’.

The series was written by the then-head of Valiant, former Marvel Comics editor in chief Jim Shooter, with assistance from John Ostrander. Art was provided by comics veteran Lee Weeks, with colors by Rachelle Menashe, and lettering by Pat Brosseau.

There was a considerable delay between the appearance of issue one and issue two (which didn't arrive on shelves until May, 1993) which likely was caused by the Shooter's dismissal from Valiant later in 1992. 

[ For an interesting account of the founding and dissolution of Valiant, from Shooter's point of view, readers are directed to this 1998 interview, conducted by Joe Petrilak. Much Corporate Sleaze going on.............! ]

As a mashup of two iconic pop culture franchises from the 1960s (Magnus first was published in 1963) and the 1980s (Predator), 'Predator Versus Magnus Robot Fighter' is an entertaining comic. Shooter was smart enough to know that a two-issue series lacked the space for the complicated plotting then commonplace in the comic book world, and focused on telling a simple and straightforward story that would be coherent to those readers who were well acquainted with the Predator franchise, but for whom Magnus was not a well-known character. 

Shooter's plot moves swiftly in terms of providing a backstory and setting up the confrontation between Magnus and the Predator, and throws in enough ancillary characters and action sequences to keep the comics from being just 48 pages of punch-trading between the two adversaries.

Where the books suffer is in the color scheme, which reflects the limitations of the color printing processes used for most comics in the early 1990s. There are some eye-straining magenta hues in the pages of 'Predator Versus Magnus Robot Fighter'...........

Summing up, if you're a Baby Boomer who remembers Magnus from the Gold Key days of the 1960s, or a fan of the Predator franchise, then you're going to want to get 'Predator Versus Magnus Robot Fighter'. While there is a trade paperback, published in 1994 by Dark Horse, that compiles both issues, copies in good condition have exorbitant asking prices from speculators (one guy at eBay is asking for $239). 

My advice is to pick up the original comics, which sell for under $5 each.

Mandy by John Workman

'Mandy'
by John Workman

This black-and-white one-pager is chock-full of meticulously rendered textures (including Zip-A-Tone), shadings, and cross-hatchings.