Black and White Wednesday: "The Secret of Skull River!" by Thomas, Starlin, and Milgrom

Hail, Groove-ophiles! Here's a teaming Ol' Groove would have loved, loved, (and I do mean) LOVED to have seen more of: Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, and Al Milgrom on Conan! Do ya remember this one from Savage Tales #5 (May 1974)? Plotted by novelist John Jakes,  "The Secret of Skull River!" has e-ver-y-thing you want from a great Conan story: it's spooky, violent, trippy, brutal, funny, and sexy (don't blush when you get to page 13!).  Ol' Groove has a dream that Marvel, now that it has the rights to Conan back, will wake up and hire Roy, Jim, and Al--each and every one of whom are still producing magnificent work--to do some new Conan tales. Wouldn't that be far-freakin'-out?

Two-Fer Tuesday: Fox, Jakes, and Brunner Adapt Howard and Poe

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Time to dust off a duo of chilling classics from Marvel's magnificent Chamber of Chills mag! Both of these fear-fraught faves are illustrated by the fantastic Frank Brunner (best known for stints on Groovy Age must-reads like Dr. Strange and Howard the Duck), both adapt prose-pieces from a couple'a Ol' Groove's all-time fave authors, Edgar Allan Poe and Robert E. Howard, and both are far-freakin-out!

First up, here's Gardner Fox's take on REH's "The Monster from the Mound!" (Chamber of Chills #2, October 1972)...


Now, I've been slinging words like "adapted" and "adaptations" around here, and when it comes to Jakes' "The Opener of the Crypt!" from CoC #4 (February 1973), Jakes is really adapting one of his own prose tales. The fun part is that the story is a swingin' sequel to EAP's "The Cask of Amontillado" and features none other than Fortunato, himself! Dig it, baby!

If You Blinked You Missed: John Jakes' Brak the Barbarian

John Jakes, best known for his North and South trilogy and Kent Family Chronicles series of novels, actually started out in the pulps, writing sci-fi, sword and sorcery, and westerns. He was also a charter member of SAGA (Swordsmen And Sorcerers' Guild of America) early in his career due mostly to the popularity (among fans in the know) of his sword and sorcery character, Brak the Barbarian. Brak appeared in various short stories, novels, and collections (including the most awesome Flashing Swords! series which I'll fill ya in on one'a these fine days) and was a pretty cool tribute to the heroes of Robert E. Howard. What you may not know is that Brak also appeared in a handful of comicbooks published by (who else?) Marvel Comics back in the Groovy Age. I suppose Jakes got bitten by the comicbook bug after plotting a couple Conan stories and a Kull story for Marvel, 'cause he even adapted his own 1952 short, "The Opener of the Crypt" for Chamber of Chills #4 (February 1973). Anyway, Brak made his first comicbook appearance (the story I'm sharing with ya today, by the by) in Chamber of Chills #2 (October 1972) in a story called "Spell of the Dragon", plotted and laid out by Dan Adkins, scripted by Jakes, himself, and art by Val Mayerik and Joe Sinnott. Dig it, baby!

After that, Brak appeared in a few issues of Marvel's black and white Savage Tales mag, namely issue 5 which reprinted "Spell of the Dragon" and issues 7-8 with Doug Moench and Steve Gan adapting Jakes' short story, "The Unspeakable Shrine". That's a total of 30 original pages of material spread over 3 comics (not counting the reprint). Brak's comicbook career was definitely short but sweet, eh, Groove-ophile?