RARE FRAZETTA MIDDLE EARTH PORTFOLIO

In 1972 I was living on Grassy Key on the Florida Keys, right next door to the TV star Flipper's training site. The Keys are bifurcated by the Overseas Highway, which was the only way in or out by land, from Key Largo (of Bogart movie fame) to Key West (Ernest Hemingway fame). At the time, the primary way to supply commercial goods was by truck and that could make items, including food and especially meat, hard to come by. When it came to groceries, one had to know the days that these goods would be delivered to the Winn-Dixie supermarket or you could be SOL. As you can imagine, there was plenty of fish to be had as an option.

I managed to keep tabs on my comics obsession with a subscription to the late, great Alan Light's THE COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE. I can't remember or not if comics were available anywhere on the Keys, but they may have had a spinner rack or two in a drug store or someplace else.

In one issue of CBG, I spied an ad that caught my attention. A fantasy and comic art company in Denver, CO by the name of Middle Earth was selling what was promoted as being the first authorized portfolio of Frank Frazetta's work. At only $3.50 postpaid, it seemed too good to pass up for me, since I had become a huge Frazetta fan from the moment I saw one of his Lancer Conan paperbacks. The most amazing thing about this was that it somehow survived a trip back to California (where I moved too many times to count), and then up to Washington State almost 20 years later. And here it is, scanned and presented on WOM!

There are seven black and white pen and ink drawings in the portfolio, each measuring 11"x15" and printed on sepia-toned paper. There was no fancy enclosure like we would see with later portfolios -- it was just the plates shipped in a brown envelope between two heavy pieces of cardboard.

What makes this special is that the images had never before been published, which later increased their value as a collector's item. For instance, just last month, one of these sold for $450.00 at auction.

Oddly enough, this portfolio holds more of a symbolic memory of my sojourn in the Keys than anything else. It was a fun time, working my ass off for my uncle who owned a nursery and landscaping business, hanging out in Key West, eating loads of fantastic seafood, and the fishing -- the fishing!

FRANK BRUNNER'S BRAN MAK MORN PORTFOLIO

Middle Earth was a great mail order company back in the 1970's. Many of the items they offered were prints and portfolios from major comics and fantasy illustrators, in particular Frank Frazetta, that at the time were at the height of their powers.

Frank Brunner was another such artist. I was lucky enough to purchase his fabulous Alice in Wonderland portfolio, but missed out on the one shown today. In this 1976 collection of six signed and numbered 11 x 15 plates, Brunner plies his Frazetta-inspired talents to depicting scenes from Robert E. Howard's heroic Pict from Britain's ancient past, Bran Mak Morn.

Howard wrote five Bran Mak Morn stories, nearly all of them appearing in WEIRD TALES. The most well-known of these stories is "Worms of the Earth". Howard even displayed his influence by H.P. Lovecraft's so-called "Cthulhu Mythos" by including place name R'lyeh and Dagon the water deity that lords over "The Deep Ones", denizens of Devil Reef. In turn, Lovecraft mentions Bran Mak Morn in his story, "The Whisperer In Darkness".

The story cycle was first collected in the Dell paperback, BRAN MAK MORN, published in 1969. Over the next few years, other imprints, such as Ace, Zebra and Orbit did the same. It is interesting to note that Lancer did not print an edition, especially when one considers they were at the top of the newsstand heap with their Conan series. Dell even scored high points by having the renowned Conan paperback artist, Franz Frazetta, paint the cover for them.