The Di Fate Martian War!

Vincent Di Fate supplied a marvelous rendtion of the Martian machines for this Graphics Classics cover. See below for an unencumbered version.

Here's a more traditional rendering of the Wellsian monstrosities.

And here's the George Pal variation.

Martians, gotta' love 'em! Especially when they get the Di Fate touch.

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Gill Men!

Here are some very different versions of Universal's number one aquatic creeper, the infamous Gill Man from his trio of 50's horror flicks.  Vincent Di Fate's rendition above is haunting, his Gill Man less human and more ferocious.

Bill Everett's lush lines make this my favorite of these five images. The water here has the viscous oily quality which makes almost a thing alive like the voluptuous dame and the growling monster.

Dave Cockrum's version is traditional and imbued with the dainty charm which Cockrum was able to invest all his drawing.

Art Adams offers up a somewhat different rendition here, a Gill Man of Might, with some mighty thick muscles. Not so much a swimmer as a lifter.

And here is the classic Basil Gogos portrait of Universal's last classic monster. The colors in a Gogos piece are beyond vivid, they are lurid and seem somehow unseemly. It's a perfect choice for this subject matter, giving the monster a noxious feeling of menace.

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The Weird Master!

I remember being very surprised when I learned that the most successful series in the whole of the long and venerable run of Weird Tales was not one by H.P.Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard, the two most famous writers associated with the magazine, but was instead a series written by Seabury Quinn.

The series featured a Sherlock Holmes-like protagonist named Jules De Grandin, a French ex-patriot who alongside his comrade Dr. Trowbridge battle all manner of supernatural beasties from their home in New Jersey. The series was often of the Scooby Doo variety, in that the supernatural had perfectly rational explanations. The series ran for nearly three decades beginning in 1925.

The only Seabury Quinn De Grandin adventures I've read are in a few of the volumes published by Pocket Books during the heyday of the 1970's fantasy revival. Above and below are the covers in this incomplete reprinting featuring some very distinctive covers by Vincent Di Fate.






The adventures are gathered more comprehensively in three volumes which are currently available at much steeper prices. Here is a nifty review. Here's a link to a free online De Grandin story by Quinn to get a taste.

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Forgotten Hero Of Lemuria!

Lin Carter is a name I first remember from the Conan paperbacks, then soon thereafter in the comic book adaptations of his own hero Thongor at Marvel Comics. I developed a great respect for Carter when he served as editor for Ballantine's Fantasy line, which really opened up not only the world of fantasy for me, but to the world of finer (if not necessarily better) literature as well.

But Carter's first hero, his first book in fact seems to have been 1965's Wizard of Lemuria which is agreed by all to be an imitation of Robert E. Howard's mighty Hyborian hero Conan.


He followed that up quickly with a sequel titled logically enough Thongor of Lemuria. Both of these ACE paperbacks are graced with outstanding Gray Morrow artwork, making them highly collectable for fans of many types.


With the third novel from 1967, Frank Frazetta is brought aboard for the covers and he gives us an image of Thongor which puts the character forward in a truly heroic pose, in what is surely the most famous of the Thongor covers.


Frazetta is back for the fourth installment from 1968, this time showing the Lemurian hero astride a flying dinosaur over a volcanic landscape. It's not a bad cover at all.


For the fifth book also from 1968, Jeff Jones is brought in and offers up a very nice heroic pose for Thongor.

The first two Thongor novels novels were re-titled and revised and reissued by Berkely paperbacks.


Wishing to give the series a set of titles which were immediately recognizable, Thongor's name was made part of each and so added to the first novel. The artwork by Jeff Jones is worthy, but not spectacular by any means. Thongor is seen only above the logo sneaking in through a window, an odd pose for the hero of such a series.


The second novel is given a rather new and ponderous title and a new cover, again by Jones, this time Thongor too is put in a queer pose, his back to the reader.


Again in 1970 the last of the Thongor books limps onto the stands with another Jones cover, this one interesting, but hardly iconic.

And then Thongor ended. Some say Carter's interest turned away when he began working directly with Conan and the other heroes he admired, so his own creations suffered for want of time. He sure seemed to keep pumping them out though, with different heroes in different variations on classic Howard and Burroughs settings.

I didn't find Thongor anywhere though in his original format until I located the three paperbacks below from 1976 sporting Vincent DiFate covers which work mightily to minimize if not utterly eliminate any sense that Thongor is a hero in the tradition of Conan.




I am not aware that Thongor has been reprinted any time recently. Thongor seems to have landed on the dust heap of heroes, forgotten as once upon a time his land of Lemuria was forgotten before Carter gave us a glimpse.

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