As I’ve noted in previous posts, Marvel Comics’ Savage Tales #1 — the company’s second attempt to break into the black-and-white comics magazine market, following Spectacular Spider-Man (or, if you prefer, its third, following Pussycat; or even the fourth, if you want to go all the way back to 1955’s Mad knock-off, Snafu) passed my then-thirteen-year-old self by upon its January, 1971 release.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I passed it by.  I was doubtless aware of it, since it had been plugged in Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins columns; but, at the time, I hadn’t dared to take so much as a peek at the “mature” black-and-white offerings then available on the magazine racks (my first Warren Publishing purchase wouldn’t happen until that summer) — unless you counted Mad, which I didn’t.  Plus, I hadn’t even sampled the adventures of Savage Tales‘ headliner, Conan the Barbarian, in his titular Comics Code-approved color series yet (my first issue of that book would be #4 — which, as it happens, came out just one week after Savage Tales #1).  But even if I had been inclined to give the new magazine a try, I would likely have been too intimidated by the “mature” cover painting by John Buscema (not to mention the big “M” label positioned adjacent to that painting’s bloodily severed head) to risk sneaking it into my very Southern Baptist household. 

Of course, it’s also possible that I never even saw a copy of the magazine; it’s reported to have had distribution problems, after all.  But, whatever the case, I wouldn’t get a second chance to sample Savage Tales for another twenty-nine months  And neither would anyone else, as Marvel’s publisher Martin Goodman — reportedly concerned about getting in trouble with the Comics Code Authority over what might be seen as an attempt to get around their rules, and perhaps about other matters as well — pulled the plug on the project after only one issue.

But two-and-a-half years after Savage Tales‘ initial launch (a period of time that, to Marvel’s still new-ish editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, seemed “more like a century.  A long, long century.” — or at least that’s what he claimed in his editorial for Savage Tales #2, “The Hyborian Rage”), the publishing landscape at Marvel Comics looked very different.  Perhaps most importantly, Martin Goodman was gone; the decisions about what Marvel would and wouldn’t publish now resided with former editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who was keen to make up for lost time by introducing not just one black-and-white comics title into the market, but a whole line of them.  His second-in-command, Thomas, was more than happy to comply.  And so, following a test of the magazine-publishing waters in late 1972 with the release of a non-comics title (i.e., Monster Madness, which paired old horror movie stills with “humorous” dialogue by Lee), the premiere issue of Dracula Lives was published in February, 1973.  These first two publications in the “Marvel Monster Group” were quickly joined by three more — Monsters Unleashed (released in March), Tales of the Zombie (April) and Vampire Tales. (May).  And then, in June — the return of Savage Tales.

But, as the house ad that ran in Marvel’s color comics that month strongly implied, this Savage Tales was a rather different beast than the one readers had seen back in 1971  In its original incarnation, the magazine had been virtually genre-agnostic; while Conan might be the headliner, his strip was actually the only sword-and-sorcery feature to be found within its pages.  The rest of the magazine had offered science fiction (“The Fury of the Femizons”), horror (Man-Thing), jungle adventure (Ka-Zar), and an Africa-set political thriller (“Blood Brother”).  About the only thing all the features had in common was that their content was bloodier and racier than could have appeared under the auspices of the Comics Code — it was “mature”, in other words.  That had made a kind of sense in early 1971, when Marvel was trying to compete with Warren and other B&W comics publishers with a single title.  But with four, count ’em, four horror magazines on the stands in the summer of ’73, Marvel really didn’t need another showcase for a monster protagonist like Man-Thing.  And so, the revived Savage Tales went in another direction — one that involved a fairly tight focus on another of the several genres that had filled out the first issue.  (And, it probably goes without saying, that genre was neither science fiction, nor jungle adventure, nor political thriller, all of which would have to continue to wait for their time in the spotlight.)

As Roy Thomas explains in his 2018 book Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian, Volume 1, Stan Lee essentially handed the relaunch of ST to Roy Thomas, with no specific instructions other than “to have Conan put in an appearance”:

As though I needed to be told!  Stan may have wanted this second issue to feature several different characters, just like the first one had.  But if that was his intent, he should have kept a closer eye on me, because I decided straightaway that Savage Tales was going to be a magazine dedicated to Conan/Robert E. Howard, and I did everything I could to keep it headed in that direction to the greater glory of the Cimmerian.

There were, of course, reasons for showcasing Conan in a black-and-white, non-Code-approved format beyond Thomas’ obvious enthusiasm for the character (and for pulp author’s Robert E. Howard’s other creations, as well), and they were the same ones that had recommended him as Savage Tales‘ headliner and gore-spattered cover boy in early 1971:  Howard’s hero was a guy who fought, and killed, his enemies (and there were lots of them) with a very sharp sword; and he was quite sexually active, in the bargain.  Though Thomas and his artistic collaborators had managed to make the property work within the confines of the Code for almost three years now, there was no question that through all that time they had been constantly straining at the boundaries of what they could get away with, and that they continued to do so.  The opportunity to present an uncensored comics version of Conan was clearly appealing to Marvel’s creators, as well as to its fans.

In addition, this second vehicle for Conan comics stories wouldn’t have to be tied to the rigid, aging-in-real-time chronology of the hero’s life and career that Thomas had more or less committed to in the monthly color series.  In Savage Tales, Thomas and company could leap forwards and backwards in time as they wished; more importantly, they could go ahead and adapt those original Conan stories by Howard set in periods of his life which the monthly book wouldn’t catch up to for many years.  Given that these were some of the best of Howard’s Conan tales (of which there really weren’t all that many to begin with), and that no one knew if the Conan the Barbarian title would even still be around by then, this must have been an awfully attractive prospect.

Naturally, setting Savage Tales outside the month-to-month continuity of the color title also meant that Thomas could assign a story to an artist without having to worry too much about deadlines; the artist could take as much time as they needed to do their best work, and the story wouldn’t be scheduled until it was completely done.  (This was the theory, anyway; as we’ll see a bit later, the reality was somewhat different.)  That, as well as the opportunity to do a faithful adaptation of one of Howard’s best-regarded Conan stories free of the constrictions of the Comics Code Authority, was evidently enough to entice artist Barry Windsor-Smith back into the Marvel fold for at least one more go-around.  Windsor-Smith, who’d been the regular penciller on Conan the Barbarian from the series’ first issue through its 24th (with the exception of one two-issue break during which Gil Kane fulfilled that duty), had decided in late 1972 that he was done with the monthly grind; that didn’t necessarily mean that he’d gotten Conan out of his system, however.  And so, it came to pass that the first new issue of Savage Tales would feature as its lead story an adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “Red Nails” (the last Conan story the author ever wrote, and one whose serialized publication in three issues of the magazine Weird Tales actually overlapped the date of his own suicide on June 11, 1936), pencilled as well as inked by Barry Windsor-Smith, and scripted by (who else?) Roy Thomas.

But before we begin our look at the first chapter of “Red Nails” (followed by the rest of the issue’s contents, naturally), a word about our cover.  It’s another painting by John Buscema, evidently done for the original planned release of Savage Tales #2 back in 1971 before Martin Goodman dropped the axe.  It has nothing to do with “Red Nails” (or anything else in the issue), although that in itself isn’t a problem.  Nor would I presume to fault Buscema’s work on technical grounds.  But damn, if it’s not the most exploitative cover to ever appear on a Marvel black-and-white comics magazine (which is saying something, frankly).  Honestly, it looks less like a cover designed to help Marvel compete with Warren and the other black-and-white comics publishers than it does one meant to appeal to the audience for “men’s sweat” magazines (which, probably not coincidentally, were among the sorts of non-comics periodical fare published by Marvel’s sister company, the Martin Goodman-founded Magazine Management Company).  Speaking of sweat, I’m pretty sure I must have sweated smuggling this one into the house, as Mom and Dad wouldn’t have been amused by the torture-and-nudity scenario at all.  Hmm… do you suppose that, fifty years later, I’m still kind of embarrassed by this cover?  If so, I suspect you’re right.

Okay, enough about that.  Moving on, we’ll turn past the issue’s contents page, which will bring us to the first page of “Red Nails”… well, almost…

Regular readers of this blog will recognize the text-and-old-movie-still format of this introductory page, which Marvel was using regularly at this time in all the titles of the “Marvel Monster Group”.  (Incidentally, the Grand Comics Database has no idea what vintage film this photo is sourced from, and neither do I; if you think you do, please share via the comments section below.  UPDATE 6/29/23:  The movie has been identified as the 1961 film The Mask; please see gardibolt’s comment below for more details.)  Thankfully, Savage Tales never made more than minimal use of this kind of content; indeed, the other text features in this issue are graced with subject-appropriate drawings by Al Williamson and Frank Brunner, as well as vintage illustrations from some of the Weird Tales magazines where Howard’s Conan stories were first published.

On the other hand, the page is hardly a complete waste of space; the “Nemedian Chronicles” excerpt at the top (quoted from Howard’s first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword”) provides a good basic orientation to Conan and his world for any reader who hasn’t encountered them previously, while the “what has gone before” note at the bottom helps convey to the more experienced fan that the story that follows is set at a different time in the hero’s life than are the adventures they’ve been following in the monthly Conan the Barbarian series.

While we’re all taking an extra moment or two to admire Windsor-Smith’s magnificent frontispiece, this is probably a good time to note that Conan’s age at the time of “Red Nails” has been estimated to be around 37 or 38 years old, making him at least 15 years older than he’s supposed to be in the last Conan story drawn by the artist (i.e., issue #24’s “The Song of Red Sonja”).  I gotta say, the guy seems to be holding up really well, given all the added mileage…

As we’ve already noted, both Thomas and Windsor-Smith were keen to take the opportunity provided by Savage Tales‘ format to produce the most faithful adaptation of a Robert E. Howard Conan story it was possible to achieve in comics; their ambition was almost thwarted, however, due to the commercial instincts of publisher Lee.  As Thomas relates in Barbarian Life:

When the inked and lettered pencils [for the first installment of “Red Nails”] arrived, I showed them to Stan before sending them to the printer.  He complained, because he was unhappy with the artwork on the first two pages, where all that happens is that Valeria arrives at a clearing, dismounts, and climbs an outcropping to look out over the surrounding countryside.

 

Stan wanted action right from the get-go, though I explained to him that we were following REH’s story, and that Barry and I had wanted to do a faithful adaptation.  Stan let me win the argument, probably because we were short of time.  Months later, when the first sales figures came in — and they were quite good — I proudly took them to Stan and said, “Look how well it sold, in spite of that quiet opening you complained about.”  He grimaced and responded, “If there’d been more action, sales would have been even better.”  I decided I couldn’t argue with that logic.  Stan is my mentor, and one of the most influential comic-book writers and editors ever, but we all have our eccentricities.

Speaking just for my fifteen-year-old self, I don’t recall being the least bit bored by the “quiet” opening of “Red Nails”; of course, that may well be down to Windsor-Smith’s very alluring renderings of Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, which easily compensated for the lack of “action”, at least as far as my horny teenage self was concerned.

As faithful as Thomas’ script is to Howard’s original text overall, there’s at least one sequence where one may justifiably decry its lack of fidelity, and it appears on the page shown above — particularly in the dialogue of the third and fourth panels, from which a reader might well conclude that Conan intends to rape Valeria.  In Thomas’ script, the Cimmerian’s “But, that’s enough talking… I want you, woman,” is immediately followed by the line, “and I’ve not come this far, just to turn around and ride off empty-handed.”  The implied threat of sexual violence seems very clear.

But in Howard’s story, Conan does in fact keep talking, though he never says anything as blunt as “I want you”, and his statement about not riding away empty-handed follows a brief discussion between the two characters about their respective travel plans, at the end of which Valeria states that she has no interest in accompanying Conan.  What’s more, Conan doesn’t just mention the pirate’s slaying of the Stygian officer who earlier attempted to assault her; he expresses his approval of the act, saying,”If I’d been there, I’d have knifed him myself.”  No, I’m not claiming that anyone would ever mistake Howard’s Conan for any kind of feminist; but he’s not a would-be rapist… at least, not in this story.

(Incidentally, anyone interested in comparing the adaptation to the original story can find the full text of the latter online for free, here.)

Like virtually all such creatures in the Conan stories, what the characters call a “dragon” here is in fact no such thing — rather, it’s a dinosaur.  Working off Howard’s descriptive prose (which includes the phrase “rows of serrated spikes”), Windsor-Smith has modeled his version of the monster after a Stegosaurus — though this particular specimen clearly doesn’t share its real-world antecedents’ herbivorous inclinations…

While Windsor-Smith had made only sparing use of gray tones in his one previous B&W Conan story (Savage Tales #1’s “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”), he eschews them completely in “Red Nails”.  But whereas another artist’s work might seem less than complete in stark black-and-white without the depth and nuance usually afforded by shades of gray, that question never arises here, thanks to the prodigious amount of finely rendered detail with which Windsor-Smith fills many of the story’s panels.  (And as an added bonus — perhaps anticipated, perhaps not — the lack of such tones made it a much simpler task to add color to a later printing of the story; as, in fact, Windsor-Smith [with the assistance of Linda Lessman] did just a couple of years later for Marvel Treasury Edition #4, where the tabloid-size reproduction as well as the assured coloring resulted in what would probably stand as the definitive presentation of “Red Nails”… if only the artwork hadn’t been slightly cropped to conform to the page dimensions of the “treasury” format.)

His own offhand mention of spears promptly gives Conan a bright idea.  After cutting several of the highest growing branches from the trees below, as well as some vines, he fashions a makeshift lance, using his sword for the pointy end — and then, after spearing one of the Apples of Derketa to coat his weapon’s blade with the fruit’s poisonous juices, he puts his plan into action…

“And, if the wind shifts…”  Conan probably should have kept his mouth closed there, since he and Valeria have hardly run any distance at all when that’s exactly what happens…

Conan and Valeria eventually arrive at a stand of cacti, where they shelter for the rest of the night.  At dawn they resume marching towards their goal, with Conan making the dry comment, “If that city’s people are going to slit our throats… they may as well do it before it gets too hot.”

In Barbarian Life, Roy Thomas writes:

When it came to the city of Xuchotl, Barry excelled himself.  Our first look inside the city makes us believe it’s real, though different from anything we know.  You get the impression that behind the doors and windows there are real homes and apartments, whereas most cities in comic books look like cardboard scenery.  I was moved by the beauty of many of the panels, and I tried hard not to let my word balloons cover up the areas that Barry had crammed with detail, but I wasn’t always successful.

A weary Valeria tells Conan to go on ahead if he wants, but she’s going to rest for a few moments.  Sitting down on a bench, she begins to doze off, only to snap back to full attention when she hears a small noise.  Knowing that it can’t be a returning Conan, whom she knows “moves noiselessly as a panther“, she rises and walks to a nearby balustraded gallery…

Again, here’s Roy Thomas:

In the first chapter of “Red Nails” there’s an amazing scene every few pages: Conan wounding the dragon in the tongue whilst the juice from the poisonous fruit drips in the foreground, the final blow that Conan lands on the beast, the first image inside Xuchotl; and perhaps most impressive of all, the scene where Valeria, high up on a balustraded gallery, spots a solitary warrior walking across the lower level.  By placing the warrior on a white walkway, Barry succeeds in pulling the reader’s gaze in the desired direction, and for once, there’s nothing to be gained by adding color.  The image is as clear as any comic-book image should be.

“They“, according to Valeria’s new companion (who names himself as Techotl), are “the people of Xotalanc — they who dwell by the Eastern Gate!”  Techotl, on the other hand, hales from Tecuhltli, by the Western Gate; he and his fellow, Chicmec, had entered this sector of the city (“the Halls of Silence”) to ambush some Xotalanc dudes, but they’d become separated, and the Burning Skull had attacked and killed the unfortunate Chicmec.

Curious, Valeria moves to examine the still-smoldering skull, but Techotl warns her not to touch, or even to look at it…

I mentioned earlier how, in theory, deadlines shouldn’t have been an issue for Marvel’s adaptation of “Red Nails”, since it didn’t have to be scheduled for publication until it was completely done.  Naturally, that’s not quite how things worked out in reality; for whatever reason (perhaps to keep Marvel’s pattern of bringing out a new black-and-white magazine every month beginning with February, 1973 intact?), Savage Tales #2 went into production before Windsor-Smith was quite finished with the art for the adaptation’s first installment; and in the end, someone else had to be brought in to help ink the latter pages.  As Thomas explains in Barbarian Life:

Barry ran into a time issue completing the first 21 pages of the story.  There isn’t much mention of this, but that’s the reason why — with Barry’s permission — I asked artist Pablo Marcos to help out with the inking of the final few pages.  I’m not sure which pages (or parts of pages) were inked by Pablo, but if you come across any that look more rushed, with less attention to detail, you’ll know why.  It wasn’t Pablo’s fault.  He was working under a lot of pressure, and those pencils probably also weren’t the clearest that Barry had ever done.  Everything turned out well in the end, but the inking job on “Red Nails” can’t be 100% attributed to Barry Smith.

According to the Grand Comics Database, only the last two pages feature Marcos’ inks.  Speaking again only for myself, I certainly didn’t notice any drop-off in quality (or even change in inking style) upon my first reading, back in 1973; and even in 2023, I have a hard time seeing much difference between page 20 and those preceding it.  I can see Marcos’ touch on the very last page (21), but that may be in large part because I’m actively looking for it.  In any case, I’ve decided to share the Marvel Treasury Edition versions of these two pages, which were completely re-inked by Windsor-Smith for the occasion.  (This will also give you a chance to see some examples of Windsor-Smith and Lessman’s coloring, as well as of the unfortunate cropping of the original art.  Don’t forget, you can click on each of these images for a much larger view.)

At this point, we’ll take our leave of “Red Nails”, reserving further commentary until we’ve perused the adaptation’s concluding chapters in Savage Tales #3… and proceed to review the remaining contents of Savage Tales #2.  First up is Roy Thomas’ aforementioned editorial, “The Hyborian Rage”, in which he discusses where the magazine had been the last couple of years as well as where it was (hopefully) going.  It’s graced by several non-specific (but still quite appropriate) sketches by Al Williamson, one of which you can see at left.  Following that is a longer text feature — a biographical article about Robert E. Howard, written by his estate’s literary agent, Glenn Lord, and abridged by Thomas; it features a photo-based portrait of Howard by George Barr (see right), as well as several spot illustrations by Frank Brunner (an example is reproduced below).  As with Williamson’s sketches, Brunner’s drawings don’t seem to be based on any story (or even existing character) in particular, but are nevertheless appropriate for the venue.

This brings us to the issue’s second comics story, “Dark Tomorrow” which was written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Gray Morrow.  Along with Buscema’s cover, it represents the last remnant of what would have been Savage Tales #2 had it been published in 1971 as originally planned, having been commissioned and completed prior to the decision to cancel the magazine.  As we’ll see, it’s a future-set science fiction story, meaning it doesn’t really fit ST‘s new Robert E. Howard-focused direction at all; on the other hand, it features guys fighting with swords, so it doesn’t stick out too badly, at least visually.

For my money, the least convincing aspect of the dystopian future Conway has conceived is the “chivalry” that has men fighting duels-to-the-death over the slightest personal affront.  Seems to me that if the best outcome a duelist could hope for would be a clearly unpleasant exile, it’d be really hard to get the kind of societal buy-in the practice seems to enjoy.

Grabbing the hand of his “chamber-mate”, Christine, Karl Linders makes a break for it, even as an onlooker derides him as a dishonorable coward.  At this point, the scene shifts to the very place Karl was about to be exiled to: the swamp outside the city where dwell “the Wets” — one of whom, a young man named Damian Linders, is presently imploring an old man named Prometheus to continue his tale of the old days before “the Plague”.  Acquiescing, Prometheus explains how he was only nineteen years old when the Plague first struck…

Meanwhile, Karl and Christine manage to forcibly requisition a rocket ship, Karl killing yet another person in the process…

Having made his choice, Damian turns on his fellow Wets, stabbing a couple of them before fleeing with Karl and Christine.  When one of the stunned Tribune judges ask Prometheus why Damian did it, the old man answers: “He needs this soul journey.  It will make him a man — and give him courage later to do what he has to…”

Out in the wilderness of the swamp, the trio of fugitives run and run, until at last they reach the point of exhaustion.  When they finally stop, Damian puts out a hand to support his brother, but…

And that’s that.  I get the impression that Gerry Conway may have had some idea of continuing this story for at least another installment or two — the time the narrative spends setting up “the Guardian“, and the portentous remarks Prometheus makes regarding Damian’s future don’t make a lot of sense, otherwise — but to the best of my knowledge, no such sequel ever appeared.  All in all, it’s a slight story; still, it’s hard to begrudge its having been spared from the dustbin, if for no other reason than the excellence of Gray Morrow’s artwork.

Next up is another piece by Barry Windsor-Smith: an adaptation of the 1932 poem “Cimmeria”,  written by Robert E. Howard at around the same time that he was creating the character of Conan:

Everything in this piece (with the obvious exception of Howard’s text) is the work of Windsor-Smith, including the typography.  The art was shot for publication directly from his uninked pencils; while the result might not be perfect, it works considerably better than Marvel’s earlier such experiment in Conan the Barbarian #19.

You have to admit, it’s pretty ballsy to decide to adapt a poem in five pages, and then have one of those pages be completely wordless.  (No, I’m not complaining.)

In an afterword written for the 2004 Dark Horse collection The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 4: The Song of Red Sonja and Other Stories, Roy Thomas describes Windsor-Smith’s take on “Cimmeria” as “great stuff”, but also takes pains to note:

…I was unhappy that he took it upon himself to change a couple of words in the poem. If not for the difficulty of matching the type- lettering Barry had pasted down, I’d probably have insisted on changing it back. There are limits.

If you’re wondering, the changes referred to by Thomas appear to consist of Windsor-Smith’s flipping of the phrases “Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night” and “Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night” on pages 48 and 50, as well as his changing Howard’s “shadows” to “a shadow”, also on page 50.  Oh… and Windsor-Smith’s adaptation also leaves out the final stanza of the poem completely — which you have to figure Thomas would have noticed, though he doesn’t appear to address it in his Chronicles of Conan comments.  Just for the record, though, here it is:

Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,
To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,
How many deaths shall serve to break at last
This heritage which wraps me in the grey
Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

(You’re welcome.)

Moving on, we come to the first of Savage Tales #2’s two reprinted stories:

“The Crusader” had originally appeared in Black Knight #1 (May, 1955); there it served as the “origin story” for its title character, whose strip would go on to run as a backup feature to the headlining Sir Percy of Scandia for the remaining four issues of the short-lived series.  Despite the tasty art by Joe Maneely, we’re not going to be offering a full recap of the five-page story here; still, for those who might be intrigued by this opening page, we’ll pause long enough to note that the main character is a half-Frankish, half-Saracen warrior named El Alemain, who, though raised by Muslims and growing up loyal to their cause, decides to switch sides after a chance encounter with his dying half-brother (the “Sir John O’Dare” shown briefly above), donning his armor to become… the Crusader!  Like most representations of the Crusades in the Western popular culture of the 1950s (and the 1970s, too, for that matter), the moral superiority of the so-called “Christian” side in this series of conflicts is blithely taken for granted, dating the story badly; though, as already noted, Maneely’s artwork still holds up.

Next up is the second and last of the issue’s illustrated text features:

Outside of Robert E. Howard’s own writings, Miller and Clark’s 1936 essay — a speculative “biography” of Conan that placed Howard’s stories (which he wrote in no particular order) in chronological sequence for the first time, and which received at least a tentative endorsement from the author himself — is about as close to an ur-text for the character as can be imagined, providing a narrative framework that later prose and comics writers have had to acknowledge ever since (either by slotting their own work within it, or by justifying why they haven’t).  As of June, 1973, your humble blogger had bought and read most of the Conan paperback volumes published up to that point; and seeing as how’d they’d all utilized an adapted version of this chronology as linking material between the individual stories, the material was by and large known to me.  Still, it was nice to have it all in one place; and it was also eye-opening to peruse the vintage illustrations from Weird Tales that Roy Thomas had chosen to accompany the piece (such as the one by J.M. (“Jayem”) Wilcox shown at right), which underscored just how differently that magazine’s artists had visualized Conan in comparison with Frank Frazetta (the aforementioned paperback series’ primary cover painter), not to mention those who’d followed after him (Marvel’s artists included).

Bringing up the rear of Savage Tales #2 is the issue’s last comics story — which, though a reprint, is introduced by a never-before-seen piece by Bernie Wrightson:

As indicated by the blurb at the bottom of page 65, “The Skull of Silence!” was a re-presentation of the very first King Kull story done at Marvel Comics.  But since I’d missed its original publication in Creatures on the Loose #19 — a book that had come out in December, 1970, one month before I’d finally bit the bullet and bought my first issue of Conan the Barbarian — this was the first time I’d seen it, and so it hardly counted as a reprint, as far as I was concerned.

(As to why Wrightson’s original cover went unused in favor of the published version [generally attributed to Herb Trimpe and Marie Severin], it had been rejected by Stan Lee [at least according to Roy Thomas in Barbarian Life].  But you’d never guess that from the editorial note at the top of page 65, which one might easily take to imply that it had something to do with the change in the comic’s title from Tower of Shadows to Creatures on the Loose “at the last possible moment”; a statement that echoes an earlier remark from Thomas’ “Hyborian Rage” piece, regarding how “a publishing decision at the last minute had prevented us from using the beautiful cover that Berni had drawn”.)

Bernie Wrightson was the first artist to draw King Kull at Marvel, so it’s interesting to note that later artists departed from his initial designs in several respects.  For example, Kull didn’t get his distinctive facial scar until Ross Andru and Wally Wood drew him in Kull the Conqueror #1 (Jun., 1971).  And Wrightson’s version of the Pictish emissary Ka-Nu bears little resemblance to the balding, white-whiskered iteration introduced by Marie and John Severin in Kull #2 (Sep., 1971).  (The post-Wrightson designs for both Kull and Ka-Nu are, naturally, the one that became standard.)

Following a brief flashback relating how Kull of Atlantis gained the throne of Valusia in the first place, the story proceeds to show the arrival of the king and his entourage at the site of a castle, where Kull proposes they spend the night.  “No, my lords,” warns one member of the group.  “We must not tarry there.”

If the wise slave Kuthulos seems familiar to you, you may be remembering his role in Kull the Conqueror #7 (Mar., 1973), an adaptation of Howard’s story “Delcardes’ Cat”.  (Interestingly, the character’s physical appearance in that issue is quite similar to how he looks here, suggesting that that time, at least, the Severins were paying attention to the precedent set by Wrightson.)  Or maybe you’re recalling our discussion of the Doctor Strange story in Marvel Premiere #8 (May, 1973), which featured a villain with a very similar name derived from Howard’s fiction, Kathulos.

No?  None of this rings a bell at all?  Well, don’t worry; it has nothing to do with our current tale, anyway…

Bernie Wrightson was unhappy with the reproduction of his art in Creatures on the Loose #10, particularly in respect to its climactic latter pages — and especially as regards the coloring, which he handled himself.  As he told The Comics Journal in a 1982 interview:

The whole idea was trying to figure out some way to show sound draining from a soundless medium.  So, I thought, of course, the lettering and the balloons become smaller.  The balloons stay the same size and the lettering becomes smaller until finally you have people speaking in blank balloons.  That’s good, but that’s not quite enough.  Well, what if it’s a really brightly colored thing to begin with.  Lots of primaries: reds, yellows, and blues, and all.  And this all starts washing out, until it finally becomes black and white, as the color drains out, the color bleaches out of the thing.  I thought, “Yeah, that’s interesting. I like that.”  So that’s what I did.  That’s the way I handled this thing.  And I drew it that way in black-and-white with that in mind so that the pages where the sound was all gone were going to be in black-and-white, and there’d be lots of zip-a-tone and screens and stuff so there’d be some interest, some grays and stuff, but no actual color.  Then I got the silver prints to color, colored those up, spent a lot of time on it.  Really sweated on it, y’know.  And paid close attention to the color chart and getting this thing just right.  Turned it in, everybody said, “Oh, lovely! Terrific! We love it!”  I didn’t hear anything about it until the job comes out and when it comes out … in the first place, they obviously hadn’t printed from the originals.  They had printed from low-grade photostats.  So a lot of the line work, especially the zip-a-tone and the screens and stuff I had done fell out, was gone, completely.  On top of that, they had gotten somebody to recolor it, so that all these pages, all this real careful orchestration where the color is bleaching out.  If I’m going to put all that kind of work into it, and this is what happens, why bother?  Of course, I got pissed off.  I went in to Roy Thomas and Stan and raised hell: “What did you do this for?  Didn’t you know what I was trying to do?”  What I got out of that, was, “We’re doing color comics here.”

For his part, Thomas acknowledged the unsatisfactory results of the original, full-color presentation of “The Skull of Silence!”, stating in “The Hyborian Rage” that his collaborator’s artwork “suffered unduly because of a bad reproduction job when it first appeared”.  Forty-five years later, in Barbarian Life, he went into a bit more detail:

…Bernie Wrightson and I had been disappointed by the color reproduction of our adaptation of the REH King Kull story “The Skull of Silence,” though against all reason Bernie blamed the screw-up on Marvel (and, ultimately, on me).  This was why I made the decision to republish it almost immediately in Savage Tales #2.

Thomas seems to be saying that all of the problems with the coloring originated further down the production line, after Creatures on the Loose #10 had left Marvel’s offices.  But while it might seem unlikely that color separators working in Bridgeport, CT would take it upon themselves to ignore the color guides they’d been sent and re-color the artwork on their own, that sort of thing evidently sometimes did happen during this era (as when the separators reportedly re-colored the sunburned figures of Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter in Captain America #155 (Nov., 1972), resulting in a key point in Steve Englehart’s script for that issue making no sense).

Regardless of where the fault lay, Bernie Wrightson was so disgruntled by the experience that he essentially stopped working for Marvel for over a decade; outside of inking an issue of Sub-Mariner that was published just a few weeks after CotL #10, followed by a handful of covers in 1975, the artist wouldn’t return again to the House of Ideas until 1983.  One can only wonder about how differently the artist’s career — and the history of American comic books, for that matter — might have turned out, had the young artist not decided to stick more or less exclusively with DC Comics, at least for the next few years.  Would we have ever even had a Swamp Thing?  Obviously, all we can do is speculate.

In any event, we’ve come to the conclusion of Savage Tales #2 — a historically significant issue that, for the most part, still holds up as a satisfying reading experience.  Although, come to think of it, we actually have one more page which — despite technically being a house ad — might well be considered legitimate content, simply on the basis of the Barry Windsor-Smith illustration that accompanies the “coming attractions” verbiage:

Alas, the announced “on sale” date of September 25 turned out to be off by about a month.  The magazine’s supposedly quarterly publication schedule was held up until October 23, for reasons explained by Roy Thomas in Barbarian Life:

When Savage Tales #2 appeared, Martin Goodman, the original publisher, was no longer with the company.  Marvel had become part of a conglomerate, although it retained some of its autonomy as a small company, with its own president/publisher (Stan Lee), an auditor, etc.  The auditor, who only understood numbers, had seen the disappointing results for Savage Tales #1, and he didn’t want to bring out #2, but Stan, bless him, insisted.  Stan’s intuition is better than an accountant’s (and in this case, mine was, too).  The auditor did complicate the appearance of Savage Tales #3, however. The delay was discouraging, but Barry and I finally made up our minds to finish the job [of adapting “Red Nails”], and Stan assured us that our work would end up getting published somewhere.  Thankfully, Savage Tales #3 saw print, although there were several months… between issues.

And issue #3 was ultimately worth the wait — as will be our discussion of it in this space, or so at least hopes your humble blogger.  In any case, we’ll all find out, come this October.