Don Newton

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #6 (November, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last October, we took a look at the first issue of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction — Marvel Comics’ latest (as of 1974), and, as things turned out, last (as of 2025) attempt to produce an SF anthology comic adapting well-known short stories and novels in the genre.  As I related in that earlier post, my younger self definitely enjoyed that premiere offering, but still somehow ended up not buying another issue until the August, 1975 release of the subject of today’s post.  Whether the magazine had been having distribution problems in my area in the ten-month interval between UWoSF #1 and #6, or I simply passed on #2 through #5 for reasons now forgotten, I’m glad that the stars aligned for me to buy this one.  Read More

Savage Sword of Conan #6 (June, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

We’ve discussed the so-called “Filipino Invasion” of the American comic book industry during the 1970s in several previous posts.  As regular readers may recall, this development began with the arrival of artist Tony DeZuñiga at DC Comics around the middle of 1970, but really picked up steam in 1972 following a business trip to the Philippines taken by DeZuñiga, his editor Joe Orlando, and DC publisher Carmine Infantino.  That visit resulted in a deal by which DeZuñiga and his wife would act as a sort of broker between DC and his fellow Filipino illustrators, most of whom continued to live and work in the islands.  Within a number of months, DC’s mystery anthologies (along with related titles such as Weird War Tales and Weird Western Tales) were all but dominated by the art of such talents as DeZuñiga, Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, and a number of others. Read More

Giant-Size Defenders #3 (January, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As we’ve discussed in this space previously, Marvel Comics seems to have been in an almighty rush to get as many “Giant-Size” comics to market as possible in the first half of 1974.  Along with a multitude of title, frequency, price, and format changes, most seemingly made on the fly, one likely result of this haste was the release of Giant-Size Defenders #1 in April, 1974 as a mostly-reprint package, its only new content (not counting the Gil Kane-John Romita-Frank Giacoia cover) being a 9-page framing sequence.  Written by Tony Isabella and illustrated by Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom, that strip unquestionably looked great, and it read just fine; there simply wasn’t enough of it. Read More