Whitman's Flash Gordon!

Western Publishing was a large and successful outfit for a very long time in comics. Early on they partnered with Dell to make comics but later when that fell apart established the Gold Key brand to make their own distinctive mark on the field. The "key" to their success was a slightly higher price (fifteen cents as opposed to twelve when I started reading for instance) and the painted covers, most by George Wilson. Gold Key comics looked more sophisticated than most comics and while their interiors might be a bit dry from time to time, the whole was always reliable and entertaining.

Eventually the comic book market changed and newsstands, the longtime primary outlet for comics began to disappear. With such sales diminishing the "Gold Key" brand was retired and another name -- "Whtiman" was used for the very same comcis. Whitman was the name Western used on their copious coloring books and other projects and now it was used for comics as well. Editorially there was no difference, but in terms of delivery to the consumer things were changed immensely. Western began to bag comics up into plastic and offer them three at a time, trying to find a package which seemed a bargain n a marketplace which saw prices rising continually. It was not ultimately successful,but it did buy Western a little time and in that time they made some more Flash Gordon comics.

John Warner and Carlos Garzon are both still on hand for the first Whitman issue and the continuity established in Alex Raymond's comic strip is still being adhered to more or less with Flash, Dale and Zarkov heading to the Cave Kingdom of Mongo where Flash had been made monarch in the comic strip decades before. They find a former Ming soldier hiding there but soon flush out the culprit.

The next issue saw a new artist by the name of Gene Fawcette. Fawecette had a clean smooth style similar to what had come before, though not as dynamic, but still quite handsome. The story sees Flash wanting to consolidate his power in the Cave Kingdom with exploration and Ming sending in a most competent spy to put an end to Flash.

The story continues in the next issue with Flash and his comrades finding a virtual new undersea domain tucked inside the vast caverns.

Then there's quite a shake up as three issues of the Whitman run are used to adapt the Flash Gordon movie. I will be taking a look at these issues individually later, so we'll skip ahead for now.

The issue following the adaptation is business as usual with Gene Fawcette back drawing a John Warner script that picked up the adventures of Flash and his allies as they are confronted by dreams sent to them by Ming. There's a second adventure in this issue written by George Kashdan and drawn by Frank Bolle taking Flash to a land where a man is held in limbo.

With newsstand sales gone, Whitman abandons the secret sauce of their success and the painted covers are gone. Now we have a patchwork cover using images from several parts of comic. It's accurate though and tells of yet another small kingdom and yet another queen, this one able to command a giant buzzard. It reminded me of The Giant Claw frankly. Carlos Garzon is back on the art chores too. 

More of the same in the next issue but with a difference as a character from the movie shows up -- Klytus the top second-banana to Ming himself. There is no apparent change in the larger back story though as Ming is still alive and plotting as Flash has to confront an Amazon-like kingdom where spiders are used as livestock and more. All McWilliams takes on the artwork from a George Kashdan script.

Finally the Flash Gordon comic comes to an end as we get new art from Gene Fawcette on scripts by Kashdan. But lots of things are changed in this last outing as the character models are altered to resemble the actors from the movie. Again the background story is unchanged, but it's a bit startling to suddenly see Flash Gordon wearing a tank top and looking like Sam Jones. The series goes out  with a bit of whimper as these changes are never really explained. And that's it for Flash Gordon in the comics until DC takes a spin and later Marvel Selects the Alex Raymond hero for a few issues in the next decade.

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