Pellucidar At The Earth's Core!

Pellucidar is aside possibly from the elaborate landscape of Mars, ERB's greatest creation. In fact I like it a bit more as all that "Hollow Earth" stuff is immensely interesting. David Innes and the elder scientist Abney Perry drill into the Earth and end up in an immense world in which time loses its meaning. It's a world ruled by malignant intelligent dinosaurs and mankind is a lesser race doomed to early death and slavery. As is the wont of ERB's heroes Innes becomes a powerful leader of the peoples of Pellucidar and finds romance in the form of Dian the Beautiful. (That's her above in a wonderful image by Mark Schultz.) When DC got the ERB rights way back in 1972 from Gold Key they not only continued the adventures of Tarzan and his sone Korak, but initiated back-up series for John Carter of Mars, Carson Napier of Venus and David Innes in Pellucidar. 

 

These back-ups were made necessary by DC's then policy of charging a quarter for their comics but increasing the page count. I loved this era, but it did DC little good in the marketplace apparently was stopped just after the ERB books debuted. That meant the back-up series were suddenly homeless. Carson of Mars stayed in the back pages of Korak Son of Tarzan. Meanwhile Pellucidar joined John Carter in a brand comic dubbed Weird Worlds. 

The Dojo took a look at John Carter here. Pellucidar though remains a sentimental favorite of mine. The stories contained in the short series were collected by Dark Horse in a slim volume in 2017 titled Pellucidar at the Earth's Core. That title combines the titles of the first two Burroughs Pellucidar novels which are adapted partially in these stories by writer Len Wein and artist Alan Weiss. 

Pellucidar shared cover appearances with John Carter not unlike the old Marvel comics Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish when they had to bit two different heroes in their pages. The stories by Wein and Weiss introduce us to Innes and Perry and follow the action of the novel At the Earth's Core pretty effectively. Weiss is of the same generation which produced Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Kaluta (who drew Carson of Venus initially), and Berni Wrightson. But unlike many of his kindred artists Weiss was never really attached to a single series for any length of time. In fact Pellucidar is the series I think about when I hear his name. 

Weiss drew the first four installments of the series to fine effect. The story of David's romance with Dian is detailed quite well and follows the classic ERB methodology of two handsome folks falling in love at first sight but letting social foibles get between them. Innes must also deal with a villain named Hooka the Sly who at one point makes off with Dian. 

Mike Kaluta fills in for one installment as Denny O'Neil takes on the scripting from Wein. Later Dan Green will draw the last three installments of the short series to great effect. 

After wrapping up the adaptation of At the Earth's Core the series begins Pellucidar which sees David Innes returning to the land down under with fresh supplies. The Kaluta cover above is likely the best one the series saw. he produced two Pellucidar covers for issues four and six. Joe Orlando is responsible for the cover of issue number two. 

But after seven issues it was over. Truth told the back-up ERB material had been begun with great promise but despite the work of solid professionals seemed to lose momentum. This collection from Dark Horse Books does a service of sorts for fans, but it is severely flawed. The artwork here is apparently scanned and on the glossy paper it looks terrible. There is a muddiness which I've never seen in a publication from an outfit at the level of Dark Horse before. I can understand not investing the money needed to remaster the material, but it seems they could've done better than this. For that reason I can only recommend this book with limited enthusiasm. The adventures of Pellucidar at DC are fun but in this version they look lousy. 

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