The Monstrous Flying Reptile!

Reptilicus is a guilty pleasure of mine. I've been a fan ever since the movie actually scared me as a kid (believe it or not) in the middle of the night during a Halloween movie marathon decades ago. Produced in the wake of the success of Godzilla, this Danish entry into the monster sweepstakes is one of those movies that is beloved for its zany treatment and for its mildly ridiculous monster. The movie is part comedy, part romance, part monster story and more than a tad a travelogue singing the praise of Copenhagen. 

The poster for the movie by Reynold Brown (the same guy who gave us the iconic Attack of the 50 ft. Woman poster) is one of the finest ever made for any monster movie, of that era or any other. Nothing on the poster happens in the movie and the amazing beast on the poster bares only a slim similarity to the actual puppet behemoth of the film, but it's still a fantastic image. To actually watch this amazing classic bit of cinema in which despite the wings Reptilicus does not fly, check out this Internet Archive link. 

Looking much less ridiculous on the comic page though, Reptilicus was adapted twice by the folks at  Charlton publications.  First in novel form as penned by Dean Owen under the Monarch Books badge. I've never read it, but it's supposed to be quite salty. That's a pretty intense cover. Here's a sample of the prose. "General Grayson looked at the girl beside him, wondering if he would live to enjoy Connie's warm, vibrant flesh again. Svend Alstrup, his was remembering Karen's wanton seduction of him and hoping for a repeat performance." 

Then they adapted it to comic book form.  The story, which cleaves reasonably closely to the original story is below.  The comic story was written by Charlton iron man Joe Gill after the screenplay by Ib Melchior based on the story by producer Sid Pink. The pictures are by pencil artist Bill Molno with Vince Alascia on inks. The late great Rocke Mastroserio provided the exciting cover for the debut issue!

Charlton produced one more issue of Reptilicus, again featuring artwork by Bill Molno though the script is uncertain, it was likely Joe Gill yet again.

After the second issue featuring a Dick Giordano cover, Sid Pink took issue with Charlton and they had to change the name of the series to "Reptisaurus" and it continued for six more issues. Unlike Gorgo and Konga, Reptilicus was not blessed by the artwork of Steve Ditko and so alas is often overlooked and has not been reprinted in any nifty collectible format, at least not that I'm aware of. 

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