Charlton Classic Covers - Reptisaurus #8!

Reptisaurus #8 was published in 1962. You can read the issue at this link. The cover art is by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. 

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Charlton Classic Covers - Reptisaurus #5!

Reptisaurus #5 was published in 1962. You can read the issue at this link. The goofy cover art is by Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta. 

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Charlton Classic Covers - Reptisaurus #3!

Reptisaurus #3 was published in 1962. It is a continuation of the Reptilicus series with modifications to the creature's color and name. You can read the issue at this link. The cover art is by Sal Gentile and Nick Alascia. 

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Charlton Classic Covers - Reptilicus #2

Reptilicus #2 was published in 1961. You can read the issue at this link. The cover art is by Dick Giordano. 

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Monarch's Reptilicus!

Charlton also was associated with the paperback imprint Monarch and they too adapted Reptilicus using the writer David Owens. Pink took issue with some of the scenes created for the novel version which are reputed to have a somewhat lascivious quality. I've never read it, so I cannot speak first-hand about it. But apparently it upset Pink who pulled the license from Charlton.

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The Charlton Reptilicus!

Reptilicus was the least successful of Charlton's monster trio, likely because the monster is the least identifiable of the three monsters. It's just an animal, large and often ferocious, but still difficult to get any sense of what Reptilicus is thinking. Also, Reptilicus never was graced with the artistic power of Steve Ditko, instead had to deal with the competent but less exciting duo of Charles Nicholas and Nick Alascia. And besides that, there are only technically two issue of "Reptilicus", because Charlton lost the rights to the name. 

Sid Pink was not happy with the sexual elements added to the novelization of the movie story published under Charlton's Monarch brand. He pulled the rights I assume, and Charlton was left with only two comics titled Reptilicus. 

The first issue featured a great Rocke Mastroserio cover while the second featured the artwork of Dick Giordano with the Nicholas and Alascia combo still on board between the covers. Reptilicus revives and threatens areas of Africa in the sequel. As far as I can tell Joe Gill wrote all the issues of the run. 

With the third issue the title of the comic is changed to Reptisaurus and the artwork is by Bill Molno. Sal Gentile and Nick Alascia supply a less than satisfactory cover. Reptisaurus is red where Reptilicus was green and gets a mate and a family. But don't wait to see what happens as continuity on this comic is pretty much nonexistent with each issue seeming to start from scratch. 

The artwork is then taken over by the team of Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta and their work here is even less impressive than it was on Gorgo. Part of that is that Reptisaurus is hard to draw in any way which allows the reader to get a sense of his feelings. The rendition by the team makes him quite comical in places. 

Eventually like all the other monster series, the art team of Bill Montes and Ernie Bache take on the book toward the end of its run and they redesign the monster quite a bit, making him much less like the original Reptilicus. This is not a bad idea and we get some decent storytelling in the final issues of the original run. 

Following the cancellation of the original run after a meager eight issues we are treated to a special edition which puts a wrap on the character sort of.

Reptilicus the movie is a guilty pleasure of mine and I watch it on the regular, and I was pleased to finally get to read all the Reptilicus/Reptisaurus comics despite the meager quality. I am always curious and like a bad movie, even bad comics can be entertaining in their own way if you adjust your expectations. 

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Reptilicus!

Once upon a time in the late 50's and early 60's, giant monsters were all the rage. Denmark feeling that it too wanted to contribute its unique flavor to the monster surge of the time initiated by Japan's Godzilla, unleashed the prehistoric might of Reptilicus on the the city of Copenhagen and film-going public has never been the same since. I've certainly never been, since I lensed the movie as part of an all-night Halloween film fest when I was youngster. The first few scenes scared me pretty well, though even as a kid I found the big monster's romp somewhat regrettable.


Sidney Pink produced this flick and thought the way to go for special effects was puppets. Puppetry was a classic approach, and one only has to look back to the very first giant monsters created by the master special effects kahunah Willis "Obie" O'Brien, to see the stop-motion mastery of that form. That's not the way they went with Reptilcus. They went with a marionettes and hand puppets. Take a look.



On another front Ib Melchior had worked on early versions of Gigantis, the Fire Monster, the Americanized Godzilla sequel and took some of the discarded concepts from that project and used them on this movie. Reptilicus does have one advantage over Godzilla and Kong, he can fly. But for some reason those scenes get cut from the American version and so his little wings seem attached to the big lizard for no good reason. Here's a look at him on the fly.


Needless to say Sidney Pink was interested in maximizing his profits from this creation, so he licensed the creature to comics, in particular Charlton Comics. They had a history with these kinds of things, having done Konga and Gorgo. But Charlton also was associated with the paperback imprint Monarch and they too adapted Reptilicus using the writer David Owens. Pink took issue with some of the scenes created for the novel version which are reputed to have a somewhat lascivious quality. I've never read it, so I cannot speak firsthand about it. But apparently it upset Pink who pulled the license from Charlton. But Charlton must've seen some good numbers from their monster book, so they just kept on publishing it under the new name "Reptisaurus". It ran for six more issues through 1962, and a 1963 summer special edition to boot. Some years ago, an independent science fiction movie was made using the "Reptisaurus" name. I've not been able to see most of this movie, but I have seen the trailer and for this kind of Indy stuff it looks typical. I'd love to see it full length.

So we are faced with the odyssey of this monster character who begins life in the cinema and then tumbles into comics only to return under his new name to the screen again. There is an irony here somewhere. For more details on this offbeat tale of monsters and comics, see this link at Stephen Bissette's rather scholarly blog.

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Angry Apes 'N' Leapin' Lizards!

This month is all about giant monsters, especially those illustrated in strong style by "Sturdy" Steve Ditko. I've had the above Paragon book titled Steve Ditko -- Angry Apes 'N' Leapin' Lizards in my collection for many years. It's a dandy black and white gathering of some of Ditko's strongest monster material for Charlton in the early 1960's, produced at the same time he was cranking out mystery yarns for Stan Lee at Marvel. Ditko worked in tandem with the indefatigable Joe Gill on these monster stories. 

In addition to stories about Konga and Gorgo, look for Reptilicus as well. Ditko never drew any of that less successful series, but it's a lot of fun anyway. Other artists aside from Ditko drew Konga and Gorgo stories and I'll get into that a bit as the month rumbles along. All monsters all month. 

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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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