The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader!

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S Lewis was published in 1952 and is the third volume of The Chronicles of Narnia. In this one, two of our original child heroes age out of the Narnian experience leaving only Edmund and Lucy to travel to the famous fantasy land. They are joined this time by Eustace Scrubb, their cousin. He's been raised without the benefit of a traditional rearing by his parents whom he refers to by their first names. He's a spoiled bully who is dragged into Narnia and joins Edmund and Lucy aboard the ship which gives the book its title. Pauline Baynes once again illustrates the book with great aplomb. 

King Caspian is aboard with a hearty crew, and he is on an epic quest to voyage to the far ends of Narnia in search of seven lost lords of the land. Our trio of modern Earth kids are piped aboard, and the quest begins. Back for more too is Reepicheep the dashingly heroic sword-wielding mouse. Reepicheep immediately has trouble with Eustace who doesn't understand that in Narnia a sour attitude and a few pranks can get sword put where you'd rather not have it. 

Our band of explorers do indeed find the seven lords they search for, but those unfortunate (mostly) fellows have found all manner of dangers on islands along the way to the end of the Earth. Some are still alive and some are not. Eustace undergoes a strange transformation, both in body and character on the voyage. In truth the children are somewhat secondary in this story, with Lucy and Eustace getting the most attention. Lucy's constant trust in Aslan is an absolute boon to the voyage time and again. The surprise star of this adventures is Reepicheep, who is always seeking danger and adventure. The image of such a small creature being so brash is heartening in many ways, though of course his choices are often irresponsible. 

This remains my favorite story in the series. It's filled with all manner of oddities, and every few chapters a new aspect of the world of Narnia is revealed to the reader. The revelation at the end of the sea is a triumph for Lewis. And no reader will never forget the Dufflepuds -- enough said.

Next time The Silver Chair. 

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The Definitive Idyl And I'm Age!

Jeffrey Catherine Jones was an enigmatic artist. Part of "The Studio", she was most famous at the time for her incredible paperback covers. Many are on par with the best of Frazetta. Her comics work was sporadic and most of it was not in the usual venues. Idyl, her most personal work appeared in the "Funny Pages" of National Lampoon, and was work not intended for the typical comic book buyer. 

It was in the pages of National Lampoon that I first fell in love with Idyl. She was a lovely naked woman who mused about life and death and such stuff. She lived in a strange world in inhabited by talking animals. 

She's a bawdy Alice in Wonderland, if Alice was nude and mysteriously pregnant. 

Above is the very first "Idyl" installment. It was first published in National Lampoon November 1975 in their first and very distinctive section called simply "Funny Pages". 

Above is the final Idyl. It is marked by the singular panel and expansive thought balloon. 

 

One had to be observant in those wilderness days of comics to find your favorite artist's work. In addition to National Lampoon, Jones had work appear in Swank magazine, one of Playboy's lesser imitators.  

Some of that even more eccentric Jones material was gathered up in Ravens and Rainbows from Pacific Comics in 1981 and I only mention it for completion's sake. It is not included in this collection. We need another one for sure. 

A few years after the National Lampoon gig, Jones found another home for his musings. In the pages of Heavy Metal he introduced the strip "I'm Age". Once again, we are treated to a single page filled with obscure musings. 

His style has developed, away from his crunchy roots into a more relaxed look. He has said that the lush brush failed to connect with his hand and fingers in the same way that a pen did, so the change.I can't say I like it as well, but it sureain't bad. The messages of this series don't feel as opaque to me for whatever reason. 

I'll mention this here just because I can, but I highly recommend Jeffrey Jones - The Definitive Reference from Vanguard. My only complaint is that to fit in all of the many Jones paperback covers and such, the images are postage-stamp size for the most part. If I ever thought of trying to collect all of these (and I have quite a few) I realize the futility of that effort. Still and all, an instructive and pleasurable tome. 

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Enter The Lost World Of The Warlord!

DC had taken notice of Marvel's success with Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian and wanted a piece of that barbarous pie. To that end they cooked up a bevy of rough and tumble fantasy heroes and launched them all at once onto the comic stands. The one that succeeds will be a nifty twist on the Edgar Rice Burrough's creation Pellucidar. It was titled Warlord and debuted in the eighth issue of First Issue Special. 

Warlord created by up-and-coming comic art star Mike Grell. Warlord was originally part of a project Grell called Savage Empire, but the story was retooled a bit to debut in the seventh issue of 1st Issue Special. The story was inspired by Grell's admiration of both Prince Valiant and the comic strip version of Tarzan of the Apes. That means it had to have high adventure, a strong sense of realism, and a lavish landscape rich in unknown dangers and mysteries. 

Warlord tells the tale of Travis Morgan, a brave and resourceful United States jet pilot who is shot down in 1969 on a spy mission over the former Soviet Union. He is able to get his injured craft over the Arctic and crash lands but finds that he's actually entered a weird interior territory named Skataris tucked away inside the Earth's crust. It's a land of perpetual day where time loses meaning. Morgan quickly finds himself allied with a lovely warrior named Tara.

The two end having to escape from a heinous wizard called Deimos and that's not where this saga stops. Morgan finds other allies such as Machiste, a gladiator more than willing to rise up against Deimos and his cronies. Later still he encounters Mariah Romanova, a red-haired hellion who captures Morgan's heart and chooses to leave the surface to fight alongside him in the bloody world he's discovered. 

Starslayer from Pacific Comics was originally offered to DC by Grell, but the infamous implosion made that impossible. It would've been nice to see a match-up between Grell's two bearded bad asses. 

Below are the issues contained in Savage Empire. After the first two issues, there was a hiatus for six months or so and the title was brought back and went from strength to strength. Mike Grell was never too far from the proceedings. 

Thes success of The Warlord is proof of the DC concept of casting a bunch of potential seeds into the marketplace and looking to see which got a purchase in the modern imagination. Of all the characters created in DC's fantasy boom, Warlord was easily the most successful and a steady seller for them for years after. 

Next Week we encounter Beowulf - Dragon Slayer. 

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The Mighty Tor!

In the year 1975 DC notices that Marvel's barbarian characters are doing quite well on the newsstands of the day, so they cook up some of their own and included in that is a revival of Tor. The debut issue features work that Kubert had done years before, which had already appeared in unfinished form in Alter Ego. Now Kubert has the chance to finish this tale from Tor's youth in which he learns about the harshness of life outside the confines of his clan. 

Tapping on veteran Joe Kubert to revive his 50's co-creation with Norman Maurer was savvy on the part of the DC editors. Tor has just enough weirdness to not become just a dreary caveman adventure. There's plenty of oddities to fuel the series had it continued beyond the reprint stage. Below are the new covers for stories taken from 1950's issues of One Million Years Ago, Tor, and 3-D Comics from St. Johns.  

DC then reprints the St. John Tor stories, the 3-D ones in color for the first time. Kubert creates some exciting new covers for this run on the character. Kubert likely thought he have a chance to add more stories to the canon, but the series was canceled after six issues. 

These stories are from the early 50's when after over a decade in comics Kubert teamed up his longtime friend Norman Maurer to launch some comic books of their own. They entered into an arrangement with St. Johns Publishing and Tor hit the stands under the title 1,000,000 Years Ago. Maurer for his part had happened to marry the daughter of one of the Three Stooges and comic adventures of that hapless trio was the team's other project. But then 3-D happened. Actually, Kubert and Maurer were key in developing their own approach to 3-D comics and the second and third issues of Tor were actually 3-D comics. Both are weirdly numbered issue two which is no end of confusing. 

Tor was inspired by Tarzan and Kubert makes no bones about that. But by setting the brutal and wild adventures of Tor in the fanciful days of mankind's prehistory the connection to the more modern wild man created by Burroughs was shaded over a bit. Tor was a caveman, but not a real caveman, he was one who confronted dinosaurs and other monsters. It was not realism but passionate romance that Kubert was after with Tor, a primitive man who fought constantly in a dangerous world to stay alive, but who had quite literally an evolved sense of justice and a profound empathy for his fellow human beings. He was compelled to help others and that made him a mystery to his tribe who banished him and even to others who he helped along his travels. 

For more detailed reviews of Tor comics check these links for the Collections. 

Rip Jagger's Dojo: Joe Kubert's TOR - Volume One!

Rip Jagger's Dojo: Joe Kubert's TOR - Volume Two!

Rip Jagger's Dojo: Joe Kubert's TOR - Volume Three!

Rip Jagger's Dojo: Joe Kubert's TOR - A Prehistoric Odyssey!

He might have been an enigma to his fellow tribesman of that savage era, but Tor's approach to life is a lesson to us in the modern world to be brave and face the "monsters" which roam our own landscape. 

Next time we Enter the Lost World of the Warlord. 

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