The Marvel Magazine Thread 7 7

[N e r V]

I’ve decided to start a thread devoted to the Marvel magazine lines. I’m starting this late tonight on a whim so pardon any errors. History shows us that Timely (Marvel) was first a publisher of pulp magazines before comics and that Martin Goodman continued to publish a number of magazines during his comics publishing empire building days. Those titles are numerous so I’m only focusing on the titles that were true Marvel comics mags or clearly related. Let someone else cover Goodman’s men and other assorted mags if they wish. So first let’s start by going all the way back  to Monsters to Laugh With #1 published in March 1964 to see the early rumblings in Marvel’s magazine attempts and how it flowed into latter attempts in and around that early concept.

 

So from a Taint the Meat:

 

COMICS, MOVIES

MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH, MONSTERS UNLIMITED AND MONSTER MADNESS (MARVEL COMICS)

11/07/2016 BJB

 

In the early 1960’s Marvel Comics were enjoying unprecedented success with their unique brand of relatable superhero comics. But Marvel also published non-superhero titles such as this all-but-forgotten series of humorous horror movie magazines.

Page 3 from the first issue

Published in 1964, priced at 25¢ and running to 36 pages, the concept behind Monsters to Laugh With was a simple one: take a selection of black and white stills from famous Hollywood monster movies and add humorous captions/speech balloons. And that’s it — not exactly high concept. The magazine featured stills from dozens of different films, including most of Universal’s stable of horror titles (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, etc), as well as images from various Godzilla and King Kong movies and even some science-fiction films.

Page 34 of the first issue of Monsters To Laugh with

The gags themselves were pretty basic and, in truth, not terrifically funny. Marvel’s Editor and head writer Stan Lee received the only writing credit, and even though the gags do display his corny sense of humour I suspect the captions were probably the result of a group effort by Marvel staffers. And the issue wasn’t actually published under the Marvel Comicsbanner, but was instead released by one of publisher Martin Goodman’s other companies, Non-Pariel Publishing Corp, which specialised in humorous caption titles.

 

Issue #2 of Monsters to Laugh With saw print later that same year and followed the same formula, except this time Lee received a credit on the front over.

 

Issue #3 was released in early 1965, and with this issue a caption competition was introduced so readers could supply their own gags. As well as the usual assortment of horror stills a few more sci-fi and fantasy movies made their way into the mix, such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis from 1927, This Island Earth from 1955 and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad from 1958.

 

With issue #4 the comic’s title was changed to Monsters Unlimited. Apart from that it was business as usual.

 

Issue #5 of Monsters Unlimited was released later the same year.

 

With issue #6 (1966) the caption competition was dropped…

 

…and later in 1966 so was the magazine; Monsters Unlimited was cancelled after issue #7.

But there was still life left in the concept and, in the best tradition of Hollywood monster movies, six years later it was resurrected thanks mainly to the Comics Code Authority (CCA).

In the early Seventies the CCA had come under increasing pressure to change it’s draconian rules forbidding the depiction of horror in comics. In 1971 they softened their stance a little, leading to a flood of horror-themed comics, with Marvel leading the way. One of these new titles was the relaunch of the comedy-horror-caption concept under the new title of Monster Madness.

 

Released on a quarterly schedule the first issue of Monster Madness appeared in late 1972. Priced at 60¢ it ran to 68 pages and was published by Marvel’s Curtis Magazines imprint. Lee still received cover billing (this time as Sinister Stan Lee) and the format remained the same, with two exceptions. Along with the full page black and white stills a page was added near the beginning crediting the movies used in the magazine. And to fill out the longer page count many of the stills ran over an entire two-page spread. The caption competition also returned, as did a lot of the same gags — Marvel clearly didn’t think their readers had long memories as quite a high number of the captions and stills were repeated from Monsters To Laugh With and Monsters Unlimited.

 

Issue #2 was published in early 1973 and featured stills from TV shows Lost in Space, The Munsters and The Outer Limits.

 

Issue #3 of Monster Madness saw major changes to the title’s simple format. In an attempt to give it the feel of a ‘proper’ magazine movie reviews were added (Asylum, Blackula and Dr. Phibes Rises Again), as well as articles on The Creature from The Black Lagoon movie series and writer Robert Bloch, author of Psycho. Text fiction based on Marvel’s Werewolf By Night comic also appeared as well as adverts for other Marvel horror titles. And rounding off the magazine was a letters page and the caption competition. The comedy captions still took up the bulk of the mag but they now jarred with the more serious text pieces. Clearly readers weren’t crazy about the changes and faltering sales lead to the title’s cancellation soon after.

 

But, with the tenacity of a Hollywood movie monster, the comedy caption/speech balloon format just wouldn’t die. In June of 1974 Marvel (again under it’s Curtis imprint) published the first issue of Monsters of the Movies, a clone of Forrest J. Ackerman’s long running Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Priced at $1 this new title featured text articles and comics and, for the first issue only, a selection of humorous horror movie captions. Sadly Monsters of the Movies faired little better than its predecessor and after just eight issues and an Annual it succumbed in August 1975. And this time Marvel’s horror comedy caption format would stay dead and buried.

 

So from the above article you can see Marvel’s first attempt at magazines were in a bit of a different direction than what other publishers like Warren or Eerie were attempting at the time. It would be 2 years after the last issue of Monsters Unlimited before Marvel would try again but this time going with what they knew best...superheroes and something else that was, well, completely different for them.

So next I’ll move on to 1968 with a Spider  and a Pussycat?

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2018 by N e r V

[wpbooks01]

1963 ....and it was a sequel.  A Stan Lee joint.....Martin Goodman publisher......

 

[N e r V]

Two years later in 1968 Marvel takes a swing again with their number one guy....

 

 

The Spectacular Spider-Man was initially a two-issue magazine published by Marvel in 1968,as an experiment in entering the black-and-white comic-magazine market successfully pioneered by Warren Publishing and others. It sold for 35 cents when standard comic books cost 12 cents and annuals and giants 25 cents. It represented the first Spider-Man spin-off publication aside from the original series' summer annuals, begun in 1964.

The first issue (cover-dated July 1968) featured a painted, color cover by men's adventure-magazine artist Harry Rosenbaum, in acrylic paint on illustration board, over layouts by The Amazing Spider-Man artist John Romita Sr.. The 52-page black-and-white Spider-Man story, "Lo, This Monster!", was by writer Stan Lee, penciler Romita Sr. and inker Jim Mooney. A 10-page origin story, "In The Beginning!", was by Lee, penciler Larry Lieber and inker Bill Everett.

The feature story was reprinted in color, with some small alterations and bridging material by Gerry Conway, in The Amazing Spider-Man #116–118 (Jan.–March 1973) as "Suddenly...the Smasher!", "The Deadly Designs of the Disruptor!", and "Countdown to Chaos!" (with additional inking by Tony Mortellaro on the latter two). These versions were themselves reprinted in Marvel Tales #95–97 (Sept.-Oct. 1978).

The second and final issue (Nov. 1968) sported a painted cover and the interior was in color as well. Lee, Romita and Mooney again collaborated on its single story, "The Goblin Lives!", featuring the Green Goblin. A next-issue box at the end promoted the planned contents of the unrealized issue #3, "The Mystery of the TV Terror". A version of the Goblin story, trimmed by 18 pages, was reprinted in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9 (1973), and portions of the "TV Terror" costume were reused for the costume of the Prowler.

 

 

 

I think I first saw the cover to issue #1 when I was a kid in a back issue of Silver Surfer #1 I ordered. In my opinion issue #1 is one of my favorite Spider-man covers and one of my favorite magazine covers. I picked up the Spider-man Annual #9 off the newsstands which I later found out had a redone version of issue #2’s cover. For nostalgia reasons I like the annual reprint better.

 

 

I’ll cover the Pussycat book next which also hit in 1968.

[batmiesta]

3 hours ago, N e r V said:

Two years later in 1968 Marvel takes a swing again with their number one guy....

 

 

The Spectacular Spider-Man was initially a two-issue magazine published by Marvel in 1968,as an experiment in entering the black-and-white comic-magazine market successfully pioneered by Warren Publishing and others. It sold for 35 cents when standard comic books cost 12 cents and annuals and giants 25 cents. It represented the first Spider-Man spin-off publication aside from the original series' summer annuals, begun in 1964.

The first issue (cover-dated July 1968) featured a painted, color cover by men's adventure-magazine artist Harry Rosenbaum, in acrylic paint on illustration board, over layouts by The Amazing Spider-Man artist John Romita Sr.. The 52-page black-and-white Spider-Man story, "Lo, This Monster!", was by writer Stan Lee, penciler Romita Sr. and inker Jim Mooney. A 10-page origin story, "In The Beginning!", was by Lee, penciler Larry Lieber and inker Bill Everett.

The feature story was reprinted in color, with some small alterations and bridging material by Gerry Conway, in The Amazing Spider-Man #116–118 (Jan.–March 1973) as "Suddenly...the Smasher!", "The Deadly Designs of the Disruptor!", and "Countdown to Chaos!" (with additional inking by Tony Mortellaro on the latter two). These versions were themselves reprinted in Marvel Tales #95–97 (Sept.-Oct. 1978).

The second and final issue (Nov. 1968) sported a painted cover and the interior was in color as well. Lee, Romita and Mooney again collaborated on its single story, "The Goblin Lives!", featuring the Green Goblin. A next-issue box at the end promoted the planned contents of the unrealized issue #3, "The Mystery of the TV Terror". A version of the Goblin story, trimmed by 18 pages, was reprinted in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9 (1973), and portions of the "TV Terror" costume were reused for the costume of the Prowler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I first saw the cover to issue #1 when I was a kid in a back issue of Silver Surfer #1 I ordered. In my opinion issue #1 is one of my favorite Spider-man covers and one of my favorite magazine covers. I picked up the Spider-man Annual #9 off the newsstands which I later found out had a redone version of issue #2’s cover. For nostalgia reasons I like the annual reprint better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll cover the Pussycat book next which also hit in 1968.

What is this book? Never seen it before..... and now, of course, I want one. 

This cover was also used for the UK Spider-man annual from 1978, I can't access Photobucket for some reason or I would show it, will try from home tomorrow. 

[DeadOne]

10 minutes ago, batmiesta said:

What is this book? Never seen it before..... and now, of course, I want one. 

This cover was also used for the UK Spider-man annual from 1978, I can't access Photobucket for some reason or I would show it, will try from home tomorrow. 

Were those UK Annuals hardcovers?

[batmiesta]

1 hour ago, DeadOne said:

Were those UK Annuals hardcovers?

Yeah! 

[N e r V]

4 hours ago, batmiesta said:

What is this book? Never seen it before..... and now, of course, I want one. 

This cover was also used for the UK Spider-man annual from 1978, I can't access Photobucket for some reason or I would show it, will try from home tomorrow. 

That’s a color guide.

Here’s the back of it.

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by N e r V

[batmiesta]

Oh! Still a very cool item. 

[Randall Dowling]

This is a fun thread!  Great stuff, N er v!!  

[N e r V]

55 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

This is a fun thread!  Great stuff, N er v!!  

Thanks. I wanted to kind of map out what Marvel magazines I have or need to reacquire and thought why not do a thread on Marvel mags and kill 2 birds with 1 stone. I didn’t see any other Marvel mag threads either so here we are. Also if I’m in error or miss something I’ll look forward to boardies correcting any mistakes.

[N e r V]

Before I move on to the Pussycat mag I thought I’d list a little bit more info. on the 2 1968 Spider-man magazines on what might have the start of a magazine line for them earlier if not for Martin Goodman. He would prove to be a problem again in 1971 too with the first Savage Tales magazine. 

First though a little history on what was going on at Marvel comics in 1968’s “expansion year” from Mark Evanier:

 

What happened was that in late '67, Goodman finally won a major point in his ongoing battle with Independent. He wanted to publish more comics than they'd allow him to put out, and he wanted to do things like ghost comics and love comics, which they were then denying him. Finally, he said to them, in effect, "Look…my contract with you is expiring in March of 1969. At that point, you're either going to let me publish what I want or I'm going to find a distributor who will. You and I are both trying to sell our companies so we have a mutual interest in inflating our grosses. Let me expand now and it will give both companies a big boost." Jack Liebowitz, who ran DC and Independent, had previously been worried about allowing Goodman to flood the newsstands with product, fearing it would harm the market and harm DC. But he was then angling to sell DC and Independent to a company called Kinney National Services, and he saw the wisdom of even a temporary jolt to the distributor's fortunes. He also knew that Goodman wasn't bluffing; that he could find a distributor who would let him publish without restriction. Liebowitz wanted to keep Marvel under the Independent umbrella if that was at all possible, so they negotiated a new arrangement. It didn't lift all restrictions right away but it did allow him considerable expansion room, which he used to begin adding more titles.

The decision probably helped both companies. Grosses were up when Liebowitz concluded the deal to sell to Kinney. Goodman soon sold Marvel to an outfit called Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation. The only snag for DC was that since Perfect Film owned a magazine distributor, Marvel moved there when their old distribution contract expired.

 

Concerning that first issue of Spectacular Spider-man from Marvel Comics Chronology:

 

This is Marvel Comics' first foray into the magazine format. It wasn't something that publisher Martin Goodman was particularly behind, but it was part of Stan Lee's outreach to older readers.

From John Romita Sr.'s introduction to Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man vol. 7:

1968 also brought Stan and me a completely new opportunity, the chance to launch a black-and-white magazine with Spider-Man stories for older readers, a sort of film noir on paper with longer stories and more subtle character relationships. We envisioned a somewhat photographic arty style with halftones and deep shadows that were just right for Spider-Man... we were aware it was going to be a challenge and a gamble, but we were excited and raring to go. Looking back, I wish we'd had more time to develop the tone technique, but having a full schedule of comics to put out on a monthly basis limited us. Since we didn't want to wait too long, we put in the extra hours and struck while the iron was hot. With pride, I think we turned out an impressive, groundbreaking first issue. You can judge for yourself.

I'll quote more from the Masterworks intro on the entry to issue #2, explaining why the series went full color for the second issue and why that wound up being the final issue of this experiment. In the part i have quoted here, it seems like there was some immediate opportunity they were taking advantage of ("didn't want to wait too long", "iron was hot") but i don't know what that may have been.

The fact that Spider-Man was the character of choice demonstrates the popularity of the character and, since the target was older readers, it was a good choice since the cast of supporting characters allowed for more human soap opera themes than most super-hero books. This first issue's story is also i guess an attempt at a more adult theme in the sense that it deals - superficially - with politics.

A Richard Raleigh is running for mayor of New York.

 

 

Finally despite an ad below for issue #3 Goodman put a stake in the format despite positive sales pushing Marvel’s full venture into magazines away for a few more years still. A little what if had they continued on with magazine publishing in 1968...

 

T

There's still really nothing here that wasn't already being offered in the regular comic book at this point though. It seems that Stan Lee didn't feel that anything more needed to be added (or subtracted, e.g. this issue plays directly into regular ASM continuity) to reach the older audience he was targeting with this magazine; the format itself seemed to be the key. Stan was probably also hoping fans of the comic would follow the magazine; after all, this issue concludes a running subplot from that book. Nonetheless, this was the final issue of the short lived series.

In John Romita Sr.'s introduction to the Marvel Masterworks trade reprinting these Spectacular issues, after describing how Marvel came to work on the black & white magazine format (which i quoted in the previous entry of this series), it says:

Martin Goodman, our publisher, however, felt that we should stick to what we did best and decided the second Spectacular would be in full color. This solved my halftone problem, but disappointed as we were, we put out a great second issue that brought the Green Goblin back in the culmination of a long-running subplot.

Unfortunately, Mr. Goodman really disappointed us when he cancelled the magazine after #2, claiming it was too difficult to distribute and chose to stay with our regular comics. This set up a voice we could never fill. An ad at the end of #2 showed readers that "The TV Terror" was the next issue planned, but since it was never completed, requests from fans steadily trickled in asking to see that story; though we tried twice in the following decade, sadly, it was never done.

The saddest thing of all was that when the sales figures came in, the magazine had sold extremely well, but Mr. Goodman could not be convinced to resume publishing the title. We can only guess what we missed. The bright side is that you can still enjoy these two rare issues here.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by N e r V

[FoggyNelson]

Excellent readin , nice thread?‼️

[N e r V]

Easily one of Marvel’s more interesting publishing ventures was the Pussycat one-shot in 1968. Because of the Everett art and others in it I know a few collectors that have spent years collecting and mapping the series of cartoons that Goodman published (the mag is only a sample of them). I’ll let the wiki entry educate anyone not in the know.

 

The Adventures of Pussycat was a one-shot comics magazine that reprinted the risqué, black-and-white feature "Pussycat" that ran throughout various men's adventure magazines published by Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company in the 1960s. The feature's creative staff came largely from Magazine Management's sister company, Marvel Comics.

The Adventures of Pussycat
The Adventures of Pussycat one-shot Cover art by Bill Everett
Publication information
Publisher	Magazine Management Company
Genre	Ribaldry
Publication date	October 1968
No. of issues	1
Main character(s)	Pussycat
Creative team
Written by	Stan Lee Larry Lieber Ernie Hart
Artist(s)	Wally Wood Bill Ward Jim Mooney Al Hartley

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

 

 

Publication history

Men's magazine feature

A bawdy but non-pornographic, tongue-in-cheek secret agent comics feature, "Pussycat" was launched following the success of Harvey Kurtzmanand Will Elder's color comics feature "Little Annie Fanny", published in Playboy magazine from 1962 to the 1980s.  Long-established comic-book artist Wally Wood — whose own similar 1968-1974 Sally Forth would run in armed services publications — created the 1965 premiere, in which Pussycat, a secretary for S.C.O.R.E. (Secret Council of Ruthless Extroverts) is recruited to fight the agency's archenemsis, L.U.S.T.  Artist Jim Mooneyretouched over Wood's work for the reprint in the 1968 stand-alone issue.

The feature premiered in Male Annual #3 (1965), and ran in at least Male Annual #4-5 (1966–1967), Stag Annual #3 (1966), and in issues of Men and Stag.

As Mooney recalled in 2000, "n the early '70s, I did work for Goodman's men's magazines, a strip called 'Pussycat'. Stan [Lee] wrote the first one I did, and then his brother Larry [Lieber] wrote the ones that came later".

The later strips abandoned this "ditzy spy" format and turned her into a savvy investigative reporter, who continually managed to find herself in situations where her clothes were torn off, voluntarily removed, or otherwise caused to "be elsewhere" by various events and situations. Usually, this was played to her advantage, as she used the distractions to stop the nefarious plots of the bad guys and get her story.

Other talent from Goodman's Marvel Comics who contributed to the Pussycat series include writer Ernie Hart, and artists Al Hartley and Bill Everett. Contributing separately was the notable "good girl art" cartoonist Bill Ward.

 

 

Comics magazine

Eight five-page episodes were collected in a one-shot, black-and-white comics magazine cover-dated October 1968, and titled The Adventures of Pussycat on its trademarked cover logo and simply Pussycat in the copyright information in its postal indicia. The cover price of 35 cents  matched that of the same publisher's black-and-white Marvel Comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, released the same year but with an original, newly published story.

The one-shot has no ads except a back-cover advertisement for Jade East cologne. It also contains an unclothed but non-nude centerfold. In addition to seven reprinted stories, the comic included an original five-page Pussycat tale, "The Hidden Hippie Caper", by writer Larry Lieber and artist Jim Mooney. 

Larry Graber is credited as the comic book's art director, and Lew Holloway as associate art director. 

 

 

 

This is probably NOT a character you will ever see in the MCU today but it is a nice oddity with some great art and if you’re a fan of the Harvey Kurtzman work at Playboy you can see the collectibility of it today.

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by N e r V

[N e r V]

 

[batmiesta]

Sorry for butting in, here is the Spider-man UK annual from 1976 (not 1978 ) that has a rendition of the Spidey mag #1 cover.

[tv horror]

19 hours ago, N e r V said:

Before I move on to the Pussycat mag I thought I’d list a little bit more info. on the 2 1968 Spider-man magazines on what might have the start of a magazine line for them earlier if not for Martin Goodman. He would prove to be a problem again in 1971 too with the first Savage Tales magazine. 

First though a little history on what was going on at Marvel comics in 1968’s “expansion year” from Mark Evanier:

 

What happened was that in late '67, Goodman finally won a major point in his ongoing battle with Independent. He wanted to publish more comics than they'd allow him to put out, and he wanted to do things like ghost comics and love comics, which they were then denying him. Finally, he said to them, in effect, "Look…my contract with you is expiring in March of 1969. At that point, you're either going to let me publish what I want or I'm going to find a distributor who will. You and I are both trying to sell our companies so we have a mutual interest in inflating our grosses. Let me expand now and it will give both companies a big boost." Jack Liebowitz, who ran DC and Independent, had previously been worried about allowing Goodman to flood the newsstands with product, fearing it would harm the market and harm DC. But he was then angling to sell DC and Independent to a company called Kinney National Services, and he saw the wisdom of even a temporary jolt to the distributor's fortunes. He also knew that Goodman wasn't bluffing; that he could find a distributor who would let him publish without restriction. Liebowitz wanted to keep Marvel under the Independent umbrella if that was at all possible, so they negotiated a new arrangement. It didn't lift all restrictions right away but it did allow him considerable expansion room, which he used to begin adding more titles.

The decision probably helped both companies. Grosses were up when Liebowitz concluded the deal to sell to Kinney. Goodman soon sold Marvel to an outfit called Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation. The only snag for DC was that since Perfect Film owned a magazine distributor, Marvel moved there when their old distribution contract expired.

 

Concerning that first issue of Spectacular Spider-man from Marvel Comics Chronology:

 

This is Marvel Comics' first foray into the magazine format. It wasn't something that publisher Martin Goodman was particularly behind, but it was part of Stan Lee's outreach to older readers.

From John Romita Sr.'s introduction to Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man vol. 7:

1968 also brought Stan and me a completely new opportunity, the chance to launch a black-and-white magazine with Spider-Man stories for older readers, a sort of film noir on paper with longer stories and more subtle character relationships. We envisioned a somewhat photographic arty style with halftones and deep shadows that were just right for Spider-Man... we were aware it was going to be a challenge and a gamble, but we were excited and raring to go. Looking back, I wish we'd had more time to develop the tone technique, but having a full schedule of comics to put out on a monthly basis limited us. Since we didn't want to wait too long, we put in the extra hours and struck while the iron was hot. With pride, I think we turned out an impressive, groundbreaking first issue. You can judge for yourself.

I'll quote more from the Masterworks intro on the entry to issue #2, explaining why the series went full color for the second issue and why that wound up being the final issue of this experiment. In the part i have quoted here, it seems like there was some immediate opportunity they were taking advantage of ("didn't want to wait too long", "iron was hot") but i don't know what that may have been.

The fact that Spider-Man was the character of choice demonstrates the popularity of the character and, since the target was older readers, it was a good choice since the cast of supporting characters allowed for more human soap opera themes than most super-hero books. This first issue's story is also i guess an attempt at a more adult theme in the sense that it deals - superficially - with politics.

A Richard Raleigh is running for mayor of New York.

 

 

Finally despite an ad below for issue #3 Goodman put a stake in the format despite positive sales pushing Marvel’s full venture into magazines away for a few more years still. A little what if had they continued on with magazine publishing in 1968...

 

T

There's still really nothing here that wasn't already being offered in the regular comic book at this point though. It seems that Stan Lee didn't feel that anything more needed to be added (or subtracted, e.g. this issue plays directly into regular ASM continuity) to reach the older audience he was targeting with this magazine; the format itself seemed to be the key. Stan was probably also hoping fans of the comic would follow the magazine; after all, this issue concludes a running subplot from that book. Nonetheless, this was the final issue of the short lived series.

In John Romita Sr.'s introduction to the Marvel Masterworks trade reprinting these Spectacular issues, after describing how Marvel came to work on the black & white magazine format (which i quoted in the previous entry of this series), it says:

Martin Goodman, our publisher, however, felt that we should stick to what we did best and decided the second Spectacular would be in full color. This solved my halftone problem, but disappointed as we were, we put out a great second issue that brought the Green Goblin back in the culmination of a long-running subplot.

Unfortunately, Mr. Goodman really disappointed us when he cancelled the magazine after #2, claiming it was too difficult to distribute and chose to stay with our regular comics. This set up a voice we could never fill. An ad at the end of #2 showed readers that "The TV Terror" was the next issue planned, but since it was never completed, requests from fans steadily trickled in asking to see that story; though we tried twice in the following decade, sadly, it was never done.

The saddest thing of all was that when the sales figures came in, the magazine had sold extremely well, but Mr. Goodman could not be convinced to resume publishing the title. We can only guess what we missed. The bright side is that you can still enjoy these two rare issues here.

 

 

That's no mystery that's my brother! I'm Horror and he's a little Terror. Great thread Nerv looking forward to the horror series of magazines.

[oakman29]

Very. Cool Nerv.

[wpbooks01]

Since Marvel only gave us a small taste of Pussycat and left some of us wanting more, with the help of a few others I was able to track down all 66 episodes of her adventures. Then I took it upon myself to remedy one of history's great wrongs and create not only a hardcover collection of said tales, but a TPB I can take on the road when needed! Someday Marvel will come to their senses and make my girl legit, but until then, this works just fine! Viva Pussycat!!! (sorry for the crappy webcam pix.......you work with what you got!)

Edited June 24, 2018 by wpbooks01

[N e r V]

As we inch closer to Marvel actually starting and sustaining a magazine line we skip ahead slightly more than 2 years to January 1971. Savage Tales #1 was packed with features and sported a nice Romita cover of Conan which itself was a new publication with Marvel being only on issue #4 at the time. The Frost Giants Daughter would see publication later in colour and censored in Conan #16 in case you missed this mag on the stands in 71’. As you’ll see below this would prove the last time Martin Goodman could step in and put a monkey wrench in Stan’s idea for a magazine line. It’s also important to note that although they had done some horror comics the last couple of years and they were now publishing regular “monster” titles they had yet to introduce the Marvel “horror series” the 1970’s became famous for like Tomb of Dracula or Werewolf by night. Even Morbius was still about 6 months away from an introduction in Spider-Man.

From Wiki again some history on the series.

 

 

 

 

Publication history

Marvel

The first of the two volumes of Savage Tales ran 11 issues, with a nearly 2¹⁄₂-year hiatus after the premiere issue (May 1971, then Oct. 1973 - July 1975). It marked Marvel's second attempt at entering the comics-magazine field dominated by Warren Publishing (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella), following the two-issue superhero entry The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1968. Starring in the first issue were:

• Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery pulp-fiction character Conan the Barbarian, adapted by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith (as Barry Smith)
• the futuristic, Amazon-like Femizons, by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist John Romita
• the first-ever appearance of the swamp creature Man-Thing, plotted by Lee and Thomas, scripted by Gerry Conway and drawn by Gray Morrow
• the African-American inner-city defender Joshua, in the feature "Black Brother" by Dennis O'Neil(under the pseudonym Sergius O'Shaughnessy) and penciler Gene Colan
• the jungle lord Ka-Zar, by Lee and artist John Buscema.

Thomas, who would shortly thereafter become Marvel editor-in-chief, recalled in 2008 that

...there were several things that led to Savage Tales being cancelled after that first issue. [Publisher] Martin Goodman had never really wanted to do a non-[Comics] Code comic [i.e., not bearing the Comics Code Authority's parental seal of approval, essentially required on mainstream color comics of the time], probably because he didn't want any trouble with the (code administrator , the comics magazine association of America )

 over it. Nor did he really want to get into magazine-format comics; and [Marvel editor-in-chief] Stan [Lee] really did. So Goodman looked for an excuse to cancel it.
			

			

When the magazine eventually began publishing again years later (after Goodman had left the company) in the wake of a Conan-inspired sword-and-sorcery trend in comics, it starred the likes of Conan; fellow Robert E. Howard hero Kull of Atlantis; and John Jakes' barbarian creation, Brak. As of issue #6, the magazine cover-featured Ka-Zar.

The series featured painted covers by comics artists including John Buscema (#1-2), Pablo Marcos & John Romita (#3), Neal Adams (#4-6), Boris Vallejo (#7, #10), and Michael Kaluta (#9). A 1975 annual, consisting entirely of reprints, mostly from Ka-Zar's color-comics series, sported a new cover by Ken Barr.

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2018 by N e r V

[N e r V]

Besides the above features Savage Tales #1 also introduced the first of two characters spun out of the Golden Age Heap series by both Marvel and later DC.

 

Publication history

As described in the text featurette "The Story Behind the Scenes" in Savage Tales #1 (cover-dated May 1971), the black-and-white adventure fantasy magazine in which the character debuted in an 11-page origin story, Man-Thing was conceived in discussions between Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee and writer Roy Thomas, and that together they created five possible origins. Lee provided the name, which had previously been used for unrelated creatures in Marvel's early science-fiction/fantasy anthology Tales of Suspense #7 (Jan. 1960) and #81 (Sept. 1966), as well as the concept of the man losing sentience.

As Thomas recalled in 2002:

 

Stan Lee called me in; it would've been late '70 or early '71. [...] He had a couple of sentences or so for the concept — I think it was mainly the notion of a guy working on some experimental drug or something for the government, his being accosted by spies, and getting fused with the swamp so that he becomes this creature. The creature itself sounds a lot like the Heap, but neither of us mentioned that character at the time.... I didn't care much for the name 'Man-Thing', because we already had the Thing [of the superhero team the Fantastic Four], and I thought it would be confusing to also have another one called Man-Thing.

 

 

 

Thomas worked out a detailed plot and gave it to Gerry Conway to -script. Thomas and Conway are credited as writers, with Gray Morrow as artist. A second story, written by Len Wein and drawn by Neal Adams, was prepared at that time, but, upon Savage Tales' cancellation after that single issue, "took a year or two to see print", according to Thomas. That occurred in Astonishing Tales #12 (June 1972), in which the seven-page story was integrated in its entirety within the 21-page feature "Ka-Zar", starring Marvel's jungle-lord hero. This black-and-white interlude (with yellow highlighting) segued to Man-Thing's introduction to color comics as Ka-Zar's antagonist-turned-ally in this and the following issue (both written by Thomas, with the first penciled by John Buscema and the second by Buscema and Rich Buckler).

The Wein-written Man-Thing story appeared in between Wein's first  and second version of his DC Comics character Swamp Thing. Wein was Conway's roommate at the time, and as Thomas recalled in 2008,

 

Gerry and I thought that, unconsciously, the origin in Swamp Thing #1 was a bit too similar to the origin of Man-Thing a year-and-a-half earlier. There was vague talk at the time around Marvel of legal action, but it was never really pursued. I don't know if any letters even changed hands between Marvel and DC. [...] We weren't happy with the situation over the Swamp Thing #1 origin, but we figured it was an accident. Gerry was rooming with Len at the time and tried to talk him into changing the Swamp Thing's origin. Len didn't see the similarities, so he went ahead with what he was going to do. The two characters verged off after that origin, so it didn't make much difference, anyway.

From Marvel Chronology:

Marvel claims (see the response on the lettercol to Man-Thing #3) that the Man-Thing was intended as a continuing feature from the start, and i guess that's borne out by the fact that the title of the issue is "The origin of...". But there's nothing in this story that suggests that it takes place in the Marvel Universe, as opposed to just a generic monster story, ongoing or otherwise. But the Man-Thing's second appearance will integrate him very firmly into the MU, even revealing that Ellen Brandt was an agent of AIM.

The Essential Man-Thing reprint only includes the Man-Thing story from this issue, but i did also cover the Femizon story on my main blog. The magazine also included a Conan story adapted from Robert E. Howard's "The Frost Giant's Daughter", a Ka-Zar story (which will be re-purposed for Astonishing Tales #14), and a story called Black Brother written by Denny O'Neil under the amazing pseudonym "Sergius O'Shaughnessy", which (the pseudonym, not the story) was apparently taken from Norman Mailer's novel "Deer Park".