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SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL • Bruce Jones’ & Brent Anderson’s KA-ZAR • Larry Hama’s BARBARIANSPlus: BEOWULF • CLAW • CONAN • KORG • RED SONJA • and RIMA, THE JUNGLE GIRL

“ B O R N T O B E W I L D ” I S S U E !

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Volume 1,Number 43September 2010

Celebratingthe BestComics ofthe '70s,'80s, and Beyond!

EDITORMichael Eury

PUBLISHERJohn Morrow

DESIGNERRich J. Fowlks

COVER ARTISTFrank Cho

COVER COLORISTGlenn Whitmore

COVER DESIGNERMichael Kronenberg

PROOFREADERSJohn Morrowand Eric Nolen-Weathington

SPECIAL THANKSJim AmashBrent Eric AndersonMike AragonaMark ArnoldRichard ArndtMichael AushenkerBrian AzzarelloJason Motes BowlesJerry BoydRoyd BurgoyneJarrod ButteryJohn ByrneApril Campbell-JonesPete CarlssonDewey CassellErnie ChanGerry ConwayHoward Leroy DavisDC ComicsMark DiFruscioChuck DixonDanny FingerothAngela FowlksRon FrantzMike FriedrichPeter B. GillisGrand Comic-Book

DatabasePaul GulacyLarry HamaHeritage Comics

AuctionsBryan HitchIndiana University

BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive,Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/oMichael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: [email protected] subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please sendsubscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Frank Cho.Shanna the She-Devil TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © theirrespective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter© 2010 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing.ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. A

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

FLASHBACK: Shanna: And a Jungle Queen is Born! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Shanna creator Carole Seuling is joined by a host of Marvel superstars in this look back at ourcover star’s past

ART GALLERY: Shanna the She-Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Pinups and sketches by Byrne, Hitch, Lopresti, Noto, Pearson, Renaud, Roux, and Chris Stevens

PRO2PRO: Bruce Jones and Brent Anderson’s Ka-Zar the Savage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Revisit this 1980s fan-favorite series with its writer and artist

OFF MY CHEST: Was Conan a Racist? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29A guest editorial by Grailpages author Steven Alan Payne

FLASHBACK: Rima, the Jungle Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31From novel to radio to comics to Super Friends cartoons, Rima is no Tarzan clone

BEYOND CAPES: Red Sonja: Feminist Icon or Woman Warrior? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith reflect upon this Conan spin-off’s popularity; with bonusFrank Thorne art

FLASHBACK: Korg: 70,000 B.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47Pat Boyette’s artwork made this little-known Hanna-Barbera TV comic a must-read

FLASHBACK: The Chronicles of Claw the Unconquered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51Featuring all-new interviews with co-creators David Michelinie and Ernie Chan

BEYOND CAPES: Beowulf’s Short, Strange Trip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61Media mogul Michael Uslan remembers his “Wyrdest Barbarian” series

BACKSTAGE PASS: (Red) Sonja Con . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69Did you attend this 1976 Sonja-spotlighting event?

INTERVIEW: Larry Hama: The Barbarian Go-To Guy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71The comics jack-of-all-trades spills his guts on his wild and wonderful career

BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77Reader feedback on “Cat People” issue #40 and more

Bruce JonesGerard JonesJoe KubertMichael LopezAaron LoprestiAndy MangelsDoc MagnusDon MangusJim MannerMarvel ComicsDavid MichelinieAl MilgromBrian K. MorrisNightscreamPhil NotoSteven Alan PayneJason PearsonPaul RenaudStephane RouxRose Rummel-EuryAlex SeguraCarole SeulingJim ShooterGail SimoneLouise SimonsonAnthony SnyderChris StevensAaron SultanRoy ThomasMichael UslanJohn WellsGary WhitsonBarry Windsor-SmithBill Wray

The Retro Comics Experience!

B o r n t o b e W i l d I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1

Wow. Just look at that cover. That may well be the reason you pickedup this magazine, so it’s worth taking another look. Just put yourthumb on this page and come back; go on—we’ll still be here.Pretty cool, huh? Frank Cho does indeed draw beautiful women andhe definitely seems to have a soft spot for the jungle-girl genre.But, wait … sorry, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

THE COMING OF SHANNAIn his introductions to his 1977 book, The Superhero Women, Stan Leewrote, “Towards the end of 1972, I was really determined tofeature as many females as possible in our Marvel roster ofheadliners.” This is discussed in more detail when Roy Thomas

interviewed Lee in issue #2 of Comic Book Artist (Summer 1998).Thomas asked, “I’ve heard that there was a great dropoff in femalereaders in the early ’70s. We came up with three strips for whichyou made up the names and concepts: Shanna the She-Devil,Night Nurse, and The Claws of the Cat. Were we trying to woo thefemale readers back?” “Yes,” confirmed Lee, “and also to appeal tothe male readers who liked looking at pretty girls.” Neither couldremember whose idea it was but female writers were asked toscript each book.

Thomas asked Carole Seuling to write Shanna the She-Devil.The delightful Ms. Seuling was only too happy to answer somequestions about her creation (and spill a few secrets about the

B o r n t o b e W i l d I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 3

Oh, Man, uh …it’s ShannaMarvel’s She-Devil without asword, as remarkably renderedby Michael Lopez. From thecollection of Royd Burgoyne.© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by J a r r o d B u t t e r y

TM

4 • B A C K I S S U E • B o r n t o b e W i l d I s s u e

esteemed editor of our sister publication Alter Ego).“Roy was the one who asked me to write Shanna,”Seuling recalls. “I had done a few articles forfanzines earlier, though not his. I knewRoy from the time he arrived in NewYork because he had been buyingfrom and corresponding with myex-husband, Phil Seuling, and heactually spent his first few nights inNew York City sleeping on the floorof Phil’s office. My instructions wereto make [Shanna] someone whowould fit in with the times and alsowas a little more prone to violencethan Sheena or the other junglequeens of the past.”

Indeed, Shanna O’Hara, fromthe outset, was a strong, modernwoman. Issue #1 (Dec. 1972) establishes our heroine,in the African jungle flanked by her two loyal leopards,thwarting poachers. A flashback fills in Shanna’s

details: Dr Shanna O’Hara was a veterinarian, ecologist,and environmental specialist for the Manhattan

Municipal Zoo. In peak physical condition,Shanna had turned down a place on the

US Olympic Gymnastics Team to workwith and study the great cats.Awakened by a phone call one horrible,life-altering evening, she rushes toher workplace to find all her chargesshot in their habitats by a sniper.No one had since dared enter theAfrican Plains exhibit—“A wounded

lion or leopard is a killer!” Desperateto determine if any of the animalsunder her care had survived,Shanna leaps into the enclosurewithout hesitation. Miraculously,Julani, the leopard Shanna had reared

from a cub, staggers wounded from the bushes.Recognizing her adored foster mother, Julani movesforward and licks Shanna’s hand. However, in adevastating miscalculation, a zoo guard, fearing forShanna’s safety, shoots Julani, killing her instantly.

“I invented her backstory, and the environmentalangle came from my living just a few blocks fromthe New York City Aquarium, where some of theanimals died from being fed trash by visitors,”Seuling describes. “The year before Shanna came out,there had been a zoo massacre, though not in NewYork as far as I remember. The idea of pushingenvironmentalism in a comic was all mine, though Marvelhas never been anti-environment and has come toespouse some pretty liberal causes, in a way.”

The tragedy echoes Shanna’s childhood.Growing up in Africa, Shanna remembers how herfather, panicked by the thought of a stalkingleopard, fired wildly into the bushes. Shanna triedto stop him but was too late—her own mother wasshot and killed. After the zoo massacre, Shanna roils,“My mother dead … my father hiding somewherein Africa, seeking strength from a whiskey bottle …and now, even my work…. The cats … the leopards,the only creatures with whom I could find oneness… murdered without a thought! All of them dead… save two….”

There is a ray of optimism amidst the tragedy:Julani’s new cubs had been in the zoo’s hospital duringthe shootings. On her way home Shanna is threatenedby a mugger—whom she overpowers easily—but whoreinforces her deteriorating view of our so-calledcivilization. Propitiously, the next day, the zoo directorproposes that Shanna return the cubs to the wild.

A delighted Shanna travels to Dahomey (now theAfrican country Benin) with Julani’s cubs, Ina and Biri.The story reveals: “And Shanna, wearing Julani’s peltfor sight-scent recognition with the cubs, came torealize she was like these creatures: Swift, strong!She found herself becoming a jungle creature, a leopardwoman … Shanna the She-Devil!”

Seuling muses, “The leopards had Yoruba names,Ina meaning ‘bright’ and Biri meaning ‘black.’ I namedmy cats after them. More than one veterinarian wasa bit puzzled.”

The first issue hits all the marks, convincinglyexplaining how and why a red-headed Caucasianwoman is running around Africa in a leopard-skinswimsuit, and introducing two of the most unique andvisually spectacular supporting characters in comics ofthe time. Also introduced was Game Warden (and

Cool for CatsShanna and her furry

companions makethe scene in Shanna

the She-Devil #1(Dec. 1972), featuringthis senses-staggering

Steranko cover!© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

carole seuling

1 0 • B A C K I S S U E • B o r n t o b e W i l d I s s u e

You’re guaranteed to go ape over this sizzling selectionof pinups of our cover star by some of comics’ finestartists. All images hail from the collection of RoydBurgoyne, to whom we extend our deepest gratitude.

Shanna TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

TM

B o r n t o b e W i l d I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1 1

Although Ka-Zar, a pulp character very much in thevein of Tarzan, was introduced in Marvel Comics #1(Oct. 1939), the version fans are most familiar with is thatof Lord Kevin Plunder, introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirbyin The Uncanny X-Men #10 (Mar. 1965), whose “SavageLand”—hidden beneath Antarctica—had the extra dangerof being a prehistoric jungle, complete with dinosaurs.

Astonishing Tales (Aug. 1970–Oct. 1973) hadadventures in both the Savage Land and New YorkCity, with Ka-Zar battling villains from mad gods toKraven the Hunter to A.I.M. Ka-Zar the city-swinginghero, super soldier, or secret agent did not reallywork. Even for a fan like me, it was a little difficultto suspend disbelief long enough to accept a jungleman alongside S.H.I.E.L.D. fighting A.I.M.

Ka-Zar [Lord of the Hidden Jungle] (Jan. 1974–Feb. 1977) picked up where Astonishing left off by bringingKa-Zar back to the Savage Land and adding to the castShanna the She-Devil. At first, Ka-Zar seemed to be more ofthe primitive “Me, Ka-Zar!” mindset, but when GerryConway picked up the writing chores with #6 (Nov. 1974),a much more intelligent Ka-Zar emerged. Unfortunately,many of the stories felt like they were written for Conan andbased on tales from the Bible. Writer Doug Moench took overwith #11 (Oct. 1975) and brought everyone to the brink ofwar with invaders from another dimension. The series endedbefore the storyline did, and scribe Chris Claremont wrappedit up in Uncanny X-Men #115–116 (Nov.–Dec. 1978).

It wasn’t until writer Bruce Jones and illustratorBrent Anderson kicked off Ka-Zar the Savage (Apr. 1981)that the true potential of the character began to shine.After three years of silence, readers were introduced toa new, more “mature” Ka-Zar. Brooding, introspective,at times a little defeatist, this was definitely a characterreborn. He now had a depth heretofore unseen and the fansloved it! Ka-Zar the Savage #1 ends with an incredible bangas Ka-Zar comes face to face with the “rules” of a civilizationwhere he won’t ever fit in, and he realizes it’s best to live“savagely” and be true to yourself than to live in a worldof rules and conformity that only ends up strangling you.The series seemed to be more about sharing an insight,or growing a character, than simply “telling a story.”There was a social commentary or a reflection/contemplationof life going on in between the panels of those magical pages.

In an attempt to learn a bit more about how thisseries came to be, I spent some time chatting with Bruceand Brent, the men who created so much of the SavageLand’s rich history. With the use of modern technology,we stepped through the mists of time and rediscoveredthe prehistoric world of Lord Kevin Plunder.

– Mike Aragona


Life in the Savage LandPlate No. 1 from artist Brent Anderson’s astounding

1982 Ka-Zar Portfolio (and don’t overlook Zabuin the upper right of the image). Courtesy of

Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by M i k e A r a g o n a

TM

Beginnings:Battlestar Galactica #21 (Nov. 1980)

Milestones:The X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills / Ka-Zar /Somerset Holmes / Strikeforce: Morituri / Astro City

Works in Progress:Astro City: The Dark Age / Astro City: The Silver Agent

Cyberspace:www.brentandersonart.com

Caricature by Brent Anderson.

brent ericanderson

Beginnings:Web of Horror #3 (Apr. 1970) for Major Magazines, writing anddrawing the six-page story “Point Of View”

Milestones:Ka-Zar / Creepy / Eerie / Conan / Red Sonja / Silverheels /Pathways to Fantasy / Twisted Tales / Alien Worlds /Somerset Holmes / Rip in Time / Freakshow / The Incredible Hulk

Work in Progress:Major announcement coming soon about a project that willmake fans of the old Pacific Comics happy!

Cyberspace:www.myspace.com/brucejoneswriter

Photo courtesy of Bruce Jones.

brucejones

MIKE ARAGONA: Thanks again for agreeing to do this!I’ve been looking forward to chatting with the both ofyou from the day I had that first issue in my hands.BRENT ERIC ANDERSON: Wasn’t that during the lastmillennium? Hey, Bruce, do you remember anythingabout this “Ka-Zar” thing Mike is referring to??BRUCE JONES: I don’t remember anybody namedKa-Zar, but I just got a comp issue from Marvel calledFavorite Pet Tricks or something like that whichincludes two stories about some beast called Zabu.Ring a bell?ANDERSON: Zabu? Zabu? I remember a Z-bu,but I think we had to change the pronunciation ofhis name. Could that be the Zabu to whom youare referring?JONES: Not sure—this one has a major incisor problem.ANDERSON: Fangs a lot! [laughter]ARAGONA: I understand this was a while ago,but I’d like to know more about that historicalmoment in time.

Bruce, how did this series come to be yours?Brent, Ka-Zar was your first regular series. How didthat come about? Did you feel any kind of pressure?ANDERSON: In 1979, the same year I returned toNew York City to break into the comics industry thesecond time, Louise Jones [later Simonson] was a neweditor up at Marvel. She had come from WarrenPublishing (Creepy, Eerie, etc.) and the resurrection ofKa-Zar as a monthly title was one of her first editorialassignments. This was to protect the Ka-Zar trademarksince it had been a number of years since the characterhad been published under its own title. I believe,and someone correct me if I’m wrong, the originalcreative team was to have been Bill Mantlo [writer]and John Buscema [artist]. Weezie had brought BruceJones with her from Warren and ultimately offered thetitle to him. I don’t know when my name came upto replace Buscema. Bruce, do you know? Anyway,the deadlines inherent of a monthly series did concernme at the time, yes.JONES: No, you were already on board, Brent,when Weezie offered me the job. Thank God.ANDERSON: No, thank Bruce!ARAGONA: Can you clarify something for me? I knowLouise “Weezie” Jones was born Mary Louise Alexanderand is now Louise Simonson after her marriage to WaltSimonson. Wikipedia states that she was known asLouise Jones after her marriage to Jeff Jones. Any relation?JONES: No relation to me except for being goodfriends. Jeff was the first artist of our little group I metwhen I first moved to New York, followed by BernieWrightson and Michael Kaluta. We all sort of hungaround together at Jeff and Weezie’s apartment.ARAGONA: Thanks. Did the two of you (Bruce andBrent) know each other prior to the series?ANDERSON: I knew of Bruce’s work, of course,having enjoyed his writing and artwork during mydevelopmental years (I was 16 and Bruce was, uh …17), but I didn’t actually meet him face to face untilhe came to New York to meet me around ourcollaboration on Ka-Zar.ARAGONA: Bruce, anything else you can add about theassignment? How did it come to be assigned to you?JONES: As Brent said, Weezie sort of brought mealong with her from the Warren books. It was awake-up call, like going from almost total creativefreedom and control to the … uh, Marvel way. Never didfigure out what that was. I think Brent carried thewhole damn book; Brent and Weezie. I was just in



there dodging shots from [Jim] Shooter. The onlything I was left totally alone on was “Tales of Zabu”because, again, nobody expected the book to sell, really.I think they went into cardiac arrest when it did.ANDERSON: Yeah, considering it was to be the direct-sale test of a book doing well on the newsstands!We lost a considerable amount of sales when the bookwent direct-sale only.

It’s ironic you felt the most freedom on “Tales ofZabu,” since you and April [Jones’ wife] seemed toforget the old boy even existed in the regular seriesand kept leaving him out of the scripts! There, there,big kitty, they still love you, too.ARAGONA: Direct sales began with issue #10 (Jan. 1982),and—as a reader—I thought it must have been ahealthy experiment since the series lasted another 24issues. What were you told as creators in regard to boththe approach (and using Ka-Zar) and the findings?Bruce, could you also please expand on what you meanby “dodging shots from Shooter”?ANDERSON: My understanding at the time was Marvelwanted to move three books to direct-sales only as anexperiment in marketing directly to the comics retailers.The three books chosen were Moon Knight, which hadstrong direct-market sales; Micronauts, which was prettyevenly split between newsstand sales [and direct sales];and Ka-Zar, which had much stronger newsstand salesthan through the direct market. The direct market salesimproved for all three books, so it was a successfulexperiment for Marvel, but Ka-Zar’s sales through thedirect market never made up for the loss in newsstandsales. This directly impacted the royalty incentives Marvelpaid out on the book, so the experiment cost us money.

Anything to add, Bruce?

JONES: Nothing to add except that I think the direct-market move pissed all of us off a bit.

Actually, I was joshing about dodging Shooter.He never gave me any trouble at all, mainly due, I suspect,to the little actual contact I had with him. Weezie wasthe one who took all the guff from the front office.Also, I was usually miles away in either Kansas City orSan Diego packaging Twisted Tales, Alien Worlds,Somerset Holmes, etc. for Pacific Comics, dragging Brentinto anything I could whenever I could.ARAGONA: I’d like to talk a little about one of theother creative highlights of the series: the land ofPangea. Bruce, was Pangea fleshed out in your mindwhen you gave Brent the story or did his work helpsolidify it or make it “real” to you? Did you have a kindof “map” of what (or who) existed in Pangea and howthe readers would be introduced to them?JONES: Basically what I was given on the Ka-Zarassignment was that his and Shanna’s environmentwas “lost,” primitive, and had remnants of prehistorictimes. Also (for reasons that elude me) it was to beset in the South Pole. I picked Pangea because it wasa real place, a supercontinent that existed during thePaleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 25 million yearsago. All this was from Alfred Wegener’s theory ofcontinental drift. What Marvel wanted was dinosaursand sabertooths, even if the two species didn’t co-existin real history. They were simply trying to hang on toa copyright. They didn’t really care what I wrote andBrent drew so long as it was exciting and visuallyromantic. Neither Louise Jones nor I had much interestin producing a second-rate Tarzan, so that’s how thisso-called urbane élan in Ka-Zar’s character cameabout. In other words, a smart, even intellectual guy

Behind the ScenesBrent Anderson’s

developmentalsketches realizing

some of thecharacters, locales,

and weapons ofthe Savage Land.

Courtesy of the artist.Art © Brent Anderson.

Ka-Zar © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Like many who clung from issue#1 to Marvel Comics’ Conanthe Barbarian comic book whichpremiered in 1970, I had been a fanof the character since the late 1960s’reprinting of the original Robert E.Howard tales. The path had already beenbeaten by Bantam Books, that served up hot-selling 95-cent reprints ofthe Lester Dent (nom de plume: Kenneth Robeson) Doc Savage andAvenger pulps. Sensing a good thing, failing Lancer Books issued aconcurrent release of the Howard Conan tales, and the L. SpragueDeCamp and Lin Carter posthumous collaborations, with some prettyamazing Frazetta covers slapped onto them. I was hooked from day one.

I was also repelled. This character from an age where distrust of yourfellow man and fear of the unfamiliar was not paranoia but sound, defensivereasoning, often teetered on the brink of being something ugly.Being African American, I found the explicit and implicit racism a manifes-tation of everything that had limited me, and all that I railed against. It wasan ugly reminder of the sensibilities that made my father’s life harder thanit should have been, and made my mother fearful at times for her children.And there it was, in fantasy form, this Teutonic Nazi raging through hisworld with the power of life and death on the edge of his sword, decapitat-ing, disemboweling, and venting a whole zeitgeist of rage on a race.

Yet when brought to comic books, as a result of skillful writing,Conan never fell into the abyss. No mean feat, given the source material.

Robert E. Howard was a storyteller. His writing style may not have theintrospective clarity of a Don DeLillo, but he could compellingly spin a yarnand deliver a phrase that could chill to the bone. Conan’s world was abarbaric one, where kingdoms were formed out of fear of their neighbor,and trust was an often fatal weakness. Prejudice was simply commonsense. Howard’s tales’ habitual and demeaning reference to Blacks wasas insane beasts, cannibals, and leering lechers. In tales like “Shadows inZamboula” or “The Vale of Lost Women,” or his opus, “The Queen ofthe Black Coast,” Blacks were there to lend the “barbaric splendor”at best, or at worse be the inhuman monsters slavering before thehelpless, or sometimes bending to the dominating White female.

To his credit, writer Roy Thomas kept the Conan comic-bookadaptations true to the flavor of the original stories, in all their color,vibrancy, barbarism, chauvinism, and, yes, racism, while amelioratingthe more offensive elements in a manner that didn’t dampen thestories’ intent or flow. Thomas had an Olympic-level sense of balanceas he keep intact Conan’s world—the chief element that separatedHoward’s barbarian from any of a hundred other bare-chestedpre-historic swordsmen—while not offending the sensibilities of aworld just coming to grips with its heterogeneous legacy.

Marvel Comics in the 1960s had, in small and large ways, done alot to distinguish itself as being ahead of the curve in racial awareness.Steve Ditko’s inclusion of Black characters in panel backgrounds of TheAmazing Spider-Man—as police officers, as fellow students at PeterParker’s school—were small gestures, but noteworthy for their casualness.And on the big side of the scale, how about the Black Panther, who,in his first appearance in Fantastic Four #52, took the FF to a sounddefeat. The Panther was a liberal’s “missing link,” this cobbled-togetherPiltdown Man. He was the African Black, untouched by White genes,who was the equal of any White man. He was the justification of thecivil-rights struggle. And he was the moral backbone that madeMarvel Comics more than just another comic-book company.

Conan’s EqualDetail from the John Buscema/Tony DeZuniga cover to Conanthe Barbarian #84 (Mar. 1978) with its side-by-side depictionof Conan and one of the few significant Black characters tocross his path, Zula, introduced not just a Black companion forthe Cimmerian, but a swordsman described as Conan’s equal.© 2010 Conan Properties.


by S t e v e n A l a n P a y n e

®

Readers who were buying comic books back in the1970s might regard Rima, the Jungle Girl as a femaleTarzan clone published by DC Comics.

Others might remember Rima as a Sheena-meets-Dr. Dolittle guest-star on Saturday morning’s All-NewSuper Friends Hour.

True, Rima—the exotic white woman whocommunicated with animals, the “Daughter of theDidi” who terrified natives in the South America junglewhere she lived—was both a DC Super-Star and aHanna-Barbera Super Friend. Yet most fans who readher short-lived, seven-issue mid-1970s comic orviewed her three cartoon appearances had no inklingof the character’s rich history.

Nor did they realize that this “jungle girl” actuallypredated the legendary, loinclothed Ape Man thesefans presumed she mimicked.

GREEN MANSIONS ARE THE PLACE TO BERima debuted in the novel Green Mansions: A Romanceof the Tropical Forest, written by W. H. (William Henry)Hudson (1841–1922) and first published in 1904(Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan first saw print in 1912).A naturalist with a passion for birds, Hudson relocatedfrom his homeland of Argentina to the UnitedKingdom in the late 1860s and soon became an authorof ornithological texts, South American ecologicalstudies, and wilderness-based dramatic novels.

Set in Venezuela in the 1840s, Hudson’s Green Mansionsconcerns Abel, a sophisticate-turned-revolutionarywhose failed coup attempt in Caracas forced him to seekrefuge in the forest to escape execution. Trading on hiswits, this white outsider fraternizes with a tribe of junglepeople and settles among them. Abel seems contentto idle away his days strumming his guitar, giving thechildren fencing lessons, and charming the natives—he is a man with no country and no ambition.

He is intrigued, however, by the locals’ fear of the“Daughter of the Didi,” a supposedly supernaturalwoman with control over fauna. The natives refuse toventure into the jungle where this creature purportedlyresides. His curiosity piqued, Abel strolls into that veryforest, where he is mesmerized by exotic bird calls whichfill the air. He catches a glimpse of what appears to bethe teenage girl we would soon come to know as Rima.

Hudson describes Abel’s first sighting of Rimathusly in Chapter Five:

“It was a human being—a girl form, reclining on themoss among the ferns and herbage, near the roots of asmall tree. One arm was doubled behind her neck to restupon, while the other arm was held extended before her,the hand raised towards a small brown bird perched on apendulous twig just beyond its reach. She appeared to beplaying with the bird, possibly amusing herself by trying


Daughter of the DidiRima, the Jungle Girl in a 1991 pencil sketchby the artist who made her famous in themid-1970s, Nestor Redondo. Art scan courtesyof Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).Rima TM & © DC Entertainment.

by M i c h a e l E u r y

®

to entice it on to her hand; and the hand appeared totempt it greatly, for it persistently hopped up and down,turning rapidly about this way and that, flirting itswings and tail, and always appearing just onthe point of dropping on to her finger.”

Hudson’s Rima is not the statuesqueAmazon who would populate the DCUniverse in the 1970s: She was“small, not above four feet six orseven inches in height, in figure slim,with delicately shaped little handsand feet.” The voyeur Abel continuesto assess Rima’s looks: “Her hair wasvery wonderful; it was loose andabundant, and seemed wavy orcurly, falling in a cloud on hershoulders and arms. Dark itappeared, but the precise tint wasinterdeterminable, as was that of her skin, which lookedneither brown nor white. Altogether, near to me as sheactually was, there was a kind of mistiness in the figure

which made it appear somewhat vague and distant,and a greenish grey seemed the prevailing colour.”

While Hudson’s Green Mansions predatedVladmir Nabokov’s Lolita by some five

decades, the fascination of Abel—of unknown age but clearly a grownman—with this seductive nymph is atfirst alarming to the contemporaryreader (Nabokov’s Lolita, incidentally,was 14). One must remember,though, that during the era in whichGreen Mansions was written, May-

December marriages were still common,as adult men often took as bridesteenage girls and young women intheir child-bearing prime.

Abel braves an encounter with thisvision, stepping out of the brush to

greet her—and is bitten by a venomous coral snake,protecting Rima by striking what it thought to be anattack against her. Stumbling into unconsciousness as thetoxin takes hold, Abel later awakens in a hut. He meetsan old man named Nuflo, who calls himself Rima’s grand-father, and learns that he was saved by the girl called Rima.

Each member of this unlikely trio is an outcast: Abel,the nomad; Rima, the fetching oddity whose empathywith birds and wildlife defies logic; and Nuflo,a reformed bandit who has dedicated himself to caringfor the girl he has taken under his wing. Together,they form an unorthodox family as Abel becomesintoxicated with both the ethereal Rima and the lushenvironment of “green mansions” in which she resides.

Any initial discomfort one might have experiencedover Abel’s preoccupation with Rima quickly fades,as Hudson’s lyrical romance entrances the reader.He writes, in the first person through Abel, that Rima’spigmentation “would be almost impossible to describe,so greatly did it vary with every change of mood—and the moods were many and transient—and with


Rima’s FirstComic-BookAppearance

(right) Alex Blum’spainted artwork to

the cover of ClassicsIllustrated #90

(Dec. 1951), adaptingGreen Mansions,

and (left) the splashpage to that issue,

introducing the cast.© 1951 Gilberton Company, Inc.

w. h. hudson

A steel bikini.What else could Conan possibly call it as Red Sonja

stood before him in The Savage Sword of Conan #1.She was a welcome sight—indeed, most men wouldenjoy the sight of the red-haired Hyrkanian—and RedSonja’s timely appearance had rescued the Cimmerianfrom the wrong end of a sword during a brawl inZamorra’s City of Thieves.

But this wasn’t the same Red Sonja that Conanremembered from Makkalet in Conan the Barbarian #24(Mar. 1973), when they stole into a sorcerer’s tower ona thieves’ errand to retrieve a serpent tiara. The womanbefore him had tossed aside her more practical garb asa sword-for-hire in favor of this—steel bikini…

It was an outfit that meshed Victoria’s Secret witha Nemedian blacksmith’s shop, but left little to theimagination when considering her feminine charms.Her leather gloves and boots covered more of herbody than this armor, and yet it would be the garbthat would in the years to come define Red Sonja asmuch as her fiery red hair.

SHE-DEVIL WITH A SWORDThis new Red Sonja enjoyed a coming-out party in thefirst issue of Savage Sword of Conan in August 1974.This black-and-white magazine cashed in on thepopularity of Conan during the early 1970s, but itfeatured almost as many pages devoted to Red Sonjaas it did to the Cimmerian.

The magazine included one of the first portrayalsof Red Sonja in what would become her famous steelbikini. The pinup page had been submitted by EstebanMaroto—a Spanish-born artist known best for his workin the Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines.Another pinup of Red Sonja in a steel bikini hadappeared earlier, in February 1974, in Savage Tales #3—and it quickly found favor with editor Roy Thomas.

“I’m not sure what I had in mind when I was firstthinking of Red Sonja,” Roy Thomas says. “I was not

real wild for her chainmail shirt and hot pantsthat Barry [Windsor-Smith] had given her.

Esteban had sent in his drawing of her,and I liked it so much that I gave him an

entire Red Sonja story to do.”Roy Thomas gave penciling honors

to Esteban Maroto for the first soloappearance of the “She-Devil with aSword” in a story titled simply “RedSonja.” The story appeared in SavageSword of Conan #1 and featured

lavish pencils and inks that combinedthe talents of Maroto, Neal Adams,and Ernie Chua. The story built onher character and reinforced thetheme that Red Sonja was any

Sonja by BorisDetail from Boris Vallejo’s painting for thepaperback cover Red Sonja #3: When HellLaughs (Ace, 1982). Art courtesy of HeritageComics Auctions (www.ha.com).Red Sonja ® Red Sonja LLC.


roy thomas

by J i m M a n n e r

®

man’s equal, as one character in the story noted,“Red Sonja’s made a vow that no man ever shall touchher, save one who’s defeated her in battle.”

The story was published in the 1970s, during theheight of the Women’s Movement. Red Sonja foundherself balanced on a delicate fence—on one side,she was a character who boasted an inner strengththat rivaled any man’s; on the other, her depiction asa scantily clad warrior was cheesecake eye candyfor the mostly male audience that comprised comicsfandom at the time.

Thomas acknowledges that it was a “bit of aproblem” trying to balance the display of Red Sonja’sfeminine attributes with her warrior skills.

“It wasn’t very practical,” Thomas says, “but RedSonja had a mystical origin that gave her a little extrapower … it was always a little mysterious how sheacquired her skills.

“Here is a woman who is very sexy, and she wearsvery little armor that’s not really going to protect herif it needed to,” Thomas says. “It was kind of defiant,but symbolic. It showed off her beauty, but at thesame time, you knew that if a man would reach out indesire of her, she would cut off their hand.”

This unattainable temptation would be developedthroughout the inaugural issue of Savage Sword of Conanand in later comic-book appearances. It was inspired byRoy Thomas’ reading of the play On Baile’s Strand by W. B.Yeats, which included a reference to a character namedAoife, a red-haired warrior queen who would allow noman to bed her unless they first defeated her in combat.

On Baile’s Strand appeared in the 1903 book In theSeven Woods and explained how Queen Aoife had beenbested in combat by the hero Cuchulain. Their tragicunion led to the birth of a son, who would later be sent byAoife to challenge Cuchulain in combat.

The story of Red Sonja in The SavageSword of Conan, by Thomas and Maroto,borrowed on this theme, as one characternotes, “Red Sonja’s made a vowthat no man ever shall touch her,


Skin Games(below left) Sonja’s

wearing her steel bikiniin this undated sketch

from Pablo Marcos(courtesy of Heritage).Barry Windsor-Smith’s

interpretation of thecharacter (center)

reveals much less flesh,as seen in this detail from

the cover of Marvel’sConan the Barbarian

#24 (Mar. 1973).Red Sonja ® Red Sonja LLC.Conan © Conan Properties.

Man vs. DinosaurCover paintings by the too-often-overlookedPat Boyette make Charlton Comics’ Korg:70,000 B.C. a visual treat. Cover to issue #3(Oct. 1975) courtesy of Heritage ComicsAuctions (www.ha.com).© 1975 Hanna-Barbera Productions.

One of the most bizarre shows ever to come out ofHanna-Barbera Productions was its live-action cavemanaction-adventure show called Korg: 70,000 B.C.—bizarre for reasons including the fact that it was live action.

Although Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had dabbledwith live-action shows prior to Korg, most notably withThe Banana Splits, Korg was the first live-action showfrom Hanna-Barbera to be completely dramatic andfollow a single narrative.

Loosely based on The Waltons, Korg told the storyof caveman Korg and his family as they struggled tomake ends meet in caveman times. It was sort of aserious attempt at The Flintstones!

Curiously, the show debuted at the same time asHanna-Barbera’s fully animated Valley of the Dinosaurs.Hanna-Barbera presumably couldn’t decide whether todo an animated or live-action show set in prehistorictimes, so why not do both? Apart from the prehistoricsetting, the two shows are very dissimilar.

(Hanna-Barbera did dabble further into live-actionmaterial with less than spectacular results, includingThe Skatebirds and a 1979 theatrical film calledC.H.O.M.P.S., starring Valerie Bertinelli. None of theseare very memorable.)

FROM TV TO COMICSKorg was filmed in the hills of the Palos Verdes Peninsula inCalifornia, in the spring and summer of 1974—and, coin-cidentally, only a couple of miles from my boyhood homeat the time. As a six-year-old, I was fascinated that a showcould be filmed so close to my house. Even thoughHollywood was nearby, it was still a good 30 miles away.

The completed show was nothing much, to behonest, but some folks have fond memories of it.Korg was supposed to be educational, based on the bestresearch about Neanderthal life available at the time.

Korg aired on ABC-TV from September 7, 1974through August 31, 1975. There were 16 episodesproduced and the show was not renewed for asecond season.

Episode titles include: “Magic Claws,” “The Guide,”“Exile,” “Eclipse,” “Trapped,” “Story of Lumi,”“Moving Rock,” “Beach People,” “Running Fight,”“The Ancient One,” “Tor’s First Hunt,” “The HillPeople,” “The River,” “The Web,” “Picture Maker,”and “Ree & the Wolf.”

Korg starred Jim Malinda as Korg. Bill Ewing wasBok, his best friend. Naomi Pollack portrayed Mara,Korg’s wife. Christoper Man was Tane, Korg’s eldestson. Charles Morteo was Tor, Korg’s youngest son.Janelle Pransky was Ree, Korg’s daughter, and EileenDeetz portrayed Sala, another friend of the family.Veteran character actor Burgess Meredith, best known

®

by M a r k A r n o l d



Man vs. ManA rocky altercation on

Boyette’s cover toKorg #2 (Aug. 1975).

Original coverpainting courtesy

of Heritage.© 1975 Hanna-Barbera Productions.

“I climbed out of the abyss of naked barbarism to thethrone and in that climb I spilt my blood as freely as Ispilt that of others. If either of us has the right to rulemen, by Crom, it is I!”

— The Scarlet Citadel (1933)

Thus spake Conan, the Cimmerian.Hither came Robert E. Howard’s most savage of

heroes, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief,a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and giganticmirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth underhis sandaled feet. Born in the pages of the pulp magazineWeird Tales in December of 1932, the barbarian-king named Conan cut a bloody swath through thestandard conventions of fantasy literature, and claimedfor his heavy brow an iron crown, as king of the nascentgenre that would decades later come to be known as“sword-and-sorcery.” Such was the impact of Howard’swild-hearted adventurer that it is almost impossible todiscuss any of the various sword and sorcery heroes thatfollowed in his wake—be it Michael Moorcock’s Elric ofMelniboné, Lin Carter’s Thongor of Lemuria, or FritzLeiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser—without firstconsidering them in relation to Conan.

Accordingly, the same might also be said for the slewof “savage heroes” that stormed the gates of the comicsworld following the tremendous success of Marvel’s Conanthe Barbarian comic-book series, launched in 1970 bycreators Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. With salesreaching an estimated 200,000-to-300,000 range duringthe height of that title’s popularity, Conan’s four-colorchronicles ignited a veritable stampede of bare-chestedbarbarians and wilding warriors across the entire medium,typified by such books as Mighty Samson and Dagarthe Invincible from Gold Key, or Wulf the Barbarian andIronjaw from Atlas/Seaboard. [For a further explorationof Conan’s history in comics, see the exceptionalthree-part series “Sword-and-Sorcery in the Comics”appearing in Alter Ego #80 (Part 1), #83 (Part 2) and#92 (Part 3), all available at the TwoMorrows website.]

DC COMICS’ ADVENTURE LINENot to be outdone by the competition, DC Comicseffectively launched an entire line of books to answer thischallenge from Conan, which DC touted as its “all-newadventure line” and counted among its number JoeKubert’s Tor, Mike Grell’s Warlord, Kong the Untamed,Beowulf: Dragon Slayer, Claw the Unconquered, and Stalker.While none of these books would succeed in mounting aserious threat to Conan’s preeminence as comicdom’s über-barbarian, DC’s efforts did result in a diverse stable offantasy-oriented characters that remain a part of thecompany’s profile to this day, whereas Marvel wouldeventually relinquish its publishing rights to Conan in 2000.Yet among the above collection of spear-toting cavemen


The Claw ClanArtist Ernie Chan’s promotional art for Clawthe Unconquered, introducing the sword-and-sorcery series’ cast. Courtesy of HeritageComics Auctions (www.ha.com).TM & © DC Entertainment.

by M a r k D i F r u s c i o

TM

and savage swordsmen, it remains Claw the Unconquered,created by writer David Michelinie and illustrated by artistErnie Chan (nee Chua), that most strongly evokes thespirit of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian and mostly clearlyexemplifies DC’s efforts to emulate its success.

Those efforts were clearly on display in the promotionalmaterial used for Claw the Unconquered at the time,as demonstrated in the publisher’s own fanzine,The Amazing World of DC Comics #3 (Nov. 1974). “The firstcouple of months of 1975 will see eleven new DC serieson the stands,” the fanzine announced. “So here’s asneak peek at the shape of things to come,” it teased,introducing Claw the Unconquered thusly: “He dwells ina land beyond time—born either before eternity or afterit has ceased to matter. His deformed hand marks himas a target for a world full of bounty-hunters, wizards,and dangers as yet unchronicled. Prepare yourself forsword-&-sorcery mixed with high fantasy and join thelatest barbarian hero to enter comics. Editor Joe Orlandohas put two of his top talents on this assignment: writerDavid Michelinie (Swamp Thing) and artist Ernie Chua,who brings a wealth of experience from inking a CertainOther Noteworthy Adventurer (Not published by us).”

Premiering with Claw the Unconquered #1 (June 1975),the series ran for only 12 issues, but lasted for over threeyears in actual time due to an 18-month delay betweenissues #9 (Oct. 1976) and 10 (May 1978), this the result

of an initial cancellation that was subsequently reversed.Further complicating matters is the fact that another twoissues, #13 and 14, never officially saw print, but did earninclusion in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1, an in-housecollection of story material that was scrapped beforepublication when DC initiated a massive purge of itslower-selling titles in a move that has infamously cometo be known as “the DC Implosion” of 1978.

THE WORLD OF CLAWNo less complex is the story of Claw the Unconqueredhimself, which begins in the fantasy realm of Pytharia,and focuses on a barbarian named Valcan, who hasearned the sobriquet of “Claw” thanks to a misshapenright hand that he hides beneath a crimson gauntlet.Unbeknownst to Claw, who has no memory of his past,his father had been cursed with the same talon-likedeformity, and was murdered because of it by theevil King Occulas of the Yellow Eye, ruler of Pytharia.Years earlier, a prophecy forewarned Occulas that hisreign would be threatened by “the Hand of Justice” inthe form of a dragon-like claw. Hence Occulas of theYellow Eye did order the assassination of Claw’s dragon-pawed father, not realizing that the man’s infant sonValcan had been born with the same disfigurement.

Eventually Occulas learns of Valcan’s existence andplaces a generous bounty on the barbarian’s head,prompting every cutthroat and fortune-seeker throughoutthe realm to turn their avaricious blades against Claw,unawares. After a series of bitter betrayals at the hands ofa buxom barmaid, a golden-skinned priestess, and a silver-maned centauress, the world-weary Claw eventually findstrue friendship in the company of an affable adventurernamed Ghilkyn, Prince of the Thousand Hills. TogetherClaw and Ghilkyn undertake a heroic quest for the mysticsword “Moonthorn” in an effort to defeat a colossal


The Comingof Claw

(left) The titular titan’sfirst appearance, onpage 1 of Claw the

Unconquered #1(May–June 1975),

written by DavidMichelinie and

drawn by Ernie Chua(Chan). Courtesy of

Heritage. (right)The issue #1 cover.

TM & © DC Entertainment.

Epic poems telling tales of heroes fighting monsters arerife in the collective world mythologies, but very few ofthose heroes are Danish or Swedish, and fewer stillhave been examined with quite as much scholarlystudy and debate as the Geat hero known as Beowulf.Although the original manuscripts featuring the poemdate from between the 8th and 11th centuries—and the story itself is set in the 5th century—it was inthe 20th century that DC Comics brought the battlinghero to four-color life. And while the Anglo-Saxonpoem found Beowulf battling the monster Grendel,Grendel’s mother, and an unnamed dragon, the comicswould see the thickly hewn Geat battling Wyrd,the God of Fate, aliens, and Satan, the “Dragon-Lordof the Underworld”!

FROM FOLKLORE TO FUNNYBOOKSThe DC Comics version of Beowulf was created in 1974by Michael Uslan, a young member of the DC staff whohad already amassed an impressive background in thecomic-book field. In addition to having an immensepersonal collection (over 25,000 comics), he had taughta controversial and publicity-generating class on comics—“The Comic Book in Society”—for the ExperimentalCurriculum program at the Indiana University School ofLaw–Bloomington. By 1974, Uslan became one of DC’s“Junior Woodchucks,” alongside Bob Rozakis, Jack C.Harris, Paul Levitz, Carl Gafford, Anthony Tollin, and otherfans who were “turning pro” in an industry of whichthey grew up dreaming they could become part.Uslan wrote for the Amazing World of DC Comics fanzine,and worked as an assistant to Sol Harrison, answeringkids’ fan mail (often writing as Batman or Superman).He eventually scripted his first comics story, for DC’sThe Shadow #9 (Feb.–Mar. 1975), before getting abigger break—his own series named Beowulf.

“I was deeply into educational uses of comicbooks,” Uslan notes today, “and thus, using Beowulf,conceptually, came out of all of that, and that wastied into getting my Master’s Degree. I was workingon a program at DC, using Superman, Batman,and Wonder Woman to teach English-as-a-second-language students how to read through speciallydesigned comics; teaching learning-disabled childrenhow to read through specially designed comicscalled Edugraphics that we were putting togetherand, in fact, sold to the New York City Board ofEducation at the time. I was in college, so my mindsetwas toward the academic.”

He got his chance as DC decided to expand into therealm of barbarian heroes, following the lead of Marvel,which was experiencing fantastic success with Conanthe Barbarian. “DC decided they were going to expandin this Conan arena since Marvel had success with it,”Uslan says. “So all around the same time was Warlord,Claw the Unconquered, Stalker, Beowulf, Kong the Untamed,


Beowulf Cometh!Detail from the cover of Beowulf #1 (Apr.–May 1975). Illustrated by Ricardo Villamonte.TM & © DC Entertainment.

by A n d y M a n g e l s

TM

and I know I’m missing a few others. I wanted to separateout Beowulf from everything else. I wanted to playwith every different type of mish-mosh of mythology.At that time, there were some really, really cool very-’70s[novels] out like Chariots of the Gods, and I wanted toincorporate that stuff in. There was a reawakening ofinterest in Dracula—people were starting to look atthe legend behind Dracula—and I wanted to put thatstuff in. I even put in some of my own Jewish back-ground into some of it. John Gardner’s [novel] Grendelwas a huge influence on it. I mean, we were all overthe map with it, trying different directions and shakingthings up and trying to be very, very unconventionalwith it, and I think we were.”

The unconventional nature of the resulting comicled to some consternation among older DC staffers.“If I truly wanted to do an educational, academiccomic-book version, it would have been done as aClassics Illustrated, as opposed to an ongoing DC seriesthat fit in with Stalker, Claw the Unconquered, Starfire,and Kong the Untamed. But that’s certainly not whatwe were doing. And then why use Beowulf at all?Well, you use it because it was a brand, and as I toldSol Harrison and Carmine Infantino, ‘Look, every kid inNorth America has had to read Beowulf. It’s part of thecurriculum and they know the core story. So why notuse the character that is going to have some degree ofname recognition as opposed to simply Starfire orClaw or Kong?’ And they agreed with that.”

Uslan worked under editor Denny O’Neil and assistanteditor Allan Asherman, though he credits Asherman asbeing his daily liaison. “Allan was my comrade-in-armsfrom the beginning. We were fellow Woodchucks.”Uslan did the first designs for Beowulf, coming up withhis most distinctive feature: “I did an original sketch,coming up with the idea of that helmet made out of askull.” He asked fellow law student John Onoda to doa color sketch fleshing out the character. “He did abeautiful color drawing that really brought Beowulf tolife and I sent a copy of that drawing for them to useas the model for it. I really wanted that helmet of kindof like the skull of a mythological creature on his head.It was something like a minotaur.”

PROBLEMS BEHIND THE SCENESThe first issue of Beowulf was cover-dated Apr.–May1975, and for Uslan, there were some surprises.Peruvian artist Ricardo Villamonte did not speak Englishwell and had to have Uslan’s scripts translated for him.This resulted in what Uslan jokingly refers to as “many,many, many interpretive problems that occurred whichwere nightmarish continuity issues.” Among them wasthe script referring to a “blonde-haired barbarian” in abook that showed the northern hero as a redhead.Run-ins with the Comics Code also meant censorship.Uslan notes that he still has the original artwork to thecover of #1, “and Nan-Zee’s outfit had to be redrawn.I have the original artwork on which basicallyRicardo Villamonte drew her with pasties. That wasunacceptable and had to be modified for the cover.”

From theComicmobile to

Comic Media MogulMichael Uslan,

the one-time DC“Woodchuck” and

writer of DC’s Beowulf.Photo courtesy of

Indiana University.

The Adventures BeginBeowulf readies for his battle with Grendelas the scantily clad Nan-Zee takes on theComics Code. Page 1 of Beowulf #1.TM & © DC Entertainment.


The decade of the ’70s is remembered for a lot ofthings—leisure suits, and sideburns, and disco balls.And one scale-mail bikini.

Marvel Comics adapted several of the characters ofsword-and-sorcery author Robert E. Howard into comic-book stories, including Kull, Conan, and the fiery redheadwith a sword, Red Sonja. Sonja first appeared in issue #23of Conan the Barbarian, written by Roy Thomas andillustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith, but when the “She-Devil With A Sword” got her own book, it was FrankThorne who defined the character for a generation of fans.

Just as the ’70s were a period of growth in thepopularity of sword-and-sorcery comics, it also saw arise in the number of comic-book conventions.Phil Seuling held his first New York Comic ArtConvention in 1968, and in 1970, Shel Dorf beganwhat would become the San Diego Comic-Con [nowknown as Comic-Con International]. The major comic-book publishers also briefly joined the craze. MarvelComics held conventions in 1975 and 1976, and DCComics held a convention of its own in 1976.

So, in some respects, it wasn’t unusual whenRich Greene and Howard Leroy Davis, together withseveral of their friends, decided to form the DelawareValley Comic Art Associates and hold a convention inthe Philadelphia area. What was unusual was that theychose to focus their first convention on a single comic-book character—Red Sonja.

The first annual Delaware Valley Comicart Convention,honoring Red Sonja—otherwise known as “Sonja Con”—was held on Saturday, November 20, and Sunday,November 21, 1976, at the Travelodge in Mt. Laurel,New Jersey. Advertisements for the conventionappeared in Comics Buyer’s Guide, as well as locally.Sonja Con included all of the characteristics of a greatconvention. There was a dealer’s room, a cartoon andfilm room, door prizes, an auction, panel discussions,and even a fencing demonstration. Special guestsincluded Roy Thomas and Frank Thorne, as well as DickGiordano, Ernie Chan, Joe Staton, Fred Fredericks,and Dave Cockrum, all of whom signed autographs anddid sketches for fans. Giordano, who had inked JohnBuscema’s pencils of Sonja in Conan and illustrated herfirst appearance in Marvel Feature, conducted reviews offan and amateur artwork both days of the convention.And then there was the Red Sonja lookalike contest.

A couple of months earlier, on September 11, 1976,Frank Thorne appeared at Lily Langtry’s Saloon and EatingPlace in Sayreville, New Jersey, for the debut of the“Ballad of Red Sonja,” a song written by fans Mike andSal Caputo and performed by Kurt Gresham. Thornesummoned forth “Red Sonja” in dramatic style and out

Sing Along with Sonja(top) Cover of the Sonja Con program, with FrankThorne art. (bottom) Thorne (left, with mic),Angelique Trouvere (as Red Sonja), and KurtGresham at Lily Langtry’s, Spetember 11, 1976.Red Sonja ® Red Sonja LLC.


by D e w e y C a s s e l l

In July of 2009, at the first annual Asian-AmericanComicon in New York, Larry Hama received theconvention’s inaugural career award. Such industryrecognition was long overdue.

Since the 1970s, Hama, a lifelong Manhattanite,has been a comic-book renaissance man: writer, editor,penciler, inker, and creator (not to mention an actor,musician, and martial artist outside of the comics industry).But don’t call this multi-hyphenate a writer or an artist:“I’m a storyteller,” Hama tells BACK ISSUE.

And with this interview, I will forever associate Hamawith Art Clokey, creator of the Gumby universe. Why?Well, just prior to part one of our conversation, I receivedword from WildCard Ink publisher Mel Smith, who holdsthe Gumby license in comics, that Clokey had passedaway on January 8, 2010, at the age of 88.

Now, you might ask what this has to do with Hama,the writer/artist best known for the masculine, testosterone-loaded exploits of Wolverine, Venom, and G. I. Joe. Well, youmight be surprised to learn who Hama’s favorite cartoonistis and which comics genre he adores the most.

If you’re looking for a dissection of G. I. Joe, this isnot that piece [for that, see BACK ISSUE #16]. And foran in-depth look on his year (1975, to be precise) at Atlas/Seaboard, I recommend Comic Book Artist #16(TwoMorrows, 2001).

My goal here is to touch on Hama’s less-documentedwork, which includes (appropriately) some “born to bewild” barbarism.

– Michael Aushenker

MICHAEL AUSHENKER: I hear that when you attendedManhattan's High School of Art and Design, one ofyour instructors was the legendary EC Comics artistBernard Krigstein. Were you cognizant of his work?LARRY HAMA: I had no idea who Krigstein was.There was a friend of mine named John Smith. He knewwho Krigstein was immediately.AUSHENKER: What was he like?HAMA: He was one of the best art-school teachers I everhad. He didn’t tell you how to do it. He wasn’t a construc-tionist or anything. He had a way to make you produce.The primary thing that the teacher of any of this stuff didwas to deconstruct the procrastination. [laughs] We hadto hand in a sketchbook every week and he graded it.

One week, I handed in my sketchbook and it hadonly one sketch in it and he called me to the mat on itand I said, “I spent all week long on this sketch.” He said,“You have to do hundreds of sucky ones before you cando the good ones. Get those sucky ones out of the way.”It was his way of saying your stuff isn’t precious.AUSHENKER: Did Krigstein ever talk about his owncomics or use them as examples?HAMA: No. Never talked about it. The reason he wentinto teaching was because he wanted to paint.AUSHENKER: You’ve worn so many hats in the industry.You are one of the few people I can think of who hasworked in so many departments at Marvel and DC.You and Al Milgrom. What was your entry into comics?HAMA: I was a penciler. I drew for National Lampoonand other places before I got my first comics, whichwere sort of like stepping down. [laughs] I did a lot ofadvertising art. I situated myself as a storyteller. I evenhad a lettering rate. I don’t think Al Milgrom had alettering rate. [laughs] I also had a coloring rate.AUSHENKER: Did you grow up reading comics?HAMA: I was not a major comic-book fan. I hadcomics the way every kid in the 1950s had comics.Comics, baseball cards. I never thought of a career incomics until I had a career in comics. [laughs]


by M i c h a e l A u s h e n k e rconducted on January 9 and March 7, 2010

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My high-school classmate, Ralph Reese, who hadbecome an assistant to Wally Wood, helped me get asimilar job at Wood's Manhattan studio.AUSHENKER: Can you talk about working with thegreat Wally Wood?HAMA: This was in 1972. Wally was working at thetime on Sally Forth and Cannon. It was an awful lot ofwork and he didn’t work fast.AUSHENKER: Did it have to do with Wood’s reportedalcoholism?HAMA: Not really. He could ink pretty fast. It wasnot the alcohol but his internal attitude. He wasimmobilized by lack of confidence… It’s a [classicartistic] dichotomy, being really insecure andarrogant and confident. They’re fighting each otherall the time inside you. If you let the arrogance andconfidence take over, you can get some workdone. [laughs]AUSHENKER: How old were you at the time?HAMA: I was in my early 20s, Wood must have beenin his 40s or 50s. I’d look for references, do sometracing. We swapped writing chores. I’d be workingon Cannon and I would write one story arc and switchover to Sally Forth and then he’d write Cannon. But Ilettered the stuff.

AUSHENKER: From Wood’s studio, you went on towork at Neal Adams’ Continuity Associates, where yourcontemporaries included Frank Brunner and BernieWrightson. This seems like the opposite experience ofworking for Wood. Adams was a rising superstar.HAMA: I had gone to high school with Frank Brunner.It was this storied high school. Neal had gone to thesame high school. So did Dick Giordano and Gil Kaneand, afterwards, Joe Rubinstein and Joe Jusko.

Brunner and Wrightson worked there [atContinuity], but I wasn’t working with them. They wererotating crews in there. Russ Heath was there,Dick Giordano was there originally, even SergioAragonés was there for while. There was quite a rangeof people there. In the back room, there was MarshallRogers, Greg Theakston, Ralph Reese, Carl Potts,Joe Rubinstein. It was a lot of fun. It was sort of thishub. People dropped in all the time—Wrightson,Michael Kaluta. You could stop by and hang out.

Neal was running a commercial-art studio—the comics were sort of a sideline. What we did wasstoryboards, animatics, comps. With the comics, we’d getseven, eight people inking on it. I became part of thisgang of inkers called the “Crusty Bunkers.” Neal didmore of the heads and somehow bound it all together.

I’d been in underground comix way before. VaughnBodé used to edit a paper called Gothic Blimpworks,put out by Trina Robbins and Kim Deitch. Vaughn wasconnected with that. It was sort like a Sunday funnies,[featuring artists such as] Art Crumb, Spain Rodriguez,Jay Lynch, Art Spiegelman, Wrightson, Kaluta. [Hamaalso worked on Drool #1 in 1972, seen below.]AUSHENKER: So how did you wind up at DC?HAMA: Through Neal. He got everybody’s foot in thedoor. My first story was an eight-page horror story forDC and the way I got it was that Neal agreed to ink it.It was a story involving a sinister ventriloquist dummyfor Secrets of Sinister House. I was a very lucky boy.[Hama’s first penciling job—“Losing His Head!”—appeared in Secrets of Sinister House #10 (Mar. 1973).He was inked by Neal Adams and Rich Buckler.]

The first three people to ink my work were WallyWood, Neal Adams, and Dick Giordano.AUSHENKER: It’s probably been downhill ever since.[laughs] Like Orson Welles, starting out with CitizenKane and winding up doing wine commercials.HAMA: I wouldn’t mind doing wine commercials. [laughs]AUSHENKER: You made your debut at Marvel tacklingIron Fist in Marvel Premiere. Was this assigned to youbecause of your interest in martial arts?Beginnings:

“Axe-Murderers” comic strip in Castle of Frankensteinmagazine (1967)

Milestones:National Lampoon / assisting Wally Wood / ContinuityAssociates (as one of the “Crusty Bunkers” inkers) /Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere / Wulf the Barbarian / Bucky O’Hare /DC and Marvel editor / Crazy magazine / G. I. Joe / Nth Man:The Ultimate Ninja / Wolverine / Punisher War Zone /Generation X / Barack the Barabarian

Work in Progress:G. I. Joe: A Real American Heroreboot for IDW

Photo by Nightscream, at Midtown Comics Times Square, May 23, 2009.

LARRYHAMA


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