Savage Tales

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Savage Tales is the title of three American comics series, two of them black-and-white comics-magazine anthologies published by Marvel Comics, and the other a color comic book anthology published by Dynamite Entertainment.

1 Publication history
- 1.1 Marvel Comics
- 1.2 Dynamite Entertainment
2 References

[edit] Publication history

[edit] Marvel Comics

The first of the two volumes of Savage Tales ran 11 issues, with a hiatus after the first (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 issues were Robert E. Howard's pulp fiction character Conan the Barbarian and assorted sword-and-sorcery characters—notably the brooding Puritan swordsman, Solomon Kane—as well as prose stories and articles. The first issue and the last six issues featured Ka-Zar, lord of the Savage Land.

Characters and features introduced in Savage Tales include the swamp creature the Man-Thing, who would later receive his own color-comics series, and the one-time features "The Femizons", a science-fiction adventure of futuristic techno-Amazons, by writer-editor Stan Lee and penciler-inker John Romita Sr.; and "Black Brother", a contemporary urban crime-drama by writer Denny O'Neil (using the pseudonym Sergius O'Shaughnessy) and penciler Gene Colan.

The series featured painted covers by notable comics artists incouding 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 almost entirely of Ka-Zar reprints, sported a new cover by Ken Barr.

Volume 2 ran eight issues (Oct 1985 - Dec. 1986). It featured adventure and action stories with a militaristic slant. Some stories were reprinted in the color comic The 'Nam.