Thursday, October 15, 2009

Strange Adventures

a batch of covers from the Julius Schwartz edited issues
1954 ~ 1964

Cover art by Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane,
Bernard Sachs, Joe Giella and Sy Barry

Posted by at 1:04 AM
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5 comments:

Hex_Enduction_Hour said...

Ah, very nice! I'm seriously considering grabbing DC Comics' Showcase Presents Strange Adventures.
I've never read any of the issues. Are they worthwhile?

I enjoy most of the Showcase Presents non-superhero collections, so I know the style of writing to expect. So how is the interior artwork?

Thanks.

12:44 PM
Hex_Enduction_Hour said...

The giant creatures on the covers of 119 and 157, and the martians on 152 remind me heavily of the Draags in René Laloux's Fantastic Planet.

I wonder if Laloux was influenced by these comics, huh!

12:55 PM
Mark said...

The covers were generally better than the interiors. The process by which issues were done is described in the letters to the editor column in Strange Adventures no. 142.

The covers would be done first, designed in a way to sell the comic. Then, a writer would be asked to come up with a story to match the cover. The result (for the cover stories, at least) was stories that were often highly contrived. But, that was common operating procedure for most all comic book publishers back then. It was common place for the science fiction digest magazines (stories in text form) as well.

5:41 AM
Hex_Enduction_Hour said...

Fascinating Mark. Thanks for sharing.

3:42 PM
Marble River said...

I'd just like to add a thought to Mark's observation: In my experience (and I own a batch of these comics in their original form, some bought fresh off the newsstand), sometimes the interior art was just as good, and even better, than the covers. The stories were really pretty silly, and the cover concepts were too. Strange Adventures had it's share of journey-man artists (and writers) but the good ones were really good and the books were a fun read, well worth the 10 or 12 cents. Just my opinion!
MR

10:17 PM

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