WEREWOLF WEEK Rolls On! Solomon Kane in "The Silver Beast Beyond Torkertown"

It's Werewolf Week! It's Black and White Wednesday! It's Day 22 of... ...and it's time to raise some more Kane! Solomon Kane, that is!

After Marvel's line of monster mags shambled off into that big back-issue bin in the sky, the only place to find good B&W horror comics in the Mighty Marvel Manner was in an odd issue of Marvel Preview or in an issue of Savage Sword of Conan (remember, the Sword and Sorcery genre is half-supernatural, after all). Robert E. Howard's creations Conan, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, and Solomon Kane bounced around from issue to issue and place to place facing horrors that would make a lesser man die of fright (to put it mildly). Spearheaded by Roy Thomas who surrounded himself with Marvel's top talent (folks like John Buscema, Neal Adams, Tony deZuniga, Ernie Chan, Doug Moench, Dick Giordano, Mike Ploog, Frank Brunner, Tim Conrad, etc., etc.), SSoC delivered the highest-quality B&W comics on a monthly basis.

As proof, I offer this gem from Savage Sword of Conan #14 (July, 1976), written by the ever-so-talented Doug Moench (who at the time was also writing Werewolf By Night) with art by Mike Zeck (ain't that a far-out name?). It's worth noting that this is Zeck's first full-length story for Marvel. Until that time, Zeck had been submitting pin-ups to Marvel's B&W mags, while keeping his pencil very busy at Charlton on a variety of strips (most notably, Monster Hunters). From this story, Zeck would very quickly work his way to super-stardom on Master of Kung Fu, and post-Groovy Age runs on Captain America, the Punisher, and the (in)famous Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars.