Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Black and White Wednesday: The Hound of the Baskervilles Part 1

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Have I ever mentioned how much I love Sherlock Holmes? Well, I do. Back in 1975, Marvel Comics actually had plans to publish an ongoing Sherlock Holmes black and white comic mag (and yep, around the same time DC was working on a color version--more of that in a future post!). For a variety of reasons, those plans fell through, but they did manage to put together a beautiful adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic The Hound of the Baskervilles. Adapted by writer Doug Moench and artist Val Mayerik (with art assists by Dan Adkins, P. Craig Russell on part one; Tony DeZuniga inked and completed the art for part two), The Hound of the Baskervilles ran in two parts, issues 5 and 6, of the black and white try-out mag, Marvel Preview (Winter 1975-Spring 1976). Now, Moench took some liberties in translating The Hound into comics form to, according to Archie Goodwin's editorials (which I'm including in these posts), "...take advantage of working in a more visual medium...", but in Ol' Groove's opinion, the risks pay off. Heck, I like it so much I'm devoting two (count 'em!) two Black and White Wednesdays in a row to sharing this astounding adaptation wit'cha! That's gotta tell ya something, right?

Be back next Wednesday for "The conclusion of the greatest adventure in the annals of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles' immortal master sleuth Sherlock Holmes"!

6 comments:

  1. Egad! Me thinks page 39 got scanned twice! Great post as usual Groovy-man. I love this because A) I never new of this comics existence, and 2) Because I just think the whole 70's B&W scene is So-ooooo far out. It's where it's at baby.... Dig?

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  2. Hey Groove:

    Maybe on your other blog you could profile the beautiful series done in the 80's by the Day boys. If memory serves it included the Conan Doyle text with gorgeous Day illustrations. Can't remember the publisher but it was fine series.

    Fr. Dan

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  3. This is too amazing, may you be richly rewarded for your great work and may thy seed possess the gates of they enemy. Carry on Sir Groovy.

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  4. Thanks for pointing out the double-post of page 39, Mike. Fixed it! Chalk it up to Ol' Groove being in a huge hurry to get plenty of posts completed before going out of town. Yep, I was out of town all week, and ya didn't even know it. Slick, huh? ;D

    Fr. Dan, I'll be showcasing Gene and Dan on Blinded Me with Comics, you can be sure. Thanks for the suggestion, and I'll see what I can do. :D I'll also be looking at Gene's great inking on Marvel Team-Up, Master of Kung Fu and such here on the Diversions blog, as well. I really, really dug Gene Day's work.

    Harkabir, all I can say is I'm glad you dug the post and hope you'll be back next week for part 2.

    And with that, carry on, I shall! :D

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  5. This is one of my favorite stories. I adapted it into a play that is going up this month in NYC: HOUND.

    Thank you for posting the comic! It's wonderful,
    JpBray

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  6. I had been looking for this for a long time. I was in my pre-teenage years, and this comic was one of my first glimpses of Sherlock Holmes. And by Marvel, no less, which I enjoyed, as I was a Marvel fan by that time.

    It's as good as I remembered it was, so I really thank you for posting it here.

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.

As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!