Wednesday, December 23, 2009

12 Days of Christmas: "The Seal Men's War on Santa Claus"

The big day is almost upon us, Groove-ophiles, and does Ol' Groove have an early Christmas gift for you! When you think of all the wild and wacky wonder of the Groovy Age, the names of Macabre Michael Fleisher and Jack "King" Kirby doth verily race to the top of the list. Put 'em together, and you have Groovy Age gold, baby! Their titanic team-up on the Groovy Age Sandman was a masterful mingling of funk, fantasy, weirdness, and whimsy and that ain't no jive! Ironically, the pinnacle of their aberrant alliance took about five years to finally see print. "The Seal Men's War on Santa Claus" was created for the never-published Sandman #7; never-published 'cause that magnificent mag was unceremoniously canceled with ish #6. The story did finally see print in the hard-to-find Christmas with the Superheroes in the Best of DC digest #22 (December 1981). In between those times, though, "The Seal Men's War on Santa Claus" appeared in the impossible-to-find Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 in 1978. Why? Because CCC #2 included the final two issues of Kamandi (#s 60-61), of course! Why are you scratching your heads like that? Oh, you're wondering what's Kamandi got to do with this whole sordid story? Well, y'see, Sandman was to have guest-starred in Kamandi #61 in a framing sequence that would have included, ta-dah! "The Seal Men's War on Santa Claus"! Got it now? Good!

I said all of that to say this: I really think you're gonna dig this Fleisher and Kirby dose of dy-no-mite delirium!
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8 comments:

  1. BretSectorDecember 23, 2009 at 1:21 AM

    Captain Groovy,

    Thanks for posting the Sandman #7 story! I've been dying to read it since Chris Sims posted about it. You made my Christmas complete - Thanks!

    Bretsector
    Cleveland, OH

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  2. Joplin JohnDecember 23, 2009 at 3:27 PM

    That was AMAZING, Groove! Thanks for posting it for us! And Merry Christmas!!

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  3. HampersDecember 23, 2009 at 11:18 PM

    Thanks for sharing the Sandman #7 story! It was nice going through your blog. Have a wonderful Christmas.

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  4. ANDY KUHNDecember 25, 2009 at 4:22 AM

    never seen this before. thanks for posting it, groove.
    where did you find the black & white copies? was cancelled comics cavalcade a B&W book?

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  5. The Groovy AgentJanuary 6, 2010 at 5:59 PM

    I figured ya'd all dig this crazy tale! And yeah, Andy, CCC was b&w--photocopied, mind ya! I lucked onto some scans, but wouldn't it be cool to have actual copies?

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  6. Henry R. KujawaDecember 14, 2013 at 11:05 AM

    Thanks for this one! When I was doing my 70's Kirby DC project (from June 2011-December 2012), I missed this one. Never read it before! I may well do a review if the mood strikes me.

    It's a really stupid waste of already-existing resources for a company to have a completely-finished story sitting around and NOT put the book out. That's one of the FEW good things I feel Jim Shooter did during his run as editor of Marvel. When sales were thru the floor on a title, he'd tell those involved, "Okay, the book's CANCELLED, you've got 3 issues to wrap everything up." That way, no hanging plot-lines, no unfinished stories, and no unpublished, already-finished episodes. (Remember David Kraft's & George Perez' MAN-WOLF?)

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  7. Henry R. KujawaDecember 14, 2013 at 11:07 AM

    And speaking of "dig that crazy"...

    http://johngushue.typepad.com/blog/2012/12/dig-that-crazy-santa-claus.html

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  8. AnonymousDecember 26, 2022 at 3:49 PM

    This story is back in season again!

    As Groove partly outlined in his opening comments, "The Seal Men's War On Santa Claus" was first to have been published as SANDMAN 7 in 1975.
    Then a few years later, this inventory Kirby story was slated to be published in KAMANDI 61 with an additional 5-page framing sequence. But the "DC Implosion" cancelled KAMANDI and 16 other DC titles from being published in Oct 1978, so the story again went unpublished, except for as about 100 poorly xeroxed pages in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE that DC only did for copyright preservation purposes. I purchased a pirated version of CAVALCADE about 20 years ago, and first read "Seal Men's War on Santa Claus" in that form.

    In March 1982, "Seal Men's War" finally saw print in color in BEST OF DC digest issue 22, as Groove detailed above.
    It has since also been reprinted in JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS volume 2 hardcover (May 2013),
    and DC UNIVERSE: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS (July 2019).
    In the latter two books, collected with Kirby's other 1974-1975 Sandman stories.

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