Thursday, March 24, 2016
Even More Marvel M-Ad-ness: Marvel, 1973...the Most Supernatural Year of All?
Dig it, Groove-ophiles! Ol' Groove has been digging through a big ol' bunch'a Marvel mags from 1973, and I've excavated some very cool full-page house ads. As you'll see, Marvel was really pushing their supernatural mags (both color and black and white), since (thanks to all the hoopla surrounding movies like The Exorcist) the supernatural was a huge trend at that time. And the art! Barry (Windsor-) Smith, Jim Steranko, Gil Kane, Jim Starlin, and more! Check 'em out!
Ah, yes, when the dreaded Comics Code Authority loosened their hold on content, and horror and terror reigned in the spinner racks once more. Hey man, it was the early seventies. I caught the spooky vibe even in Kindergarten.
ReplyDeleteM.P.
God, that brought back memories. Dracula Lives was a very important book during my boyhood. Wow....
ReplyDeleteThe B&W horror mags were a passion of mine, along with Tomb Of Dracula and Giant Size Dracula. When Marvel began doing Planet Of The Apes magazine they were unstoppable.
ReplyDeleteWow, the Valley of the Worm, my first impact with the dark, "lovecraftian" side of R. Howard... that hairy, faceless piper.
ReplyDeleteI had some unpleasant dreams, James Allison style.
Yeah, forget superheroes - when I was a horrible little scrote in the mid 70s the best comics coming out of Marvel were the horror and fantasy titles.
ReplyDeleteBarry Smith, Mike Ploog, the Colan and Palmer Tomb of Dracula Dracula (which look looked a lot better in the Marvel UK reprints at a larger size in black and white)... amazing work.
Haven't seen that Valley of the Worm cover before, but its a real cracker - Gil Kane was the perfect artist for that kind of thing.
Enjoyed this a lot - as ever, thanks for posting, Mr Groove.
-sean
Hah! You're right. We also had cool, larger B/W Drac mid-seventies reprints in Italy. :)
DeleteAnd also, here at least, it meant that the mid-70s FF and Thor was by Kirby and Lee :)
Delete-sean
I loved all the Marvel supernatural titles, especially Tomb of Dracula, Tales of the Zombie and The Living Mummy. Unfortunately, once the horror trend had run its course the titles began dropping away, little by little.
ReplyDelete