Thursday, July 14, 2016
The Boys from Derby: "Fear-Feeder" by Anderson and Vila
Ah, yeah, ya gotta love those Boys from Derby! Here's another swamp monster, this one a pretty obvious combination of both DC's Swamp Thing and Marvel's Man-Thing, but with a very cool (and unexpected) twist. "Fear-Feeder" came to us from Scary Tales #4 (November 1975), but this scan is from the reprint in Scary Tales #15 (April 1978), which includes the credits for writer J. Anderson and artist Carlos Vila that somehow fell off the first printing! Can you dig it?
This was a nice effort by Charlton to capitalize on the swamp craze that was surging through comicdom in the 70s. But the first panel on page 4 looks like the Man-Thing modeled for it. I wonder if Marvel raised any static because of that?
ReplyDeleteCreepy! Looks like it sids it was originally published in 1971 before Marvel's Man-Thing. Matbe even before DC's Swamp Thing too?
ReplyDeleteI remember reading this one long ago.
ReplyDeleteI think Charlton narrowly escaped a lawsuit from Marvel due to the following -
Charlton flew under the radar since their distribution was so small compared to DC or Marvel so no one noticed what came out of Derby.
If Marvel did know about it, they just shrugged it off since it was only a one time story in a two bit comic outfit, and a legal fight would create a David vs Goliath story in the press, something Marvel would most likely want to avoid.
Charlton called the Fear Feeder a Vampire-Beast, not a swamp monster, so Marvel would have a tough time claiming copyright infringement.