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Released at the same time as DRACULA LIVES, PLANET Of The APES lasted for 123 issues before merging with The MIGHTY WORLD of MARVEL for 16 issues, whereupon its masthead disappeared from the cover. I read somewhere that the U.K. edition was so popular, the U.S. magazine was kept going just to supply its British counterpart with material. (If anyone knows for sure, do tell.)
Anyway, here, mainly to keep regular commenter CJ happy, are the first 10 covers from the 1974 weekly periodical. The TV show wasn't broadcast in Scotland at the time, so we weren't immediately aware that the mag was intended to tie in with a television programme. Not that it made any difference to me, as I was buying every U.K. Marvel comic going back then anyway. I even got a letter printed in #8.
And if Nifty NICK CAPUTO is paying attention, perhaps he'd do us all a favour and identify the cover artists. Good lad, Nick - ta.
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| The poster free with issue #1 |
14 comments:
I had all these. I was so stupid I didn't know Marvel UK had more than one title. So when my newsagent switched me to POTA from the superhero comics I thought why oh why Marvel did you cancel your superhero comics? On the other hand that's a great Bob Larkin painting.
I'm amazed to think that issue 9 or 10 would've been the last one of this title I bought as a schoolboy, Phil. Issue 11 came out during the Christmas holidays, and I was an official job seeker when I bought #12.
I only picked up the first 3 issues of POTA (and Dracula Lives) which I really enjoyed, but at the time there were so many US imports around including the then new ATLAS comics groups output that I wanted to buy. So I had to make the then (to me) momentous decision to drop POTA and Dracula Lives from my weekly comics list (keeping MWOM, SMCW and Avengers). A pity in hindsight as POTA had some great strips in it including Ka-Zar, Black Panther and one off SF tales etc that I would have loved. I doubt I picked up more that 6 issues of POTAs entire UK run at the time. POTA had some great artists working on it including those early Tuska issues, Mike Ploog , Alfredo Alcala and Tom Sutton.
I can tell you -at least- issues 2-5, and probably 9, are by Ed Hannigan. Number 10 is signed by none other than George Perez.
Yeah, it was probably a better comic than I gave it credit for at the time, McS, probably because I wasn't much of a fan of the series of movies on which the lead strip was based (loved the first one 'though). I can no longer recall if I bought every issue until it merged with MWOM or gave up on it at some point, but the rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia suddenly makes it seem like a wonderful mag to me.
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Thanks for that, JS. George Perez, eh? I wonder if it was a re-used U.S. cover or drawn specially for the U.K. weekly?
I don't think that George Perez UK cover was used for the US editions - from memory Marvel only published a monthly black and white Apes magazine (29 issues) all with (excellent) painted covers (issue 2 of the US POTA was our issue 1's cover) and an 11 issue colour comic "Adventure on the Planet of the Apes" (which ran from 1975 - 1976 after the UK cover here)
I had the distinct impression that the U.S. mags had mainly painted covers, McS, but I wasn't sure if it extended to every ish, so ta for the info.
I loved the B&W POTA magazine by Marvel, which did have painted covers on all of the issues from Bob Larkin, Earl Norem, Ken Barr, and others. Those were my introduction to Marvel's B&W line. I went from POTA to Doc Savage and Savage Sword of Conan and Marvel Preview/Bizarre Adventures. I picked up several of the color comics, which reprinted the movie adaptations of the first two films from the magazine.
Call me a grump. but most of those covers are terrible - and one thing that doesn't do any of them any favours is the appalling colouring. Was it all manually-cut overlays back then, or some kind of wash applied to bluelines, or....looks like they gave it to the work-experience kid to do during his lunch break.
It wasn't always so bad* - I remember the early MWOMs and the like being somewhat more restrained, but this lot really do take the cake with poor judgement.
*I'm in Nostalgic Grumpy Old Man mode here - I seem to recall the colouring in a lot of annuals back then was quite iffy too.
I don't remember if I ever had any of the U.S. POTA mags, but I recall seeing them advertised in other b&w titles at the time, Graham. Maybe I'll track one down some day and add it to my collection.
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I think these covers were coloured in the usual way, BS, but I'm convinced it depended on what type of paper was used and who the printer was as to the quality of the end result. For example, it was the same people who applied the grey tones to interior pages of the U.K. mags as the U.S. ones, but the U.K. ones were dark and murky, whereas the U.S. ones looked okay. On one of the weekly Super-Heroes mag, the splash page is printed on the inside of the glossy cover and the grey tones are fine, whereas on the next ordinary paper page, the detail is obscured by greys that are almost black. When Marvel had paper covers the same as the interiors, the colouring usually didn't look too bad, but on the glossy (U.K.) covers, the colouring looked as if it had been painted on glass. I think the ordinary paper 'absorbed' the ink better than the glossy paper.
Gah !! How long has this post been up, I'm only reading it now - I'm late to the party AGAIN just like when these covers were new. I don't know how I managed to miss the first four issues of POTA as I was a massive fan of the TV show and apparently POTA No.1 was advertised on TV. I also missed #8 including your letter, Kid, so I never had the surreal experience of reading something written by you when I was 8 years old. When I saw #5 on sale I assumed it was all about the TV show as I'd never heard of the apes films - so I was extremely baffled by the story inside but it was a comic called Planet Of The Apes so that was enough to hook me. Funny thing is I found out fairly quickly what the covers of POTA #1-3 and #8 looked like despite not owning them but the cover of POTA #4 remained a mystery till the internet came along. And B Smith says most of these covers are terrible - WHAT ??? They are all classics in my opinion !! And #10 was by George Perez - I never knew that before !
Speaking objectively, CJ, I'd agree with BS that the covers are hardly the finest ever produced, but I have a nostalgic affection for them that enables me to appreciate them beyond any inherent artistic merit (or lack of it). It's the same with you - because they represent a happy period from your childhood, your opinion of them is coloured by nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that - it's what this blog is all about after all.
The issue 1 cover and the poster (which was the first-issue cover for the US magazine) are both by Bob Larkin. He's also the artist who painted the covers for Dazzler #1, many Doc Savage novels, and Marvel's original comic adaptation of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (among many other projects). You can find more of his art at his art blog: http://boblarkin.blogspot.com
Thanks for the info, Sroman - I think I'll add it to my blog list.
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