posted March 01, 2003 10:12 AM            

Any more, I cannot shake the feeling I'm merely repeating myself for about the 837th when I re-post any portion of My Extensive Wish-List. *sigh* Once I was wrapped in glamour and mystery, now my desires evidently are so familiar that James can truthfully write that if I had participated in a particular discussion, I'd surely have pressed for CRIME DOES NOT PAY reprints, and Old Dude can make jokes about my stillborn DC GOES APE! anthology proposal.

posted March 01, 2003 02:25 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Steven Utley:
But, seriously, folks ....

Any more, I cannot shake the feeling I'm merely repeating myself for about the 837th when I re-post any portion of My Extensive Wish-List. *sigh* Once I was wrapped in glamour and mystery, now my desires evidently are so familiar that James can truthfully write that if I had participated in a particular discussion, I'd surely have pressed for CRIME DOES NOT PAY reprints, and Old Dude can make jokes about my stillborn DC GOES APE! anthology proposal.

Rest assured that the next time I have an original thought (I'm due for one in '05), I'll gladly share it.

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posted March 01, 2003 03:18 PM            

I'd certainly like to see someone reprint Russ Manning's Gold Key work, especially Magnus. As for Valiant editing his work for reprints, I think what happened was that for a time in the early 60s, Gold Key comics had no panel borders, and the Valiant reprints drew some back in. I'm not sure on this, though. I don't know if all issues of Magnus were done without panel borders--I don't think so.

I'd also like to see Manning's Tarzan stuff, although I don't know exactly what he was doing. I know he did the Brothers of the Spear back-ups, and Korak. The only examples I have were from a 1970s digest reprint that I found on ebay last year. Good stuff!

The world will keep revolving if Solar and Turok are never reprinted.

I've always had mixed feelings about Space Family Robinson. I was never sure if this was the chicken or the egg in regards to the Lost in Space tv show. The comic came first; did the tv show rip off the title?, or was the tv show an adaptation of the comic? No one's ever answered that for me. At any rate, I loved the show long before I saw the book, and I couldn't understand who these annoying, toe-headed "Tim and Tam" Robinson imposters were, in their bizarre spaceship shaped like the letter 'H.' I hated them! I wanted to read about Will, Penny the Robot and Dr. Smith! The REAL Robinsons! And I remember at age five, ripping up a March of Comics issue that had Space Family Robinson in it. That book is now worth $110 in Mint. Anyway, as an adult I've grown to admire the comic for what it was, and I think the good Spiegle art needs a second look.

posted March 01, 2003 03:39 PM               

On TARZAN... I've heard Russ Manning is considered in the top 3 TARZAN artists (along with Hal Foster & Burne Hogarth; perhaps whoever ranked them never had the opportunity to see Gray Morrow's recent 18-YEAR run as it probably ran in so few papers). Dark Horse had some pretty dodgy reasonsing for SHRINKING the size of their Manning TARZAN reprints to about halfway between a standard comic-book and a "digest" size. I wanna see 'em at the proper size!!

posted March 01, 2003 06:48 PM               

quote:

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I have the same thought--I'm sure that one of the next ten times I ask to see Strange Adventures or All-Star Western, or some other genre anthology archived whole, somebody's going to tell me that I sound like a broken record.

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Heh. And they'll say the same when I respond with a request for collections of the same material, but segregated by recurring feature.

I guess this is the point most of us reach after posting for several months. I feel like I have repeated my requests for GA Johnny Quick and Robotman waaaa-aaay too often. I know we won't see them in the next few years. Time to give it a rest. Likewise, complaining about volumes dedicated to material from the mid 70s and on. Time for me to shut up on this one, and just celebrate the volumes DC publishes which I do enjoy. I am still doing cartwheels over the imminent Challengers of the Unknown volume. Hallelujah! One of my two most wanted SA series, soon to become reality.

On topic comment: Count me in for reprints of Russ Manning's work, and for reprints of Tarzan as well.

posted March 01, 2003 07:32 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
Manning drew most of the issues of Tarzan from #154 to #177 and the Brothers of the Spear backup feature in Tarzan issues #39-156. He also did the first 11 issues of Korak and the first 22 issues of Magnus.
Not a large body of work to have had such a huge impact, but its compactness would make it easy to reprint in toto.
I prefer Manning's Tarzan strip to Hogarth's, myself, even though he drew Tarzan and everything else in the jungle so squeaky-clean that you'd never know it was outdoors.

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Manning did Tarzan 154, then began his adaptations of the ERB stories. 155-161 163-4 166-7 172-177. 178 reprinted 155.
Issues 162 165 168 171 were called TV Tarzan and had stories based on the then current TV show staring Ron Ely. 169-170 adapted four of the Jungle Tales' stories. None of those were by Manning.

Issue #22 of Magnus was a reprint of #1 (though I believe it did have a new Aliens episode by Manning)

Manning was also the usual artist on Wyatt Earp, Sea Hunt, and, along with Toth, 77 Sunset Strip. He did quite a number of random issues for Dell / Gold Key as well.

posted March 02, 2003 02:10 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
I'll take any Manning reprints I can get, of strips or comic books--Tarzan, Korak, Magnus, Brothers of the Spear, The Aliens, Sea Hunt, Ricky Nelson, whatever.

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posted March 02, 2003 03:31 PM               

I was a fan of the Ron Ely TARZAN tv series. Believe it or not, Ron Ely was my introduction to the character! What many may not be aware of is, the TV series was produced by Sy Weintraub, the same guy who also produced the latter half of the long-running TARZAN movie series (picking up where Sol Lesser left off in the mid-50's and upgrading it with bigger budgets, color film & location shootings). The TV series, in fact, was intended as a CONTINUATION of the existing film series-- but it didn't QUITE work out that way.

Following 2 films with Jock Mahoney (TARZAN GOES TO INDIA, I believe, holds the record for the biggest money-maker of the entire series) statuesque Mike Henry came aboard with the "updated" TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD. From what I've read, apparently the idea was to do 3 films back-to-back but hold back their release until the planned TV series was in production, then put the films out during the summer rerun seasons. As a result, VALLEY OF GOLD hit theatres around 2 YEARS after it was made. However, by the end of the 3rd film, Henry had gotten fed up with the terrible fiming conditions and particularly, the animals (the chimps were the worst, according to him!). So, JUST before the series started, he left-- and the producers were lucky enough to find a replacement who became MORE popular in the long run, and is considered one of the closest in portrayal to the ERB original! But the down side of this was the Mike Henry films were released during the '66, '67, and '68 summer breaks-- and as a kid, I recall seeing the coming attraction for the last one, TARZAN AND THE JUNGLE BOY, and thinking, "That's not the real Tarzan!"

posted March 02, 2003 10:43 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by profh0011:
I know I'm missing a lot of info here, but... doesn't it seem strange that it took Gold Key 154 issues of their TARZAN comic before they decided to adapt the original ERB stories? (Or had they been done before by a more obscure artist?) It also seems a shame that Russ Manning only did 17 issues of the comic.

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I believe Dell had not previously adapted the Tarzan novels. Most if not all of the tarzan Novels were out of print until Ballantine brought them back in the 60s. I suspect most readers of the Dell comic were only familiar with Tarzan from the movies (and their reshowing on TV). Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan was pretty far removed from ERB's.

posted March 03, 2003 02:52 PM               

My first exposure to Weismuller's TARZAN was a one-week "marathon" on Philly's local channel 10. They ran 5 of them (one per day) at 4 in the afternoon-- in a one-hour time slot. With commercials!! Somebody do the math... (Years later, CBS pulled the same number on the NBC MYSTERY MOVIES they ran on late-night-- trying to cram a 90-min. or 2-hour show into an 80-min. time slot.)

Later, Philly's Channel 17 ran the movies on Saturday afternoons at 3 PM-- in a 90-min. slot. This was okay for the middle of the run, which were considered shorter, "B" pictures. But the earlier films got cut purely for time consideration-- and the later ones, the big-budget full-color Sy Weintraubs, were cut TERRIBLY because they were full-length films, but STILL Channel 17 insited on cramming them into that same 90-min. slot!

The one "good" thing was, they ran the films IN SEQUENCE. With one notable exception-- they were MISSING 1932's TARZAN THE APE MAN. That would be like watching a STAR WARS marathon but without Episode IV: A NEW HOPE.

The WEEK Johnny Weismuller DIED, Secaucus' Channel 9 ran his TARZAN debut. I was in a state of SHOCK!! I'd only seen the pathetic John Derek remake. Miles O'Keefe (who looked great but got not one line of dialogue) and Bo Derek (who loked great but should have got no dialogue) aside, the film reeked. I kept getting the idea there was a good story in there, repeatedly sabotaged by a director with no budget and no idea how to accomplish what he wanted. Classic example: Tarzan rides a herd of elephants to the village to rescue Jane & her father. At the edge of the village-- he stops the herd, jumps off the elephant, slowly walks in and fights the chief-- one-on-one-- in a BADLY choreographed fight.

So later I saw the original. WOW!!! There were the "great apes" throwing bolders, knocking people off cliffs. There was Neil Hamilton (BATMAN's Commissioner Gordon) as Jane's father, giving a better acting performance than Richard Harris had (!!!) in the remake. And the finale-- when Tarzan rides that elephant, they don't stop-- they LEVEL THE VILLAGE, stomping dozens of pygmies in the process (a feat KING KONG repeated the following year-- heehee). When Tarzan jumps off that elephant, it's only to jump INTO a pit and fight a 7-foot-tall GORILLA, hand-to-hand, armed only with a knife. What a BRUTAL fight!!! What a GREAT film!!!

posted March 04, 2003 04:38 PM               

In TARZAN's case, almost all the "best" stories were NOT in the syndication run I taped. This included "Mountains Of the Moon" (w/ Diana Ross & The Supremes as a trio of NUNS), "The Deadly Silence" (w/ Jock Mahoney in his 2nd go as a Tarzan VILLAIN!!) and "The Blue Stone Of Heaven" (my personal favorite, w/ William Marshall as a guy who discovers a "lost city" in the jungle and declares himself to be a GOD to the natives).

posted March 04, 2003 09:41 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by profh0011:
In TARZAN's case, almost all the "best" stories were NOT in the syndication run I taped. This included "Mountains Of the Moon" (w/ Diana Ross & The Supremes as a trio of NUNS))

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Holy smokes! What an episode that must be! Has TVLand every run the Tarzan shows? It seems a natural for them.

Does anyone remember the '60s NBC TV show T.H.E. Cat, starring Robert Loggia?

"Out of the night comes a man who saves lives at the risk of his own! Once a circus performer who refused the net! Once a cat burglar who...(I forget this part)...! Fearless!...Savage!!...In love with danger!!!...THE CAT!!!!"

It was only 30 minutes long, but they packed a lot in there. I'd like to see some of those reruns too.

I have a Dell T.H.E. Cat comic. It was probably a one-shot, but I don't know for sure.

posted March 05, 2003 02:58 PM               

Another thing I thought odd the first time I saw them, Manuel Padilla, Jr. is the little boy who appeared in TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD. Later, he was recurring character, then a regular, on the Ron Ely TV series (but playing a different character). There was a similar character in the 3rd Mike Henry film, TARZAN AND THE JUNGLE BOY-- but he was played by a different young actor.

posted March 07, 2003 01:41 AM               

I remember T.H.E. Cat very fondly. My liking a TV series was usually the commercial kiss of death. I am trying very hard to like FOX News in hopes that it will die a sudden death.

In the same time period as T.H.E. Cat, I also liked Honey West with Anne Francis, and a couple years earlier, The Living Doll with Julie Newmar. Since in those cases I remember nothing about the quality of the shows, I suspect it was simply a case of my young hormones going Hubba-Hubba.