I've seen the Brent Anderson KAZAR portfolio you refer to. It is beautiful stuff.

I really miss the portfolios of the 1974-1983 period, especially the Wrightson, Kaluta and Smith stuff, and the Neal Adams portfolios that reprint the book covers he did for the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books.
Some other great portfolios:
  • FRANKENSTEIN (Wrightson, 1977)
    FRANKENSTEIN II (Wrightson, 1978)
    FRANKENSTEIN III (Wrightson, 1980, the best of the three, I think)
    DRAGONS (Lela Dowling, 1982), and other Dowling works
    REPENT HARLEQUIN, SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN (Steranko, and Ellison, 1978)
    APPARITIONS (Wrightson, 1979)
    CHILDREN OF THE TWILIGHT (Kaluta, 1979)
    DR STRANGE (Golden, 1982)
    BATMAN (Marshall Rogers, 1980)
    MOON KNIGHT (Sienkiewicz, 1982)
    DREADSTAR (Starlin, 1981)
    HULK and X-MEN portfolios (Fastner, Larsen, 1981)
    NEAL ADAMS PORTFOLIO (Sets A, B, and C, 1979-1981)
    STARSLAYER (Grell, 1981)
    Roger Dean Portfolio (1980)
    Art of Jim Fitzpatrick portfolio (I and II, 1980 and 1981)
    The many posters and portfolios of Frazetta's Conan covers and other Frazetta work.

And many others.

  • .



    "Valeria", from The Robert E. Howard portfolio, (1975), by Barry Windsor-Smith. One of five plates, the others being Bran Mak Morn, Conan, Thoth Amon, and Solomon Kane.


And these stand-alone limited edition portfolios arguably evolved out of artist portfolio sections and articles on R.E.Howard and other pulp fantasy authors that ran in SAVAGE TALES, SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, and other similar marvel magazines after.
EPIC ILLUSTRATED also ran a lot of stuff on available portfolios, and I think the movement died with EPIC's cancellation, in early 1986.








  • "The Last Atlantean" by Barry Windsor-Smith, 1981, a limited edition print, that was also used as the cover for EPIC ILLUSTRATED # 7, in 1981. The EPIC issue also contains a Smith interview and a lot of other pages of his art reprinted.



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I initially didn't like Kazar in most of his early appearances, in the 1960's and 1970's. The character's dialogue was a little too stilted, in a typical 70's Marvel/Roy Thomas pseudo-Shakespearian way. CONAN was the one book where that speech pattern worked for me. And THOR.
My favorite early appearance of Kazar was in X-MEN issue 10, (1964) by Stan Lee with Jack Kirby/Chic Stone art. I have the original, but prefer to re-read it now in the Masterworks reprint of X-MEN 1-10.

But Ka-zar wasn't a fun character for me until Bruce Jones and Brent Anderson basically re-created the character in the 1981 KAZAR series.
The Bruce Jones KAZAR series in 1981 gave the character a much-needed sense of humor, while also taking the series in an Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure-type of direction. With exceptional writing, and some of the best and wildest cliffhangers in comics history each issue. Brent Anderson drew the first 19 issues, but if anything the series got even better in issues 20-27 with Ron Frenz/Armando Gil art.

I was just thinking of the Goodwin/Williamson STAR WARS comic strips and movie adaptations.
And Williamson's FLASH GORDON work is also comics storytelling in the Edgar Rice Burroughs tradition. A lengthy and high quality run.
Much of their STAR WARS stuff has been reprinted in nice trades by Dark Horse.

I especially like the Goodwin/Williamson work, with nicer printing and not serialized (as the adaptations were in the regular STAR WARS comic). The Williamson adaptations are so much more impressive in the offset-printed magazine-size 8" X 11" MARVEL COMICS SUPER SPECIAL issues, adapting EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (issue 16), REVENGE OF THE JEDI (issue 27)
And the 7" X 10" comic-size BLADERUNER adaptation (issue 22).