Another interesting pulp-based crimefighter/adventure comic from DC is the 1975 series JUSTICE INC, starring the Avenger and his crimefighting group of men. All issues are scripted by Dennis O'Neil, and it was nice to see him do another pulp-adventure book along with his run on THE SHADOW.
The first issue of JUSTICE INC is illustrated by Al McWilliams.
Even more interesting for me were issues 2-4, scripted by O'Neil, with art by Jack Kirby !
Interesting for a lot of reasons.
First, to see the premier superhero artist (who also excels at horror/mystery, war, romance and science fiction stories) do 1930's brand pulp adventure stories. And Kirby does well with it.
Second, Kirby grew up reading pulp magazines, and grew up living in the 1930's period he illustrated in these stories.
Third, some of the street scenes might actually be autobiographical, depicting the New York City that Kirby grew up in.
Just like Kirby's 1974-1975 run in OUR FIGHTING FORCES was loosely based on some of his WW II experience, fighting in the U.S. infantry in Northern France in 1943-1944.
And fourth, just the rare treasure of seeing a one-of-a-kind collaboration between Kirby and O'Neil, who I see as coming from very different schools of thought, but who collaborated very well in these brief three issues.
It's an interesting comparison to O'Neil's THE SHADOW series collaborations with Kaluta (issues 1-4, and 6), Frank Robbins(issues 5, 7, 8 and 9), and E.R.Cruz (issues 10, 11 and 12).
The original success of THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, THE AVENGER, TARZAN and others in the pulps of the 1930's and prior is what opened the market to Robert E. Howard's own special brand of fantasy adventure.
One of my favorite Robert E. Howard adaptations in comic book form, which I mentioned briefly in my opening post, is
"Almuric", serialized in four parts in EPIC ILLUSTRATED issues 2-5, by Roy Thomas and Tim Conrad.
Gorgeous art !
Especially in the opening segment, which I think really captures the 1930's pulp era, the cars and clothing and the general style of the period.
ALMURIC was later collected in an 8" X 11" graphic novel by Dark Horse in 1991.
Accompanied by a new 4-part miniseries from Dark Horse, with covers by Conrad and interior art by Paul Winchell, also out in 1991.
Another Thomas/Conrad collaboration on Robert E. Howard (again, briefly mentioned above) was collected in an 8" x 11" graphic novel by Cross Plains about 2 years ago,
BRAN MAK MORN:WORMS OF THE EARTH.
It collected the two-part Bran Mac Morn story from SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, in issues 16 and 17.
The opening 7 pages are Tim Conrad finishes over Barry Windsor-Smith pencils !!
As beautiful as you could possibly ask for.
The SSOC issues are black & white, the reprinted version in the Cross Plains BRAN MAK MORN:WORMS OF THE EARTH graphic novel is in full color, and very nicely packaged.
