Savage Tales


Savage Tales is the title of three American comics series. Two were black-and-white comics-magazine anthologies published by Marvel Comics, and the other a color comic book anthology published by Dynamite Entertainment.

Publication history

Marvel

The first of the two volumes of Savage Tales ran 11 issues, with a nearly 2-year hiatus after the premiere issue. It marked Marvel's second attempt at entering the comics-magazine field dominated by Warren Publishing, following the two-issue superhero entry The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1968. Starring in the first issue were:
Thomas, who would shortly thereafter become Marvel editor-in-chief, recalled in 2008 that
When the magazine eventually began publishing again years later in the wake of a Conan-inspired sword-and-sorcery trend in comics, it starred the likes of Conan; fellow Robert E. Howard hero Kull of Atlantis; and John Jakes' barbarian creation, Brak. As of issue #6, the magazine cover-featured Ka-Zar.
The series featured painted covers by comics artists including John Buscema, Pablo Marcos & John Romita, Neal Adams, Boris Vallejo, and Michael Kaluta. A 1975 annual, consisting entirely of reprints, mostly from Ka-Zar's color-comics series, sported a new cover by Ken Barr.
Volume 2 ran eight issues. It featured adventure and action stories with a military fiction slant. Stories in the first and fourth issues, a feature called "5th to the 1st" by writer Doug Murray and artist Michael Golden, were the forerunners of the duo's color-comics series The 'Nam.

Dynamite Entertainment

In 2007 American publisher Dynamite Entertainment started a new Savage Tales, a color comic book sword and sorcery anthology starring the character Red Sonja.

Footnotes