Ka-zar 1970

[Red Oak Kid]

I'm just wondering what the thinking at Marvel was, when they came out with the .25 cent Ka-Zar title in 1970?

Had some other issue of a Marvel title guest starring Ka-Zar had a spike in sales and they wanted to cash in on the popularity of this character?

And why a .25 cent book?

These three issues are made up mainly of reprints. And what new material there is, does not seem to be Ka-Zar related. The new stories feature Hercules and Angel.

It just seems like an odd title with an unusual mix of stories.

What were they thinking?

http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=1943

[spoon_jenkins]

According to the GCD, Ka-Zar's Astonishing Tales began the exact same month, so the reprint doesn't seem to be a try-out for that series. The Marvel Chronology Project (www.chronologyproject.com) has Ka-Zar's most recent previous appearance as the one in the Thomas/Adams X-Men run 8 months earlier. And it seems pretty odd that there such a gap between issues.

Maybe it was some sort of a legal tactic - what with a previous character named Ka-Zar in existence.

The Angel stories were written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel. Maybe there's a story behind publishing Marvel work by him in such an odd venue. The Angel stories also kept the X-Men around while their series was reduced to reprints.

ETA: The Angel stories are reprinted in vol. 5 of the silver age X-Men Marvel Masterworks. According to Roy Thomas's intro to that volume, they were written circa 1967, but sat around unpublished until 1970-71. Thomas does not recall why.

[MWGallaher]

My guess is that Ka-Zar and Dr. Doom were the best selling features from Marvel Super-Heroes the year before. Stan might have hesitated at giving Doom, a villain, his own book, and tested the waters again for Ka-Zar with the reprint. Stan might have wanted to expand genres and, remembering jungle comics' successes in the 50's, figured Ka-Zar was a good bet. Stan might also have learned through the grapevine that DC was negotiating to take over the Tarzan comic, and wanted to beat them to the punch. As I recall, the early 70's were a renaissance for ERB's novels; while Marvel was attracting the Conan readers, maybe they figured the same audience would like some jungle action.
Or maybe it was Kirby's idea. Stan might have suggested that Marvel needed to add new comics, and asked Kirby for ideas. We know Kirby was keeping his new ideas close to his vest at the time, so he might have suggested Ka-Zar, who'd already been established at Marvel. After all, when new Ka-Zar stories started appearing in Astonishing Tales, Kirby was producing them. So maybe Stan was doubtful, tried the reprint quarterly, got decent sales, and ok'd the Ka-Zar/Doom dual book.

[MWGallaher]

Ah, Spoon points out that the reprint quarterly was obviously not a trial balloon for Ka-Zar's new series; my guess then is that is was an attempt at generating additional publicity, while experimenting with the 25 cent size. Since it was all reprint/inventory, it didn't cost much to produce, so if the larger size was a flop it wouldn't cause much damage.

[rick]

Keep in mind that back then Marvel also had a large number of reprint books being published and there wasn't really anyhting out of the ordinary about seeing the odd title show up.

[Red Oak Kid]

Keep in mind that back then Marvel also had a large number of reprint books being published and there wasn't really anyhting out of the ordinary about seeing the odd title show up.

Right. Because of the covers, I had always "assumed" that this was a title like the Silver Surfer, ie; a new story in the front of the book with reprints in the back.

I see now that it was a reprint book from the word go.

Regarding Jerry Siegel, I think I read in the Jim Warren interview in CBA that either Warren or editor Archie Goodwin bought some scripts from Siegel in the 60s but never used them.

[Rob Allen]

Another possible factor: Skywald had a jungle-themed 25-center as part of their short-lived color comics line of 1971. Maybe Marvel wanted to beat them to the punch?

[DocL]

I can remember the day I got that first 25 cent Kazar comic book. My Mom brought it home unexpectedly. I had been buying and reading comics for 6 or 7 years by then but it was the first comic book I remember her actually purchasing and bringing home to me (unsolicited). Loved it.

[Kirk G]

That time period did feature some odd bounces.
The Angel back-up was the most interesting of all the stories, but pretty darn poor from my memory... bad art, weak storyline....
The Ka-Zar should have been stronger and of more interest, but didn't hold any attention for long.
It may have been a few reprints that could be thrown out there because they were there, and in search of a venue.

This WAS before Kirby left, right? It wasn't an effort to put more Kirby archieve work out in the marketplace when he jumped or was about to jump to DC, was it?

Maybe they knew their rights to a Tarzan clone were about to run out, and wanted to build as much interest in Kazar as possible before his solo split book debuted, and the schedule got slid back or forward so they were coming out simultaneously???

[T GUy]

Kirk,

Maybe they knew their rights to a Tarzan clone were about to run out

In fact, Western Publishing's rights to Tarzan were about to expire. They were snapped up by DC for the next five years.

[Red Oak Kid]

This WAS before Kirby left, right? It wasn't an effort to put more Kirby archieve work out in the marketplace when he jumped or was about to jump to DC, was it?



I wondered about that too. Exactly when did Kirby stop working for Marvel and start doing work for DC? Were those Kirby Ka-Zar stories in Astonishing Tales published after he left Marvel?

[InfoBroker]

Exactly when did Kirby stop working for Marvel and start doing work for DC? Were those Kirby Ka-Zar stories in Astonishing Tales published after he left Marvel?

I don't have any of these comical books at hand, so again this is associative memory at work.

Kirby officially stopped working for Marvel, BEFORE Astonishing Tales #1 or Amazing Adventures #1 were on the newstands. Everything there was work already completed by Jack, but because of the amount of material completed for the Inhumans (4 installments) this was IIRC, the last of the new material to see print (with the exception of the weirdly reworked FF#108).

Astonishing Tales #1 is cover dated Aug 1970, and it was on the newsracks in early June.

Amazing Adventures #4 is cover dated Jan 1971 and was on the newsracks in October of 1970.

The announcement for Kirby's departure is mentioned in Stan's Soapbox column in the Bulletin Board Page for the month that is consistant with Fantastic Four 102. It starts with "Who says lightening never strikes twice..." which refers to Steve Ditko's leaving four years earlier.

The very next month when Jack's work was no longer in FF and Thor, the entire Bulletins Page was devoted to information about the switch in creative talents on Marvel's three biggest selling series (Spidey, FF and Thor).

Sidenote: Same month as FF 101, John Buscema did an issue of Thor, while Jack did the final issue of Silver Surfer. With Jack's departure, John Romita did the FF and Neal Adams handled Thor before John Buscema became the "permanent" penciller on both series.

Sometime just after FF#100, but just before after FF#101, I became aware of Jack leaving Marvel. I remember this because when I bought FF#100 off the newsracks and read it, I have no associative memory of Jack leaving, but it was a known deal to me by the time I read 101.

Due to lead times, prior to seeing anything in Marvel, I first learned this was via the route of fanzines (mailed 4th class), probably The Collector. The news of Jack leaving was already traveling through the printed medium of fandom. Don and Maggie even published a special edition of NEWSFANGLES (wish I had one). Being how fandom worked, and the oddball fanzines I was subscribed to at the time, the word of month could have started a month, maybe even more before I became aware of it.

FF #101 cover date August 1970, on the newsracks the same month as Astonishing Tales #1. This is also the same month that Jack and John Buscema traded Thor and Silver Surfer pencilling duties. Jack's issue was the last one printed. Following this, in an effort to improve sales, Stan had reworked the character and concepts for the Surfer book and Herb Trimpe drew an issue, but it was never published.

I would say, that sometime in the early spring of 1970 (perhaps even Feburary) Jack handed in his resignation.

Ka-zar(1970) #1, followed Astonishing Tales #1 by a week or two. I do remember being out of school when my friend, Frank Gorshe asked me if I wanted him to pick one up for me.

re: Marvel's Reprint Growth Rate

As a reprint comical book, and looking at it in retrospect, it could be thought of as another trend-setter of sorts. If you want to call Marvel having a slew of reprint titles running in tandem with their regular seires a trend.

Prior to this Ka-zar comic, Marvel had three regular, bi-monthly super-hero based reprint books and they only printed their annuals (which starting in 1969 were now all reprint as well) in the three Summer months. Marvel Tales (Spidey Torch and Thor - with Spidey soon taking it over completely), Marvel Greatest Comics (FF, Iron-man, Dr. Strange - with FF also consuming completely) and Marvel Super-heroes(which moved around from Avengers, X-men, DD and Hulk before settling on Hulk).

X-men resumed publication with issue #67 all reprint and giant size just like Ka-zar. Cover date December 1970 and on the racks September.

Over the coming months, Marvel would produce several giant size reprint books, some regular series like Ka-zar and X-men, others annuals, but now no longer limited to just the summer months. These also included their monsters books like Fear (always a 25center) and the Dwelling/Loose/Prowling books that went from new material and standard size, to giant size reprints. Shield came back as a 25 cent reprint book as well. DD, Iron-man, Subby, Hulk had special annuals. All reprint. There were others for both categories. I don't know how many, and I don't know the exact release dates because in this timeframe I had taken my brief sabbatical from hardcore comical buying.

But this comic, Ka-zar #1 which I view as the beginning of a floodgate, was part of a growing pattern by Marvel to use reprints to expand their sales numbers and provide additional capital to cover their operating expenses.

Other benefits have been noted to this sudden flood of reprint material in 1970-71.

It could leverage other publishers material off the racks, especially newbies like Skywald.

It was an outlet for freshly publishing lots of old Kirby material, maintaining the now clearly defined "look" of Marvel Comics even though the master was gone.

I think providing background story for Ka-zar, the Kirby factor (although a bit early here since there was a gap of 4-5 months between FF102 and Jimmy Olsen #133), and prepping the production department for a stead stream of reprint material were probably the main reasons for this Ka-zar to appear in this time frame and with this format.

- jb the ( the "Conan is Coming" ad also appeared on the BB pages of FF102 IIRC) ib -

[InfoBroker]

According to Mike's Amazing DC Website, Jimmy Olsen #133 was on the racks October of 1970. Two months after Ka-zar #2, the same month as Amazing Adventures #4, and a mere 4 months after FF#102.

Given DC's extra lead time, it doesn't look like Jack took more than a couple of months to move from one major venue to another.

-jb the ib-

[Kirk G]

Very interesting analysis.
I remember seeing "Kirby is Here", but not understanding just what that meant.

I recall the FF going downhill from about 95 onward to 109... and though I hung on for two years afterwards, comics just weren't the same. But I couldn't tell why, except that they didn't LOOK the same... and the stories didn't FEEL the same.... The King was gone...
And when Orion #1 (titled "New Gods" #1) came out, it just didn't make it feel like Lee & Kirby Thor or FF... and so, I never bought any.... more's the pity.

[Mark Evanier]

Jack stopped working for Marvel the first week on March, 1970. He started almost immediately on his work for DC, writing and drawing the first issues of FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS and MR. MIRACLE (in that order) and covers for them. He then went on to do his first JIMMY OLSEN.

Marvel added the KA-ZAR reprint book around that time for a couple of reasons. For one, Martin Goodman (the publisher) had a kind of possessive feel about the character since, albeit in a different form, it dated back to his early days as a pulp publisher. He kind of regarded himself as its creator.

Also, Gold Key's TARZAN and KORAK comics were selling very well...better than most Marvels. Goodman was a big believer in the idea of looking at what the competition had that was selling and then putting out his version of it.

But also at the time, Marvel was trying to keep its monthly volume of sales high for advertisers. Back then, if you bought an ad in Marvel Comics, your ad appeared in every comic published in one month and you were guaranteed that number would total a certain number. (I think, in 1970, it was something like six million.) So if Marvel had, say, 15 comics in a month and sales dropped a little on each, they'd rush out a reprint book so that the 16 comics would total over six million total copies sold in the month. Even if the new comic didn't make a profit, it had a value to them in that sense.

Anyway, I believe the main idea behind the KA-ZAR book was that Goodman believed the character could catch on and maybe snag some of that TARZAN audience. They had an issue drawn by George Tuska...and I forget who wrote it, but Goodman wasn't happy with it so instead of issuing it as the first issue of a new KA-ZAR comic, they burned it off in the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES book, along with a couple of other similar stories. Goodman then decreed that they should try building an audience for KA-ZAR with the strip in ASTONISHING TALES and the reprint book...but they didn't catch on.

[Cei-U!]

I believe the main idea behind the KA-ZAR book was that Goodman believed the character could catch on and maybe snag some of that TARZAN audience. They had an issue drawn by George Tuska...and I forget who wrote it, but Goodman wasn't happy with it so instead of issuing it as the first issue of a new KA-ZAR comic, they burned it off in the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES book, along with a couple of other similar stories.

Arnold Drake and Steve Parkhouse wrote the Ka-Zar issue of Marvel Super-Heroes.

Cei-U!
Mightier than mastodon!

[Citizen V]

Speaking of Ka-Zar,i have not heard much from the character.The last time i heard anything about it was in the mid 90`s.