I'm re-reading Mike Grell's issues of The Warlord, at least the ones I own (which means 60 of the first 71 issues).

The book was very popular for a while (being a DC best-seller in the late '70s) which is easily explained by its mix of high adventure and cool visuals. It harkens to Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels (Pellucidar, John Carter) and, like its main character, is simply out for a good time. Which it provides aplenty with its world filled with ancient wizardry, forgotten science, swords, dinosaurs, flying people, flying cities, flying horses, ladies turning into cats, guys turning into wolves, dolphins turning into ladies, reincarnation, time travel, and a .44 AutoMag pistol with a seemingly endless supply of bullets. As you can see, "no limit!" seemed to be the order of the day!

For those not familiar with The Warlord, it is an adventure series in which a U.S. pilot accidentally flies his SR-71 spy plane through a hole in the Earth's crust located somewhere near the North Pole. This hole leads to Skartaris, the fantastic inverted world on the inside of our planet! (Inspired by Pellucidar, no doubt, and by the more ancient legends of Shambala. In fact, the city of Shambala is featured in the series).

Skartaris is an extraordinary place of eternal light, as it is lit by the Earth's core acting as its sun. Time down there is a capricious thing; depending on where you are, it will flow faster or slower, helping plug several plot holes (like kids growing up to adulthood in just a few issues when convenient). It has a long history, and was long ago occupied by magical creatures (during the so-called age of the wizard kings"), many of which are still around. It was also colonized by the survivors of Atlantis, who brought their advanced science to the inner world... only to eventually wipe themselves out, leaving only a few automated cities behind. The flora and fauna of Skartaris is very diverse and anachronistic, with a propensity for things that will try to eat you.  

Mike Grell's designs are often beautiful, from Morgan's helmet to the hellfire sword by way of everyone's skimpy outfits. His double splash pages have become legendary, even if they did eat up a lot of pages in an era of 17-page books. Most of the plots were rather simple; see monster, kill monster...  but the magic of the book is that Grell created a wonderful cast for it. You really cared for those people, and more great ones were introduced regularly.

Grell wrote and drew the first 50-odd issues, then wrote it for a few more years. I dropped the mag when he left, avoiding the effects Crisis on Infinite Earths must have had on Skartaris. That's a nice run for a book that marked an era. 
 

I had no idea! Sharon would be the one who came up with all those excellent quotable lines after issue #50, then!

Thanks for the recommendation! I do have a few scattered issues of the rest of the run, but nothing struck me as material I really wanted to chase down.

What I'd really like to read is the final run of the Warlord, the one that concludes the saga... it's too bad it's not available as a trade paperback; the low print run makes those issues very hard to get.

I'll have to disagree with Crimebuster. I don't consider Warlord to be worth reading after the Grell's left. But then the only Grell creation that faired remotely well after Grell left was Starslayer. And that's probably only because he was lucky enough to have Ostrander take over. Warlord and Jon Sable without Grell are pale shadows of their former selves.

Well, to be fair, Warlord #90 during this run was the third comic book I ever bought, so I am very biased towards that era for sentimental reasons.

For me, it doesn't bog down until #101 when he starts on a quest that lasts until, like, #116 or something. It does get better towards the very end of the series, thanks to Jan Duursema, who provides some excellent covers. 






I'll be curious to hear what you think of the two later Grell runs when you get to them. 

MOST manga that comes out these days is romance, actually.   The mostly call them 'Shojo'.. if you do an internet search you'll fine a billion of them.   The majority are school based, but there are plenty of others.

The original run was just so all over the place. After the first 11 issues, you just didn't know what you were getting month to month until the final storyline (which was amazing).

Here's my old overview of the volume, along with recommendations on which issues you can totally skip:

www.classiccomics.org/thread/150/series-overviews-thread?page=1#post-7876