Number 4 is Howard Chaykin's The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell. This graphic novel, published by Heavy Metal, was a collaboration between Michael Moorcock and Howard Chaykin, using Moorcock's Erekose, the Eternal Champion.



It is an original story, rather than an adaptation; but, it serves as a third tale of Erekose, after The Eternal Champion and The Phoenix and the Sword (aka The Silver Warriors). Moorcock wrote an outline, which Chaykin then used to create his story. The book opens with a reminder who Erekose is, the Eternal Champion, fated to exist through time and space as the guardian of the balance between Order and Chaos. He slew mankind in his debut and now he has been pulled to this realm, where he discovers he is Clen of Clen-Gar, Lord of the Dream Marches. The Dream Marches are a middle ground, between lands known as Heaven and Hell. He comes across barbarians who have killed a flying creature, known as an "angel." Erekose attacks the barbarians for killing the angel and they surrender and explain who he is. he is then rescued by twin sisters, orana and Onara, who are soldiers in his forces. He learns that the angels soak up water vapor from the air and release it, at night, on Hell, in the form of acid rain, making it a harsh, desolate place. They take him back to the Dream Marches, where he meets the other lords, who are based on characters from the comedia del arte, with names that are variations on Pierroth, Harlequin, and Scaramouche (who does not do the fandango). He learns that their borders are threatened by the barbarians of Hell and their forces aren't strong enough. he travels to heaven to appeal for aid and finds it a decadent place, who care little for the affairs of lesser people. he finds treachery and vanity and the Dream Marches must fend for themselves. Erekose learns more of the angels and finds a way to return a balance between Heaven and Hell.

Chaykin was deep in a very fertile period, as he had been working on more personal things, like Cody Starbuck and his adaptation of Alfred bester's The Stars My Destination. Moorcock was impressed with Chaykin's maturity and aspirations beyond the comic book norm, as well as his more assured personality and knowledge and respect of illustrative traditions beyond comic books.

The end result is one of the early Eternal Champion comics works (apart from the Imagine and Star*Reach stories). Chaykin goes a bit further than Roy Thomas and P Craig Russell and Michael T Gilbert, as this original story gives him the freedom to create, not just adapt.

The book has recently been reprinted as part of the Michael Moorcock Library, bringing Chaykin's beautiful painted art back for a new generation to marvel.

Tarzan #9, “The God of Tarzan”
Adaptation of the short story from Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Scripted by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala
Marvel, 1977

Marvel’s Tarzan was the closest I got to just picking an entire run, but as I said in an earlier post, my own personal rule for this posts was to try to pick individual stories. Even so, I wanted to give a shout-out to my favorite Tarzan comics ever – to me the definitive comics version of Tarzan appeared in this series, as rendered first by John and then Sal Buscema for a few years in the late 1970s.
Anyway, I narrowed down my choice to the adaptations of the stories from Jungle Tales of Tarzan, which is probably the book from the original series that I enjoyed the most. Thomas adapted four of those stories, the other three being “Tarzan Rescues the Moon” in issue #7, “Tarzan’s First Love” and “The End of Bukawai” in Annual #1, but I settled “The God of Tarzan” because I recall that it was my favorite of the lot.

Otherwise, since my I no longer have my original collection, I had to source these images online – so hat-tip to Lloyd Smith, who runs the Diversions of the Groovy Kind blog.

4. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles






Some of my choices have been about enjoying the "further adventures" of various characters. As I stated in my initial post, there was a time when a show was off the air and you had nothing to help you pass the time as far as the show was concerned; this isn't an issue in the age of countless spin-offs, of course.

So it meant I appreciated comic spin-offs and the like.

For over 50 issues, and beginning in 1990, Fleetway Publications published Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, a title very true to the spirit of the animated show.

Like the show, the colours were vibrant. There was plenty of action. The characters were "on model". And the humour was spot on, too. If ever there was a masterclass in remaining "on model", this is one of many comics that led the way. It was the perfect substitute for when the show was not on the air.

Like a lot of UK comics at the time, it was A4-sized and published on glossy paper. I always liked A4 as compared to the smaller-sized US comics, some of which were printed on newsprint.

You'd have to be a fan of the Turtles to enjoy this, of course. I was and did. I have no idea, and research has proved fruitless, whether these were reprints of anything or original tales for the UK market. They were certainly a lot of fun.

The MAD Magazine Star Wars movie satires (original trilogy) (EC, 1978, 1981, 1983)




I'm sure that it'll come as no surprise to those who know me in the forum to hear that, back in the early '80s, I was a total Star Wars geek. I mean, I was a real GEEK. A total obsessive. I thought about Star Wars constantly, read the comic religiously, watched the first movie on VHS as often as I could (I've seen it well over 350 times to date), played with the figures every chance I got, and talked about it for hours on end with my best friend, David (who was equally obsessed, of course).

As for MAD Magazine, I've spoken before about what a subversive impact it had on me at the tender age of 10 or 11, and how, as an adult, I now realise how much it has influenced my worldview and general outlook on life. It was David who first got me into MAD. His parents had a few of the paperback books, which he regularly used to read and share with me, but I guess it must've been winter 1983 when he was gifted a huge box full of '70s and early '80s MAD magazines by a kindly uncle. We absolutely devoured those magazines, laughing our socks off at the smorgasbord of hilarious wit, needle sharp satire and well-founded cynicism within. But hands down, our favourite thing among those hand-me-down issues were the three Star Wars movie satires.

Titled "Star Roars", the first movie adaptation was drawn by Harry North and written by Larry Siegel and Dick DeBartolo, while the two sequels, "Star Bores: The Empire Strikes Out" and "Re-Hash of the Jeti" were written and drawn by Dick DeBartolo and the great Mort Drucker, respectively. These satires mercilessly skewered and lampooned our beloved Star Wars, but you know what? We loved them! And, to my mind, that was always the great thing about MAD: it was never mean. They could take on the sacred cows of pop culture and send them up mercilessly, but it was all done in such a way that even the most ardent and serious-minded fan of whatever they were lampooning could laugh along and enjoy the comedy. MAD never insulted Star Wars or our intelligence, and that was a big part of why these three satires became almost as quotable to us two SW fanatics as the movies themselves.

Ha ha...that would've been amazing.