Tag: Val Mayerik

Ka-Zar the Savage 16 (July 1982)

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Ron Frenz. Ron Frenz does the pencils this issue. Ron Frenz doing jungle action. Not just jungle action, but jungle action with shades of Lovecraft.

It’s hideous. Even though Gil can’t pencil, he’s inked Ka-Zar well but there’s nothing he can do on Frenz’s pencils. This issue looks incredibly silly.

But the story’s not silly.

It reminds of the Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson Swamp Thing actually, with Ka-Zar and Shanna getting involved in the fantastic without having any idea what’s going on. The mystery keeps getting more confounding–a pygmy tribe, an adorable lemur and a tentacle monster–until Jones explains it all.

The issue works. Jones pulls it off, particularly because he’s got Ka-Zar alone as the protagonist for a while. And when Shanna is around, Jones comes up with some great character drama for the two of them.

The backup (with lovely Mayerik art) is too short.

Ka-Zar the Savage 15 (June 1982)

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Brent Anderson did “thumbnail layouts” for this issue, Gil does the rest. So there are some beautifully composed pages and panels and then not the art to make them work. Gil seems better suited for cartoonist work, not jungle adventure. Especially not a jungle adventure where subtle, poignant emotions are going to play a part.

The issue continues Jones’s pacing problems from the previous one. Even though the issues are immediately subsequent, Jones treats them like time passes. Just because the reader has had a month to sit on a story doesn’t mean the characters have….

As a result, Shanna’s emotional state has moved a lot and the ending, which is exceptionally predictable, falls flat. Jones finally confronts Shanna’s sociological superiority to “savage” peoples and that moment does work. The end could have been so much better.

The Val Mayerik illustrated backup is quite good. It improves the issue overall.