Goulart & Kane's STAR HAWKS (1977)

Inspired - as so many things were in the late 70s - by the tremendous success of Star Wars, the newspaper feature syndicate NEA (Newspaper Enterprise Association) got it into their heads that a space opera comic strip that evoked the cosmic high adventure and swashbuckling derring-do of George Lucas' movie might be a popular addition to the nation's comics pages. They contacted comics historian and science fiction author Ron Goulart (who had written a quartet of Flash Gordon novels for Avon Books, and would later ghostwrite William Shatner's popular "Tek" series) to develop their proposed comic strip.

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Goulart then contacted comic book veteran Gil Kane, artist on scores of DC and Marvel titles, to collaborate with him on what ultimately became Star Hawks - which began on October 3, 1977 and ran through 1981. Star Hawks was a pulpy concoction that chronicled the adventures of Interplanetary Law Service officers Rex Jaxan, Chavez, and Alice K, as they battled a procession of interstellar criminals and miscreants. The strip actually took place in Goulart's "Barnum System," a sci-fi setting that he used in many of his original novels (incl. Clockwork Pirates, Galaxy Jane & Shaggy Planet), and, in 1980-81, Goulart even published two Star Hawks prose novels titled Empire 99 and The Cyborg King.

According to Kane, in a 1978 Comics Journal interview: "I got a call from Ron Goulart, who told me he'd been having some talks with Flash Fairfield, who is the art editor of the comics at [the newspaper syndicate] NEA, and they wanted to see me about going to work on that strip. I met with them at that time. Ron had done about two weeks of material, but it was very far from where we went with it. So we reworked the material, and I'm very strong ... on romance and lyricism, and I started to advance the cause of that kind of material and make it less satirical and more of a classic[-style] adventure strip. [For the hero,] originally I had James Coburn in mind. ... The hero's friend, Chavez, was modeled after a bald-headed Victor McLaglen."

The format the team pushed for was unique for newspaper syndication: the daily strip was laid out in two tiers. Each daily was twice as deep as a normal daily strip. This format allowed artist Kane great flexibility in his layouts, but it did hinder NEA's efforts to sign on papers to carry the strip. The strip ran daily and Sunday for three and a half years, for a total of 1,252 strips - in the end, the dailies had gone to a standard single-tier format, and the writing had been taken over by the great Archie Goodwin, who also wrote the Star Wars newspaper strip (as well as a million other things).

My local papers didn't carry the strip in the 70s, but I did pick up the two paperback collections published by Ace/Tempo in 1980/81, and read many of the installments in the 80s when Hawks was reprinted in early issues of Amazing Heroes magazine. I love Kane's depiction of the series universe and the stories are fun and fast-paced.

I know that Hermes Press has reprinted the entire run of the strips in a single volume, Star Hawks The Complete Series, but according to the customer reviews on Amazon, the art reproduction may not be as good as it could be, and I'm hesitant to shell out for the (rather pricey) book, if it doesn't look very good - especially as Kane's art is what I love best about the strip.

Captain's bLog: 0823.11

• Still working on some new posts, including Man From Atlantis and Thundarr The Barbarian DVD reviews, a new Reader's Poll and articles about the Gil Kane/Ron Goulart sci-fi newspaper comic strip Star Hawks and the aborted Star Trek II television series from the mid-70s. I know there's not much of August left, but I'm hoping to get all of those posted before the end of the month. I am almost finished with the second Space: 1970 podcast, too, but it probably won't be available until September.

•  Support Space: 1970: The site now has over 315 "followers" here on Blogger, and the Facebook fan page is up to 690 "likes." My sincere appreciation to everyone for their moral support and loyalty! I also want to thank everyone who have used the Amazon links on this site to make purchases (and the few who've made Paypal donations - if you'd like to contribute, there's a link in the right-hand sidebar). Every little bit helps.

• So stay tuned. I am working hard on getting some more substantial posts finished soon. In the meantime, enjoy this cool Star Blazers art!

Sybil Danning Presents: SPACE: 1999 - ALIEN ATTACK

Here's a fun, campy clip: from the mid-80's U.S.A. Home Video "Sybil Danning's Adventure Video" line of VHS tapes - an "action flick" imitation of the Elvira-hosted horror tapes - the nigh-legendary Sybil Danning, best remembered by the Space: 1970 faithful as the statuesque Valkyrie from Battle Beyond The Stars, introduces one of the Space:1999 "feature" compilation films, Alien Attack.

And here's the original VHS cover art:

Behind-The-Scenes Pix #5: PLANET OF THE APES

Just a day at the beach for lovely Linda Harrison and alpha male/omega man Charlton Heston during the shooting of Franklin Schaffner's original Planet Of The Apes in 1968.

SPACE WARS Magazine (1978) - Original Cover Art

Here's a very cool art find (thanks to Anthony Taylor): the original cover painting by an uncredited artist for the December 1978 issue of Space Wars magazine, one of the many Starlog imitators, published between 1977 and 1980 by the imaginatively-named "Stories Layout And Press Inc." I don't believe that I had this particular issue, but I'm pretty sure I had a few Space Wars mags in my stash at one point or another. If I recall correctly, Space Wars was all black & white, printed on the cheapest newsprint, with terrible photo reproduction and poor layout. Still, I read my copies over and over until they fell apart.

From the likenesses, it's obviously heavily photo-referenced, so it's odd that artist is so off-model on the Vipers. Still, I'm kinda tickled by the liberties taken with the design of the Colonial fighters - the changes are actually pretty damned cool!

ADDENDUM: As Tim pointed out in the comments, this art also appeared on a Dynamite magazine cover - with considerably less obscuring copy. I thought I'd seen it before!

THE BLACK HOLE (1979) International Theatrical Posters

A lot of promotional art was generated for Disney's 1979 space opera, The Black Hole. About a year ago, I posted a bunch of theatrical one-sheets from the film - one of my favorites from the era - and now, here's a couple more nicely-designed International theatrical posters that I've stumbled across in my galactic Googling. I particularly like the top one - it's a great image. Enjoy.

McDonalds STAR TREK MEAL (1979)

The only meal approved for your kids by the United Federation of Planets. Wow.

STAR WARS (1977) Poster by Howard Chaykin

Artist Howard Chaykin was personally selected by George Lucas to draw Marvel's official Star Wars comics adaptation back in 1977, and penciled both the film adaptation and the following Magnificent Seven-inspired story arc (several years before Roger Corman  & John Sayles would exploit the same idea in Battle Beyond the Stars!). This poster was a Limited Edition piece - the first - commissioned by  Lucas.

Diving Into The MAN FROM ATLANTIS (1977)

I received my Man From Atlantis DVDs - both the TV Movies Collection and Complete Series set - from Warner Archive (thanks, Matt!) last Friday, and spent a large chunk of my weekend submerged in its 70's retro TV charms. I will be posting a full review later this week, both here (with screenshots) and at my DVD Late Show site (without screenshots), but I wanted to make a few observations here that might not make it into my formal review.

One thing I noticed was that while the 90-minute TV films were science fiction, and had plots based around scientific (or pseudo-scientific) elements, the weekly television series was pretty much pure fantasy, with amnesiac aqua-mariner Mark Harris gallivanting around through time and space, often without even any attempt to rationalize or explain his travels. In one episode, "Shoot-Out At Land's End," he meets his identical, water-breathing twin in the Old West, but the time-shift is completely unexplained. In another, "The Naked Montague," he magically finds himself in the midst of Shakespeare's fictional Romeo and Juliet - and it's portrayed as being a "real" experience.

While the TV movies seem to be aimed at a family audience, with a little something for both parents and kids, the weekly series - probably by network dictate - seems to be purely a kid's show. There is virtually no violence at all in most episodes (even fist fights), and stories tend to be wrapped up in the most remarkably anti-climactic manner; usually by Mark just being infuriatingly calm and reasonable. For one example - "Imp," which stars Pat (Karate Kid) Morita as a mischievous - and utterly inexplicable - magical troublemaker who wreaks havoc and causes several deaths over 40 minutes... only to (SPOILER) meekly apologize and go away (to wherever he came from) once Mark gets a chance to talk to him for 30 seconds and reasonably explain to him the damage he's caused. Sigh.

The weekly show looks great, though, with consistently nice photography, great sets (the revamped interior of the Cetacean submersible and the Foundation's underground headquarters are both really slick, by 70s TV standards), and marvelous, Old School miniature effects. There's even some little bits of stop-motion here and there, handled by Gene Warren's (The Land Of the Lost) effects house.

Patrick Duffy is always likable and engaging, and Belinda J. Montgomery (who unfortunately sees her role drastically diminished once the show goes to series - and is absent entirely from the final two installments) is beautiful and sexy-smart. Victor Buono is amusing as Mark's recurring nemesis, Mr. Schubert, but he's frankly overused (he appears in five out of the first seven episodes) and far too genial to be much of a threat. In fact, he's so nonthreatening, that it really drives home the idea that NBC saw Man From Atlantis as a prime-time kiddie show, rather than a general audience science fiction adventure.

Again, I'll be writing full reviews for later in the week, but I will say that Warner Archive's "remastered" DVDs look really good. There's still plenty of specks and bits of debris on the prints, but overall picture quality is very stable and strong, with bright colors, and generally excellent detail. Stay tuned.

Captain's bLog: Supplemental.

Sorry for the lack of new posts on the blog over the last few days. I'm sorta taking a week off to recharge my batteries and work on other stuff, but I'll be posting regularly again next week. In the meantime, why not check out the Space: 1970 Facebook page, where I occasionally post images and links that I don't necessarily post here - or maybe some of my other sites?

For more information on my professional writing and other projects, swing by my homepage, Atomic Pulp, and my Atomic Pulp blog. Or maybe read some of my more than 500 DVD and Blu-ray reviews at DVD Late Show. And the Mills Movie Poster Vault celebrates the diversity of my - and my wife's - love of cinema and cinema art.

I'm also on Facebook and Twitter. (BTW - I always announce new Space: 1970 updates at both places.)

New posts on Monday (maybe sooner). Don't touch that dial...

FLASH GORDON (1980) Pinball Machine Flyer

Here's another vintage pinball machine flyer; this one is for Bally's beautiful Flash Gordon table, based on the Dino de Laurentis/Mike Hodges Flash feature film. Of all the 70s arcade sci-fi tie-ins I've covered here so far, I think the Flash machine has - by far - the best backglass art (with very decent likenesses of Sam Jones and company) and table graphics. This is one delightfully garish pinball machine!

I really love this one. If I could find and afford them, I think I'd really dig having one of these - and one of the Gottlieb Buck Rogers machines - in my home.

Coming Attractions: AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) Theatrical Trailer

At The Earth's Core was another of the John Dark/Kevin Connor 70s adventure films based on and/or inspired by the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs. As with the others - The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot - the film starred stalwart Doug McClure. In this case, though, he was joined by the stunning Caroline Munro (Starcrash's Stella Star, herself) and the always awesome Peter Cushing (Star Wars' Garnd Moff Tarkin) in a loose adaptation of the Burroughs classic, which I watched again last night on DVD.

Set in a savage, Stone Age jungle within the hollow Earth, the film version of At The Earth's Core eschewed the dinosaurs and primitive mammals of the novel in favor of utterly fantastic monsters portrayed by men in rubber suits and animatronic 'bots. Truth be told, I actually dig these goofy monsters, and am kinda glad the filmmakers went that way with the beasties. The two best things about the movie, though, are Caroline Munro as Dia the Beautiful ("Dian" in the book) - and the realization of the heroes' subterranean "Iron Mole" vehicle, which has a gorgeous, Victorian aesthetic to its design and features. The third best aspect of the film is Cushing's delightfully scatterbrained portrayal of Professor Abner Perry. 

I'll write more about this film one of these days, because corny as the Dark/Connor films were, they were among the more high-profile genre movies of the era. I remember really wanting to see them whenever they played at local theaters and drive-ins, and am still annoyed that I never got to see Warlords of Atlantis... and still haven't.