Nick Cuti and Sword & Sorcery

Nicola Cuti (1944-2020) was born in Brooklyn. He was an airman in the military before working with Ralph Bakshi at the Krantz Animation Studio. He began his publishing career with an underground comix about Moonchild, a sexy space alien. Later he became Wally Wood’s assistant working on Sally Forth and Cannon. This led to selling art and stories to Warren Publications, where his Sword & Sorcery stories would appear. It was as a writer and later as a an editor that Cuti would contribute to S&S comics.

Cuti showed extremely good luck in that he got most of the covers for the following as well as the best artists including S&S masters like Tom Sutton, Wally Wood, Joe Staton, Frank Brunner and Mike Ploog.

“The Calegia” Vampirella #3 (January 1970) has Vjor the hunter offending the Calielia, a centaur-like goddess with wings. To redeem himself he must venture to the castle of the trolls to kill a monster bird that threatens the wood. Riding on the Caliegia’s back, Vjor shoots the bird with his bow. She takes him back to her palace as a reward. Vjor wants to stay with her forever but he is mortal. Vjor seeks the troll magician, Blugur, to find a solution. Before he can, the Caliegia is taken by trolls. Vjor finds Blugur and a solution. He, too becomes a winged horse man and saves his bride. A surprisingly happy ending for a Warren mag

“The Vorpal Sword” Eerie #29 (September 1970) has the castle of Jubb sitting on the edge of the land of Ove. Once a year a tribute of a beautiful maiden is sent to the castle. Warriors from Q, Srnk, Aara, Ded, Helathneccon and Cybro have tried to defeat the castle’s owners but all have ended up headless. The wizard, Tok, gives a magic sword to the son of the king, Eric. Tok sends him in a hurry for it is his daughter who will be sent as tribute this year,

Riding on a giant slug, Eric makes his way into the swamp that surrounds the castle. There he discovers that Tok has placed the soul of Nina, his daughter in the sword. When Eric calls to her she appears and the sword disappears. They make love. By saying her name backwards, she becomes a vorpal sword again. As the sword makes Eric invincible, it also makes Nina more portly. She wants to explain but he rushes on…

Entering Jubb’s castle at last, Eric is robbed of his weapon by a lodestone embedded in the doorway. Swordless, the evil one knocks him out and chains him up. Jubb is about to cut off Eric’s head when he calls out “Nina”. the girl appears but Jubb is not worried. She has no weapon. Or doesn’t she? Raising a dagger, she kills Jubb. Eric wants to know where she got the dagger. Nina explains, it is their son.

“Prelude to Armageddon” Creepy #41 (September 1971) is a long tale with some obvious The Lord of the Rings influences. Cuti has fun with the spelling of many familiar words. The sentar Equinus tries to rescue a Dragon Rider girl who dies. He brings her back to life with the help of the goat god, Satoris. She has lost all memory but loves her new mate. Equinus names her Melody. The sentar is on a mission to the heart of land of Blud, god of death and destruction, a place called Cirius Gorgoroth. It is guarded by its champion Minos Taurus.

The ogres of Blud along with Minos Taurus attack the sentars. There is a battle, which the side of evil begins to lose. Karion, the priest of evil, raises an army of the dead. Minos Taurus is disgusted his masters would do this and switches sides. He and Equinus fight the skeletons but the sentar is called away by his gods. He is told he must go to Cirius Gorgoroth and destroy the microcosm there. He races there, destroys what looks like a miniature Moon. The entire continent sinks, destroying the evil.

We pull back to see an archaeologist reading the entire story on a wall of hieroglyphics. It ends with a statement that all humanity can now forget about war and live in peace. That the champion need never rise up again. He ironically says: “…We won’t need him again, as we are happy, civilized and peaceful…aren’t we?” Cuti was never afraid to tackle current issues like the Viet Nam War or women’s rights but he always did it in an entertaining way.

The amount of nudity in this piece could only have been done at Warren  or in an underground comic in 1971. Wally Wood certainly was doing similar stuff in his King of the World comics.

“The Wedding Gift” Vampirella #14 (November 1971) gives us two versions of the old story of Pandora and the box. In the first version, she is a wicked woman who opens the box, claiming it as her wedding gift. In her own version of the tale, she is framed by her husband-to-be, Regis, in a plot to enslave her in marriage. This includes Regis breaking her out of prison and killing the Cyclops that is meant to kill her. Cuti ends it with Pandora exclaiming one day women will be free from the slavery she suffers.

Nick left Warren for Charlton and editing and writing chores. At Charlton, Nick wrote “Who?” for a Charlton Horror comic. This strip was a parody of current Sword & Sorcery comics, with a swipe from “Spell of the Dragon” by John Jakes.

For Sal Quartuccio he wrote “Sword of Dragonus” with Frank Brunner, who drew the comic. The strip was later reprinted in a Marvel B&W magazine. Nick did not write the sequel that Brunner did alone.

Cuti would return to Warren in 1976 and would eventually win the honor of “Best All Round Writer” in 1981. He wrote only one more S&S story out of the hundred he produced at this time.

“Etran to Fulsing” Creepy #94 (January 1978) has the boy Wyck of Albanya sent on a dangerous quest to defeat the wizard Zadar of Fulsing and return the princess Legina of Brook’sland. Mounted on his dragon Etran, he rides off. His parents remind him that his powers of imagination are his best defense. Crossing a bridge, Wyck is attacked by magic. The bridge becomes a giant snake. he kills it by stabbing it in the mouth. Later a brackish rains brings a horde of demons. Etran runs off but Wyck manages to call him back.

Arriving at the castle, Wyck confronts Zadar. The wizard shows him Legina captive in a magic bubble. Wyck throws his sword, killing the villain. Legina is freed and the two begin their journey home. A giant octopus monster attacks them and Wyck must save them, by stabbing it in the eye.

Returning to Albanya, Legina sees Wyck’s home, a landscape littered with destroyed skyscrapers and ruin. His parents explain he is seeing the world as it really is, a ruin after World War III. They encourage him to reject it and replace it with the world of his imagination. Wyck returns to a beautiful world of trees and love. Perhaps not a real Sword & Sorcery story, since it is a dream journey, but it has several cliches, warrior versus wizard, stabbing snakes in their mouths, octopuses in their eyes, throwing swords, etc. It was as much a comment of S&S as it was a parody of New York locations.

(I want to show some of Nick Cuti’s artwork here. He didn’t draw any Sword & Sorcery, but he was an accomplished artist. This piece focuses more on his writing.)

While working for Warren he also did artwork for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Analog, Amazing Stories and one-pagers for Heavy Metal. His scratchboard style was inspired by Frank Kelly Freas. This led to more editorial work, this time for DC Comics. Nick worked as associate editor on DC’s 1980s Fantasy titles including The Warlord, Arion, Lord of Atlantis, Camelot 3000 and Arak, Son of Thunder.

In 1986, Cuti moved to California to work in the film industry as a background artist for animated films and making independent films. Nick Cuti and Sword & Sorcery intersected during the early 1970s boom and then again in the 1980s. He passed away in February 2020.