If you missed Part 1…
This post is brought to you by Strange Adventure, a new collection by G. W. Thomas that will appear later this week. It is a companion volume to Strange Detectives, with Weird Westerns, adventures in the Alps and Labrador, as well as modern ghostbreakers working in Western Canada. More strange mysteries but with more action and monsters.
Just a quick look back at the end of the 1960s before we move on. In December 1967, John Celardo left the drawing of the Tarzan comic strip to be replaced by the beloved Russ Manning. Russ did plenty of cavemen and dinosaurs in the strip but these were in Pal-U-Don in Africa. He didn’t get to Pellucidar until March 1971 with “Tarzan and the Cult of the Mahars” which doesn’t include any Sagoths. But on November 22, 1971, Manning drew “Tarzan Returns to the Earth’s Core”, a sequel to Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. This comic strip would later be colorized and published by DC Comics in Tarzan #238, June 1975.
Now I know I’m biased, being a huge Manning fan, but to my mind these are the best Sagoths of all. Manning makes them gorilla-like but still sophisticated enough to wear clothes and use weapons. To be fair, he had the advantage of the Planet of the Apes films as a model which earlier artists did not.
The 1970s saw the license for Edgar Rice Burroughs properties move from Gold Key to DC Comics. The big one was Tarzan but Joe Kubert who was the straw boss on ERB material did not neglect Pellucidar, Venus and Mars. Unlike the Tarzan comics that Joe did himself or Mike kaluta’s “Pirates of Venus”, the adaptation of At the Earth’s Core was not as consistent on artwork. Beginning in Korak, Son of Tarzan #46, May-June 1972, (DC numbered their issues based on the previous Gold Key issues so #46 was actually they the first one for DC) the novel was adapted by Len Wein and drawn by Alan Weiss. Weiss is a relatively young artist here, basing his Sagoths on Orangutang more than gorillas. They have red tunics and gold collars.
The adaptation continued in Weird Worlds #1 (a comic dedicated to ERB’s other planets) with the writing by Denny On’Neil. By #2, October-November 1972 the art became a free-for-all with Berni Wrightson, Carl Lundgren, Jim Starlin, Larry Hama, Ralph Reese, Neal Adams, Frank Brunner and Greg Theakston doing an inking jam. With #4 the art chores went to Mike Kaluta for a few issues. Kaluta is another favorite so I love these pages.
The last episode was done by Dan Green. He has inherited Weiss and Kaluta’s previous pages so no real changes. His work is impressive. I kind of wish he had drawn the entire thing.
Weird World became a space opera comic drawn by Howard Chaykin. The ERB material moved to Tarzan Family where “The Amulet, the Power and the Hero!” appeared in the final issue #66, November-December 1976. This story was written by Elliot Maggin and drawn by Gerry Talaoc. Gerry’s Sagoth appears to be based on Russ Manning’s with a white tunic.
Let’s talk about At the Earth’s Core, the movie here. It appeared during DC’s run in 1976. Now I will admit this is a pretty silly film over-all with its rubber dinos but let’s not be too unkind. The Iron Mole was accurate. The casting was to my taste, with Peter Cushing as Abner Perry and Doug McClure as David Innes. The plot is mostly there with Mahars, etc. The Sagoths are a complete disappointment though. They are not ape-men at all but weird parrot-beaked dudes. The lack of apes can be explained either by low budgets (ape suits are expensive) and by legal issues, such as looking too much like Planet of the Apes films. Milton Subotsky simply side-stepped with parrot men. The weird telepathic language between the Mahars and Sagoths stayed, becoming a weird sound effect. Compared to our CGI-driven movie industry today, this film looks ridiculous. That was why fans oohed and aahed when Aquaman went to a Pellucidarian world in the first film. Just imagine! I suppose with the Jurassic Park franchise hogging the dinos and the copyright being in the public domain, a new Pellucidar film (a good one) is unlikely.
In 1976, DC lost the ERB license, largely because European fans found Joe Kubert’s Tarzan too dissimilar to Russ Manning’s. Marvel Comics got the property. The company had thought about ERB comics back in 1973 as this unused artwork by Ross Andru shows. His Sagoths look a lot like the gorillas from their The Planet of the Apes comics.
Marvel editors chose Conan the Barbarian artist, John Buscema for the job. I had high hopes for this comic at the time but the result was somehow uninspiring. John’s Sagoth, as the comic moved into Pellucidar, look like really brown, buff humans, not that ape-like.
John left after #20, being replaced by his brother, Sal Buscema inked by Rudy Nebres. Sal makes them look a little hairier.
With the passing of the Bronze Age, Edgar Rice Burroughs material disappears too for a while. The Europeans continued to draw Russ Manning knock-offs at a pace and the Tarzan comic strips went on. Comics veteran Gray Morrow took over the strip in March 1983 with Don Kraar doing the writing. Morrow gives us one Sagoth in “Return to Pellucidar” (November 29, 1987). He looks like he is based on Russ Manning’s 1971 Sagoth.
The 1990s offers a new comic company, Dark Horse, and a strange but wonderful mash-up, Tarzan vs Predator. And of course, they have to do this in Pellucidar. Written by Walt Simonson, it was drawn by Lee Weeks. The Sagoths appear in the last two issues of four (#3-4, March, June 1996). Weeks gives them round heads and plenty of hair.
In 2015, Dark Horse and Bobby Nash gave us a new adaptation of At the Earth’s Core with art by Jamie Chase. Nash and Chase give a very faithful adaptation of the book with Sagoths who fit the description.
There have been a number of other Pellucidar related comics in recent years though some don’t feature Sagoths. American Mythology produced a comic called Pellucidar beginning in 2019. Here is a character sheet created by Vincenzo Carratu and Bruno Bull. I like the over-all design. It is important to make the Sagoths look gorilla-like but somehow different, a little more man-like.
A recent re-issue of 1976’s Mahars of Pellucidar by John Eric Holmes, features a new Richard Hescox cover with a Sagoth so images of our ape-y friends haven’t become strictly comic fare.
Conclusion
That’s our look at the hairy villains of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar. In a world where so many different kinds of ape creatures and cavemen exist, it is difficult to make the Sagoth stand out as a unique species. I think ERB did this at the same time as supplying himself with an army of enemies for the good guys to defeat. (Like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Orcs, the Sagoths fill a very important need for the writer of the Fantastic.) The Mahars get all the love and it isn’t hard to see why. These creepy monsters were a brilliant creation of Burroughs’. More ape-men not so much. That being said, I have a fondness for the Sagoths. They deserved better than hatchet-wielding parrot men of 1976.
Space Opera from RAGE m a c h i n e
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