There’s going to be Ray Harryhausen in this piece. You just know it…
Check this out….a Sinbad comic strip!
Ray started it all with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), which got a Dell adaptation in Four Color Comics #944 (September 1958). The film stars Kerwin Mathews as Sinbad and Torin Thatcher as the baddy, Sokurah. Richard Eyer plays the genie, Barani, who Sinbad frees at the end of the film. Monsters include a two-headed roc, a cyclops and a chained dragon. The movie tie-in comic truncates the story by removing the entire sub-plot of the genie. The lamp just gets destroyed at the end. This is a tendency we will see in future comics. Remove the boring stuff and focus on the monster fights.
The artwork for this comic struck as me being better than it needed to be. I looked up who drew it and no wonder. It’s John Buscema! The man who would draw Conan the Barbarian for decades had a chance to tryout his Sword & Sorcery images here first. John got to ink his own art for a change too. The adaptation was by Gaylord DuBois who wrote all those Turok, Son of Stone and Brothers of the Spear comics I loved as a kid.
1963 brought another adaptation, this time for the less interesting Captain Sindbad from King Brothers productions. Gold Key did the adaptation. Guy Williams of Zorro and Lost in Space fame plays Sinbad. Byron Haskins is the director. The film offers no interesting monsters (an invisible giant! and crocodiles). The comic book adaptation adds some new creatures that the film doesn’t have. The adaptation was written by Eric Freiwald and Robert Shaefer. The art is by master, Russ Manning, but the writer doesn’t give him enough good scenes to draw so much of this comic is talking heads.
Gold Key tried again with The Fantastic Voyages of Sindbad, which appeared in two volumes. Not a series exactly, the first issue was 1965 and the second 1967. The first issue seems reminiscent of the 1958 Seventh Voyage of Sinbad but not an adaptation. The writers are not known but the majority of the art was done by Dan Spiegle, who does a credible job.
Circa 1973, Legend Horror Classics, a magazine of vampires and mummies, did their third volume on The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad before going back to vampires, etc. The magazine was produced in the UK by Legend Publishing. No credits are given though one picture is signed by the art editor Kevin O’Neill. There is no date in this UK publication but it does list Ray Harryhausen’s films up to 1973.
This is the second adaptation of this film. This one is pretty bad but the issue does include early work by a 23 year-old Jim Pitts who would do illos for Fantasy Tales and illustrate monsters for the second Monster Manuel in AD&D. The artwork in this comic is reminiscent of English annuals, with single or double colors but not proper four color process.
Marvel Comics finally gets in on the Sinbad-fest in June and August 1974 with Worlds Unknown #7-8: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. The film starred John Philip Law, Caroline Monroe and a pre-Doctor Who Tom Baker as the bad guy, Koura. The comic was adapted by Len Wein and drawn by George Tuska with inks by Vince Colletta. Oddly the monster-fights seem badly designed and the artists lose opportunities for some amazing art. (Perhaps they were working from production stills from the movie?) The two part adaptation is based closely on the movie but tends to skip over the parts without monsters. The cover art makes a point of comparing the Sword & Sorcery elements to Marvel’s blockbuster, Conan the Barbarian.
Marvel would back up the bus and adapt the early movie in Marvel Spotlight#25: The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (December 1975). John Warner adapted the script by Kenneth Kolb. To get it all in one comic, Warner would summarize large chunks of the plot in large caption boxes. Artwork was by Sonny Trinidad who really adds to this comic, making the monster fights dynamic. He would later draw for Savage Sword of Conan.
Marvel must have fallen out of love with Sinbad because when Ray’s final Sinbad picture came out, there was no adaptation in the US. Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) was published by General Publishing. The comic was produced in the UK. The film starred John Wayne’s son, Patrick Wayne, Jane Seymour and another Doctor Who alumnus, Patrick Troughton. The comic was scripted by Benny Aldritch and drawn by Ian Gibson. Gibson is famous for his work in 2000 A.D. including Halo Jones, Robo-Hunter and Judge Dredd. His work here, though in black-and-white, is still some of the best we saw in these seven comics. I noticed the walrus fight was dropped for space. The magazine contains two lengthy articles on either side of the comic, keeping the adaptation to only 16 pages.
These weren’t the last of the Sinbad comics, with Warren, Malibu, Marvel, Zenescope and Blue Water all producing comics in the 1980s and later. But it was the end of the Harryhausen era Sinbads. Sadly, Ray Harryhausen only had one more picture in him, Clash of the Titans (1981). He did so much for Fantasy films, and Sword & Sorcery, in particular. His work is well represented here in these comics.
