THE DESERT DEMONS

[dochermes]

In November 1993, the last of Will Murray's new Doc Savage novels, THE FORGOTTEN REALM, was published. I wrote in a review a dozen years later, "It has been twelve years since THE FORGOTTEN REALM was published. Right now, it looks like we will not see a new Doc Savage novel on the stands ever again. But.... that's what we thought in 1949, too."

Comments

[zathras_ix]

I ownder if Kez will remake the covers of the Wild Adventures in the style of the Bama reprints? He as a good start with the remake of the Bob Larkin cover of Doc Savage 182 Up from Earth's Center:



Horror in Gold is the next Wild Adventure in the queue and should be out later this month or early next month. Meanwhile, Altus Press has just published a compilation of Murray's Doc Savage articles and essays called Writings in Bronze:



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1452822549/

[dochermes]

I'm actually pleased with the change from that familiar wavy logo and "the fantastic adventures" tag, as this is a new series. But I like Kez's reworkings of those Bantam split-covers very much, as Bob Larkin's artwork deserves to be seen in a better format.

I didn't mention Joe DeVito's fine cover for DESERT DEMONS. It's very much in the James Bama tradition with Doc posed dramatically in the torn shirt and riding boots, with the menace looming up behind him. The skullcap-look with its widow's peak has been kept as well. But DeVito has a glossier, more polished look than Bama's dry weathered approach. I read that DeVito was working from some photos of Steve Holland left from Bama's sessions, which is great.

[zathras_ix]

Here are some of previously unplished poses from which both Larson and DeVito worked. The cover for The Desert Demons was derived from Pose #4 (upper left corner).



The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage logo is actually the fourth attempt at an updated design that harks back to the original Street & Smith pulp logo.

Here are the three designs that didn't make the grade:

[dochermes]

Oh, I think they definitely picked the right logo, don't you? As much as I love that wavy Bantam style, maybe it has gotten a bit stale and going back to something more like the pulp lettering was the right approach.

Good ol' Steve Holland. When I first saw an episode of the 1954 FLASH GORDON, it was a little surreal to see that familiar face as a flesh & blood man.

[zathras_ix]

I really wish that someone could round up all 39 episodes of that series, digitally remaster them to whatever degree is possible at this remove and release the entire series as a DVD box set.



Because the series has lapsed into the public domain, everybody and their cousins have released the episodes that have come into their hands in random order on a variety of VHS tapes and DVDs that are essentially just dubs of those tapes. Some episodes, like Flash Gordon #5: Akim the Terrible (5 Nov 1954) seem to be in every collection ever released, while others have never been included in any collection. Some, of course, are only to be found in one of the many collections.

Of the 39 episodes, which apparently represent three 13-episode seasons, less than half (16, to be precise) are currently available on video.

One wonders what might've happened had Bantam Books reprinted the Doc Savage novels a decade earlier…

[dochermes]

It'd be worth checking out. I watched a few episodes but in a shoddy public domain DVD from the $1 bin. That's not a fair way to see a show. I was interested in a sad way by the ruined Europe used as a backdrop.

[zathras_ix]

In Epsiode 36 Deadline At Noon, an enemy of Earth uses the principles of Zarkov's time machine to travel back 1,250 years and plant a nuclear bomb in 1953 Berlin. Upon arriving in 1953, Flash & Company have less than a hour to find and defuse it.

In one unintentionally funny scene, Flash & Company commandeer a VW to tool around the city in search of the bomb. A clip of this scene was included in the music video for Simon & Garfunkel's 1970 song So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright.