Wednesday Worlds of Wonder CLAWFANG THE BARBARIAN

Here's a one-time World of Wonder for you before the New Year!

(BTW, isn't it weird how most fictional barbarians have a "hard C" or "hard K" name...Conan, Crom, ClawFang, Claw, Kull, Kothar, Kyrik, etc.)

We'll never know, since this was ClawFang's only published adventure!

A cool mix of sf/fantasy genres written and laid-out by Wally Wood with pencils and inks by Al Williamson, appearing in Harvey's Unearthly Spectaculars #2 (1966), part of a short-lived line of action/adventure comics produced by Harvey Comics in the mid-1960s.

Oddly, while there were numerous "jungle hero/heroine" strips and books with sci-fi/fantasy elements, Clawfang was only the second actual barbarian strip in comics history, after Crom...which was also from Harvey Comics!

Five years later, Marvel would launch Conan the Barbarian, and suddenly, an entire new genre bloomed in comics with almost every publisher launching at least one barbarian-themed comic!
Speaking of which...

The "barbarian in a post-apocalyptic future Earth" concept is an oft-used trope in sci-fi/fantasy...

...from ClawFang to Teenage Caveman to BlackMark to Kamandi to Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds to Lost World (from Fiction House's Planet Comics) to IronJaw, to Talos of the Wilderness Sea,  to Planet of the Apes (Yes, PotA qualifies since mankind is reduced to primitives) to Thundarr the Barbarian to Yor: Hunter from the Future, scantly-clad heroes using primitive weapons against super-science and/or sorcery in a devastated world has proven to be a popular trope in various media, not just print.

Join us next Wednesday as we begin our re-presentation of one of the best (though least-known) series featuring this concept...

Wolff the Barbarian

by

Esteban Maroto, Sadko, and Laurence James