In the early 1970s, due to the success of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian...
...comics went pulp-mad, looking for other properties that were doing well in paperback reprints to adapt into the four-color format.
DC latched onto The Shadow, The Avenger, and Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser well as the entire Edgar Rice Burroughs library including Tarzan, Carson of Venus, and John Carter of Mars.
Marvel grabbed Doc Savage, added Kull the Conqueror (also a Robert E Howard character), and looked for another barbarian/swashbuckling hero.
They ended up adding two, Gullivar Jones and Lin Carter's new character, Thongor, neither of whom ran more than eight issues.
Gullivar Jones had the advantage of only
one novel to adapt, then the door would be open to totally-new adventures.
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| Art by Frank Frazetta |
Interestingly,
Gullivar Jones predated John Carter by
over a decade, but the novel featuring him,
Lieutenant Gulliver Jones: His Vacation (Brown, Langham & Company, 1905) by Edwin L Arnold was
never reprinted until 1964 when
Ace Books (which was also publishing ERB's and JRR Tolkien's books) added it to their lineup under a superb Frank Frazetta cover.
Ironic note: Edwin Arnold was so disgusted by the book's lack of sales, he gave up fiction writing!
Personally, I suspect the less-than-exciting title might have had something to do with it!
Readers had
no idea the book was a "scientific romance"...what we now call "science fiction!
You can read the
entire Gullivar Jones series (including both the color
Creatures on the Loose stories and the b/w
Monsters Unleashed tales starting
HERE!
And
HERE's a follow-up featuring more (ahem) marvelous Mars art!
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