Reading Room WEIRDWORLD "Lord of Tyndall's Quest" Part 1

In the late 1970s, the publishing world clamored for more Tolkein-esque fantasy...

...to satiate the demand caused by the release of the animated Lord of the Rings movie!

So Marvel took a one-shot story that received a suprisingly-strong audience response and had co-creators Doug Moench and Mike Ploog expand the storyline...

A quest we'll learn more about...tomorrow!

You'll note that Alex Nino is inking this never-reprinted tale from Marvel Premiere #38 (1977), instead of Ploog inking his own pencils.

Ploog had done the pencils for this story shortly after the first tale over a year earlier and when the go-ahead was finally given, he had left Marvel for other projects, so Nino stepped in with one of his few inking assignments over another artist, and did a spectacular job!

Reading Room WEIRDWORLD "An Ugly Mirror on WeirdWorld"

And so the saga begins...

...with this never-reprinted tale tucked away in the back of the one-shot Marvel Super Action #1 (1976).

You may note two of the pages are scans of the original art, not the printed book.

Whenever possible, we'll run originals because, quite frankly, some of the printed pages had serious flaws.

The tale, by writer Doug Moench and artist Mike Ploog might have remained simply a one-off, except for the first Lord of the Rings movie.

The animated film (which adapted both Fellowship of the Ring and most of Two Towers) generated an amazing amount of fan interest, resulting in a complete reprinting of JRR Tolkein's entire output, as well as publishers looking to capitalize on the revived interest in mystical fantasy.

Marvel, seeing a potential series in WeirdWorld, offered Moench and Ploog a color try-out, which you'll see tomorrow.

Our Halloween Treat...WeirdWorld!

Every Halloween we do something unique...

This year, it'll be re-presenting the never-reprinted WeirdWorld saga.

In response to the then-current release of Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings (though writer/co-creator Doug Moench was admant about having never read JRR Tolkien), the series featured art by co-creator Mike Ploog (who worked with Bakshi on Lord and Wizards as well as co-creating Werewolf by Night and the motorcycle-riding Ghost Rider), John Buscema, Rudy Nebres, Peter Leger, P Craig Russell, and Pat Broderick.

It's never been collected in book form or even a reprint mini-series.

But, beginning October 1st, it'll be here, in chronological order.