[Kevin Yong]

I'm a fan of the old Marvel monsters like "Fin Fang Foom", and I'm always interested in looking for similar genre stories here on the site.

So far, I've read the Silver Age monster movie tie-ins from Charlton (Konga, Gorgo, and Reptilicus/Reptisaurus). Does anyone have recommendations of Golden Age sci-fi monster titles along similar lines?

-- Kevin Yong

[narfstar]

How about The Heap in Airboy.

[Kevin Yong]

How about The Heap in Airboy.

Great suggestion! I had heard about that character before, but hadn't gotten around to looking up any of his stories yet. Thanks for the reminder!

-- Kevin Yong

[builderboy]

The Heap was a precursor to the Swamp Thing and Man-Thing...your basic shambling pile of moss with good intentions. Not really a giant, but kinda big.  You could also try issues of Charlton's The Thing.  I am not that familiar with it, but the covers frequently sported giant creatures of some sort.

[paw broon]

Although this is a wee bit later, Valiant, in the '60's had a giant robot ape called Mytek the Mighty (King Kong in his French incarnation - don't ask me how they got away with that one) Good, entertaining story, well drawn and written.  You can check out refs. here:-
http://kingkongbd.free.fr/index.htm
and here:-
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/m/mytek.htm
I thought The Heap was great and always preferred it to S.W. and M.T.   Skywald had a muck creature, didn't they. I thought that was a Heap also.

[CreepysFan]

   Skywald had a muck creature, didn't they. I thought that was a Heap also.

Skywald's title Psycho had the Heap stories for a good number of issues.  Another great swamp-muck monster story can be found in Warren's B&W comic magazine EERIE #49 titled "Marvin the Dead Thing".  The cover sports a great painting for the story.

[CharlieRock]

Godzilla had a good series both here (Marvel) and in Japan.

[Captain Audio]

The first Swampthing like creature I can remember seeing in comics was in a one off story, that was writen by one of the old time sci fi authors though his name escapes me at the moment.
This story involved the skeletal remains of a lost hunter. The skeleton became emeshed in roots and brush over the years. Then many years later his grand daughter was lost in the forest, possibly after being kidnapped, and the creature that was composed of vegetation and skeleton came to her rescue.

Now that I've remembered this old classic I'll look up whatever I can find on it. The story should be old enough that the comic would be PD but the story might still be in copyright if the author lived to be an old man.

[CharlieRock]

The first Swampthing like creature I can remember seeing in comics was in a one off story, that was writen by one of the old time sci fi authors though his name escapes me at the moment.
This story involved the skeletal remains of a lost hunter. The skeleton became emeshed in roots and brush over the years. Then many years later his grand daughter was lost in the forest, possibly after being kidnapped, and the creature that was composed of vegetation and skeleton came to her rescue.

Now that I've remembered this old classic I'll look up whatever I can find on it. The story should be old enough that the comic would be PD but the story might still be in copyright if the author lived to be an old man.

Ack! I remember that one! (or a very similar one, lol)
Can't think of the name either. It wasn't my comic but my neighbors from when I was  kid (they had older kids in that house and had bought a lot of comics)

[Kevin Yong]

Godzilla had a good series both here (Marvel) and in Japan.

I enjoyed the Godzilla series from Marvel. I was always a little disappointed we never got to see a Godzilla vs. Fin Fang Foom story while Marvel had the license.  I remember the various licensed Godzilla and Gamera comics from Dark Horse too. (Heck, I think I even have a copy of their "Godzilla vs. Charles Barkley" comic book in my collection somewhere. )

Too bad all of Marvel's other old monster comics are still under copyright. Kirby's monster designs in those stories were always so interesting (even with their ubiquitous boxer shorts).  I just wish there were some more giant monsters like that that could join the ranks of public domain monsters like Stoker's Dracula, Shelly's Frankenstein or Romero's Zombies. (Charlton's Konga/Gorgo/Reptilicus comics don't quite count towards that. While the individual comics are in the public domain, they're also just "derivative works" of the original copyrighted monster films still owned by the studios. So I can't go and freely create my own "Gorgo" comic the way I could create a new Dracula story.)

[Guardian7]

I would love to see a Gorgo Comic... Big ole huge HUGE Giant Monster/Dinosaur fan here.
I am pretty well known in the Godzilla Forums on the net.

Though it would be cool to see your take on some Giant Monsters that are copyrighted. Why not make up some of your own. You could just use the Kirby Giant Monsters as inspiration.

I am doing a Centaur Comics "Comic" and I keep wanting to feature Giant Monsters. But other stories have to be told as well (particularly WWII related stuff)... ANYHOW... I say find a few PD Monsters and build around them. That might be a start. Gives you some possible "NAME" characters (irregardless of how obscure) and might bump ya in the right direction (Like in the case of the Heap).

cya.
G7/Les

[narfstar]

Guardian the Charlton monster comics are PD and in the Silver Age section here

[profh0011]

A few years back, I put together a music comp entirtled "Professor H's MONSTER RALLY". The theme was "giant monsters", and included songs about Godzilla, Rodan, King Kong and others.

Of interest to comics fans, for the cover art, I used a Steve Ditko image of GORGO that I got from one of Greg Theakston's collections.


If anybody would like a copy, let me know, we can do a trade.