[MarkWarner]

So last week's oddball Black Orchid in Tops #2000 was a hit among the group. If haven'r read it I strongly suggest you do. But will we say the same about this week's choice?

It has to be time to make the reading groups buckle a bit more swashed. So here is a one-shot from St. John Publications. The cover looks good, but there is a slight concern that this looks very much like a planned series which didn't even get to second base. Anyway, we'll soon find out.

Son of Sinbad #1 can be found at https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=28629, and the story we are concentrating on is the first one "Ransom of Shipwreck Shoals!".

[Captain Audio]

Well plenty of scantly clad slave girls and swarthy villians, but not much else going for it.
Heroes that constantly grin like a (blank) eating dog never did have much appeal.

[crashryan]

I enjoyed this one. The biggest draw was Joe Kubert's artwork. I've always liked Kubert's work from this period. Kubert was still working on his figures, and the art has its rough spots. But his drawings burst with imagination and youthful energy. The three Sinbad stories feature the peculiar backward-slanting lettering that I've seen only in Kubert's early strips, so I presume he lettered them himself. This also suggests that Kubert inked the final story. I'm willing to buy Carmine Infantino as the penciller.

The stories are typical for this genre, though they have their odd moments. The first and last stories are choppy and in a couple of places the story jumps ahead as if a a panel or two were missing. I was caught by surprise when Sinbad allows the woman to die in the fire. Treacherous she was, but it makes our hero seem rather cold-blooded. [Later edit: Oops, it was Omar, not Sinbad, who let the woman burn to death.]

The Omar story is nothing special. Omar's supposed gift for disguise doesn't come off because the people he pretends to be all look alike. Rare even for pre-Code comics, Omar gets to spend the night with his lady friend, albeit outdoors. While we're on the subject, in the first story when Sinbad tells Elene she's free, I swear it looks like she's preparing to disrobe.

I noticed that in the text story they use the alternate spelling of Sinbad , adding a "D": Sindbad. I guess the editor was asleep at the switch. (I also notice that Firefox's spell checker accepts Sindbad but not Sinbad.)

[SuperScrounge]

Chang Yan's Blazing Sword - Not bad, although the actual blazing sword was such a minor part of the story, making it the title seemed ridiculous. Also calling the main character "the son of Sindbad" or "young Sindbad" made me wonder why they just didn't give him a name like Achmed or Bob.

Ransom of Shipwreck Shoals - Nice story. I guess the moral of the story is, work hard, kill an old man, get your father's treasure and you too can buy a used slave girl. ;-)

A Kiss Unmasks A Killer - Not bad. The kiss of the title was used in a way I never considered.

The Curse of the Caliph's Dancer - Interesting. You know, some people would find being stuck in their famous father's shadow annoying, but the son of Sindbad doesn't even mind that no one knows his first name.

The Merchant of Menace - So what happened to the sultan's men and the manservant? Buried in the desert? I kept expecting them to show up at the end to aid young Sindbad, but nope, gone without a trace.

An entertaining read overall and nice artwork.

[narfstar]

S of S appears to be the boss, so why does he have to sneak women into/out of the place? Nice Kubert art. I remember being surprised to see the similarities to Ditko when I first saw Kubert's early stuff. Wouldn't it the ideal way to spend your last years by living on an abandoned ship in the middle of nowhere guarding a treasure that is not yours? I liked the twist ending even though I suspected it.

[Mazzucchelli]

Storytelling is an art that few can master.

And when the storytelling is captivating you don

[bowers]

I just loved this one! Joe Kubert was one of my all-time favorite artists, and seeing some more of his early stuff is a real treat. Narf mentioned a similarity to Ditko in some of Joe's early work, and it really shows on the cover. I found myself going through the pages two or three times just to savor the artwork, before I even started to read the stories.
The writing wasn't bad, pretty straightforward swashbuckling stuff but still entertaining. By the end of the book, however, the stories all seemed to be a little too similar. I probably enjoyed the first Sinbad story, "Ransom of Shipwreck Shoals" the best. Fast-paced and a nice little surprise for the ending.
The Omar story was just ok, average art and story.
The second Sinbad tale was almost as good, and we even got a giant octopus, a giant clam, and some ill-tempered 15 foot sharks thrown in. Not bad at all!
The last story did have some interesting art. Looking at the hands and faces convinces me that this may well be an Infantino pencil job.
Too bad this was a one-shot. I would have liked to read more of these. Cheers, Bowers

[MarkWarner]

I couldn't quite work out what the point of Chang Yan's Blazing Sword was until the last couple of paragraphs. It was Ok ... still early days for this book. To be 100% honest, although I really did like some of the art in the "Ransom of Shipwreck Shoals!" the story did not keep my attention and my mind kept wandering. So much so, that I think I ended up reading this three times ... lol!

Next up "A Kiss Unmasks a Killer", I agree with Omar on this one:

No voyage was too distant, no mission too dangerous for the phenomenal Omar -- especially if the request were made by a beautiful girl with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes

Unfortunately at my age these sort of requests are few and far between (read that as non-existent).

Another and more recent sadness to me is the story. I struggled to complete it. This book has too many words! Actually, I don't think it's word count. Just their tedious use and the silly dialogue. Fingers crossed for a rapid improvement! A couple of snippets have kept me going, plus there is some really cool art on pages 24-25.

"My father's beard A PEEPING TOM!"

"the young one has the Devil's beauty"

BUT I think I am JUST about to quit this book. If I do it'll be the first reading group book I haven't read cover to cover!  Ok I now quit

Verdict: This book is NOT for me! Art is OK. But, as I said earlier, the main complaint is too many tediously used words!