WRITING “THE MARVEL WAY”
On December 2002, I wrote out the script for “Terror Lurks in Africa.” One five-page story in, and I’d already stopped trying to write “The Marvel Way” (Which I wrote about in detail on page 003 – Script. I wrote out a full script straightaway for this one, which I will post on the following pages under “script”.
TABLOIA ISSUE NUMBERS
You’ll notice that the Africa splash says the story was originally from Tabloia #149, whereas the first issue Spluhh story is from Tabloia #136. I randomly picked these issue numbers and dates to insure they weren’t in sequence, weren’t chronological, and in fact the dates can’t match a calendar. I purposely made this story’s number LATER than the “first” story. And, along similar lines, you’ll see once the story begins that we have no idea how our characters got out of the previous cliffhanger or into this issue’s current dilemma.
JACK KIRBY’S EASTER ISLAND MONSTERS
The monster here is based on one of MANY Easter Island stories Kirby did. When I made this story, I had read THREE different Kirby Easter Island stories. It turns out he’s done at least FIVE!
House of Mystery (DC, Apr 1959)
Tales to Astonish 5 (Atlas, 1959)
Tales to Astonish 16 (Atlas, 1961)
Tales of Suspense 28 (Apr 1962) / Super Powers v. 3 – 3 (Nov 1985)
And then let’s not forget that the aliens Thor fought in his first appearance (Journey into Mystery 83, Marvel 1962, below), looked like perhaps the sculptors on Easter Island had been visited by them for inspiration!
NOT ONE HEAD, BUT FIVE HEADS (OR THREE)
But I decided to make MY Easter Island monster a five-headed monster. Of course you only see a three-headed monster with five names. I was trying to suggest heads are on the side of him we can’t see as well. This was another excuse to include as many names as I could per story.
MIKE ALLRED SAID
Trying to get a pin-up of a giant monster from Mike Allred, which I could publish in my comics, I sent him copies of my first three Doris Danger stories, this one included. He wrote back that he liked the Easter Island monster.
Here is a photo of me with Mike, at San Diego Comic-Con 2009.
MY EASTER ISLAND MONSTER… IN AFRICA
Many people comment that this is an Easter Island monster. I tried to disguise that a “Kirby Easter Island Monster” was my inspiration, by giving it all those additional heads – and who knows what those Easter Island Head’s bodies look like underground, right? But even though those Easter Island monsters all only have one head each, people always still know my monster is “Easter Island.” Perhaps because of that, I like that for some reason this thing is in Africa. I commented on this in an upcoming letters page, where a disgruntled fan writes in how stupid we are, because Easter Island monsters are from Easter Island, not Africa. I like the idea that Tabloia Weekly Magazine would just copy pictures of Easter Island statues and say, “These are an African Monster!” and even though everyone recognizes it’s not from Africa, kind of shrugging their shoulders at getting caught using source material they weren’t smart enough to get geographically right.
SAM KIETH AND KIRBY’S EASTER ISLAND MONSTERS
Sam Kieth and I had a phone conversation some time back, and we got talking about Kirby’s Easter Island monsters. Sam said he read one of those comics when he was a kid, and the story blew his mind, because the Easter Island head was sitting there, and then it popped up and revealed it was actually a whole body buried underground, and it crawled out, and there was a whole creature, shoulders, arms, body, legs, and all! Sam said, that had never occurred to him that the Easter Island heads could have bodies buried underneath them there, and that’s why he was so shocked by this ol’ Kirby story.
Here’s a photo of Sam and I taken in 2004, when we carpooled down to San Francisco’s APE Con with our friends Tim Foster and Mark Miller. I was just getting ready to self-publish my first issue, and brought copies to show editors. While there, Sam introduced me to Gary Groth at Fantagraphics.
THE ACTUAL EASTER ISLAND STATUES
In his book, “Easter Island: Mystery Solved” (1989) by explorer Thor Heyerdahl, Heyerdahl posted this picture of his excavations around 1955:
This thereby proves, in my opinion, that Kirby got it right! These WEREN’T just statues of heads sitting on the hills! They’re full statues with bodies, that had been buried over time by erosion! (Thanks, Al Gordon and Glenn B. Fleming for tipping me off about this!)
SIGNED “WISNIA + AYERS”
I originally signed this issue between the monster’s legs, with the tribesman pointing in fear at the signature. I wrote “Wisnia +”. I sent the pages to Dick Ayers to ink, and when he returned them, he’d actually erased my signature (which I’d signed in ink!) from this place, and re-signed “Wisnia + Ayers” at the bottom left of the page, in the tribesman’s skirt! But I felt an important part of the composition was for that signature to be between the monster’s legs, with the tribesman pointing in fear at it! So when you look at this page here, you’re seeing an edit of an edit of the signature – all remarkably moved in … Photoshop!
