Via It Came From Darkmoor, a blog devoted to loving and extensive coverage of the weird and sometimes wonderful world of Marvel UK comics, I’ve uncovered this treasure trove featuring PDF versions of all the issues of the Marvel UK Planet of the Apes comic weekly. I’m not sure if this only featured reprints of US comics or specially-created material, but 3 or 4 issues of this which fell into my hands were what sparked my enthusiasm for Planet of the Apes (it also inspired me to create my own version, called Planet of the Reptiles, which was fun, but not quite the same thing. Alas for my childish insistence on sticking with pastiche instead of fan fiction).
After some digging through all the remarkably bland covers (remarkably similar, at least), I finally found the story I was looking for, a short strip that set my imagination on fire, hinting at some awesome epic fantasy set in the far-future world shared by apes and men. From issue 83 (pdf part 1, pdf part 2), written by Doug Moench and illustrated by Tom Sutton’s awesome artwork, it features ape-ruled giant city-ships, a mixed human and ape group of freedom-fighting pirates, a hero called Alaric (sounds like Elric, but long before I heard of the Albino). and this thing just behind the cut which makes me willing to bet I’m a pink hamster if China Mieville didn’t read this comic to shreds as a boy.
Behold, the graveyard of lost cities:
Mindblowing stuff. In fact, looking at some other Tom Sutton art, he has an incredible talent to create frayed, overgrown, decaying, lush and rotting worlds, right out of a bad trip.
1 reply on “Seagoing Cities of the Freebooting Apes”
Way cool. Shame it’s PDF, but way way cool.
Oh, and wait, he turns faster than anyone else because he is in the *center* of rotation? That one sure is trippy.