Triple Treasure Island Treat

There are a couple of books that I can go back to and re-read again and again. Of these very few, there is one which I can truly claim as my favourite book. You may have guessed from the title which book that is, but just in case you haven't worked it out, that book is Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

But, as this is a comic blog I won’t be discussing the novel per se. What I will be commenting on are three comic book adaptations of the great work. I don’t intend to go into a whole lot of detail, but rather a quick review of  the three most accessible and easy to acquire comics that are available. The reason that I chose these three versions is that each is done in it’s own particular style, and, hopefully, at least one of them will appeal to the readers of this blog. None of them are perfect, but as ever, I guarantee that you’ve read worse comics than these and enjoyed them.

So, with no further delay and in no particular order, here we go.

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First up is a modern reprint of the Classics Illustrated Treasure Island. I don’t know who wrote the adaptation, but art is by Alex Blum. Originally published as Classics Illustrated 64 in October 1959, my copy is a reprint published by Classic Comic Store in June 2010, numbered as 21. (ISBN for my copy is 1906814472, and is available from Amazon with a cover price of £3.50)

For anyone already familiar with Classics Illustrated, I’m sure you’ll know what to expect, but if you’ve not seen one before I’ll let you know how it is. In a word, Truncated. Classics Illustrated: Treasure Island provides the reader with a sure footed and accomplished adaptation from start to finish, with accurate depictions of both characters and hardware, albeit filtered through contemporary TV & Film versions, but being limited to 52 pages means that any scenes and dialogue that don’t drive the narrative forward are, understandably, cut. Having said that, for anyone familiar with the story prior to reading this version, it does move along at a cracking pace, and everything that needed to be included in order for the story to make sense is there.

In short, if you are a fan of old school, super-condensed story telling in the Golden Age & early Silver Age style, this is the one for you. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

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Number two is Marvel Classics: Treasure Island, written by Roy Thomas with pencils by Mario Gully. Originally published as a limited series in six parts, I read it as a collected edition paperback. (ISBN: 0785125957, 160 pages, published February 2009)

Of the three mentioned in this post, this adaptation has, by far, the most satisfying ending. Thomas really takes his time winding this tale down, allowing us to see how the violence and betrayal has taken it’s toll on the characters, the young Jim Hawkins in particular. It is a reasonably text heavy work, with a lot of narrative boxes and speech balloons in every panel. Thomas has a great sense of pacing and a firm hold of the characters throughout. Even though this is the only adaptation mentioned in this post that was serialised, there were no obvious panel to panel, or page to page cliff-hangers that can often feel forced in a collected edition, so it feels like Thomas has approached this project as a single, unbroken piece.

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Unfortunately it isn’t all roses. The art, my god the art. Mario Gully seems to have done no research whatsoever. Eighteenth Century galleons look like Roman Man ‘o Wars, obese pirates perform flying kicks to the face of enemies and apparently, Jim Hawkins father was Adolf Hitler (see interior art above). Shall I go on? The hamlet near Hawkins’ inn looks like a London thoroughfare, aging seamen must be using illegal horse steroids. And the list goes on.

So an otherwise great adaptation, that is definitely worth reading is knocked down a few pegs by dismal art. Damn you Mario. Straight to Davy Jones you go.

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The final book of this post is Treasure Island adapted by Tim Hamilton. (Published by Puffin in September 2005, 176 pages, ISBN: 0142404706.)

As far as I’m aware, this is the first work by Hamilton that I’ve read, but I don’t think it’ll be the last. Atmospheric, bleak and emotive art that is perfectly matched to the characters really raises the bar for any future adaptations that I read. The research, to my eye at least, seems impeccable and the Island itself, which is a major character, is rendered perfectly. Dense, dark jungle and a real sense of fear is created with heavy shadow and a style that changes from silhouettes to stark detail as and when required. For those unfamiliar with Hamilton I would compare his style to Kevin O’Neill, but with less of the grotesque. Each character is recognisable at a glance, not only from the face, but also from the posture.

Whilst the writing is solid, it isn’t quite up to the standard of Roy Thomas, it’s a difficult call to make, me being so familiar with the source material, but I wonder if someone who had no experience with Treasure Island would be a little unsure of some of the characters motivations in this version. The story itself however is executed brilliantly in Hamilton’s eerie manner. It looks almost like a horror comic, which I believe works beautifully.

My only complaint (which is in no way Hamilton’s doing) is the published format. It’s printed at a little over half the size of a standard comic, Hamilton has clearly compensated for this with foresight by reducing the number of panels per page, rather than forcing the reader to squint at reduced art. But four panels a page is not enough to tell this story.

But, if I had to call a winner, Hamilton’s adaptation would creep to the top of this pile of booty by a single Spanish doubloon.

Mad Thinker Reads…………

Comics Featuring Parrots.

Thor by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Collected in and reviewed from Essential Thor Volumes 1-4

RE: Journey Into Mystery 83-125 & Thor 126-179, (Cover dates Aug ’62-Aug ’70.) Plus annuals from this period.

It’s taken a fair old time, but I’ve just finished the Kirby & Lee run on Thor, starting in Journey Into Mystery 83 and culminating in Thor 179, with the odd issue in this run by other creators.

Left: Colletta inks from Thor 133 - Right: Everett inks from Thor 171

As enjoyable as it was (and I do find pretty much all of the Silver Age Marvel to be worth a read) it takes a while for the strip to really find it’s feet. Thor has always been a difficult character to integrate wholly into the Marvel Universe. In general terms, although there are exceptions, the Marvel Universe is centred on science and technology, trying to include characters that are magic based has never been smooth sailing, Dr. Strange springs to mind, but at least with Thor, his is an overt physical prowess, which perhaps helped the character span the gulf from fantasy to super-heroics in a way that wasn’t available to Dr. Strange. And, as I said earlier, it takes a while to really find it’s niche, which I’ll get to later.

Like all of Kirby’s early Marvel work, it takes several issues for his style to evolve into his more mature renderings. His early Silver-Age work is fabulous, but as his workload increased, so did his level of detail decrease. This isn’t a bad thing in my opinion, for what was lost in refined pencil work was made up for with the patented Kirby Dynamism. Characters took on a heavier build, with blunter edges, design took the place of detail and so was born the much imitated Kirby idiosyncrasy that we all know and many love. In terms of design, he really gets to go to town on the wild Asgardian costumes, of particular note is Odin’s massive headgear, I’m sure ‘twould snap the neck of any mortal, should they think themselves befitted to don the OdinHat.



The Odin Hat



But then, I think Kirby had a bit of a hat fetish. (See Galactus)



Again 'tis a differing Odin Hat


OK, back to the serious stuff. For several issues it feels like nobody really knows where to take Thor, he takes on some pretty low level super-villains, that frankly, feel beneath his awesome powers. I can imagine Stan & Jack discussing this, so they must have said:

Stan: You think this isn’t as epic as it should be?

Jack: Damn right, whatcha gonna do about it?

Stan: Well, how about having Goldilocks fight Gangsters.

Jack: WHAAAAAT!!!

I’m pretty sure that that’s exactly what happened. But seriously, Thor versus Gangsters. So they tried that and, thankfully, decided that it wasn’t working either.

Don’t worry though. It didn’t take long to get Thor back on track. He’s soon battling Frost Giants and Trolls back in Asgard. But the best was yet to come.

When you have a character with the power of a God, there’s only so long you can confine him to Earth, particularly when he exists in a universe where the infinite space is so densely populated. So, at last, Thor goes Cosmic. Which is, ironically, exactly where he started when he battled the Stone Men of Saturn way back in Journey Into Mystery 83.

For my money, this is what Thor should be doing. Transported to deep space to battle the Colonizers, facing off against a Living Planet and standing against Galactus in the dark Bioverse. By this point in the strip everything has reached perfection.



Colleta inks for Thor 149 cover



At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning Vince Colletta. For those of you who don’t know the name, Colletta is not a particularly favoured inker, especially when it comes to his inking of Jack Kirby. No more of that here though. Should you wish to read more, a quick search of Google should have you well informed. When Colletta first starts to ink Kirby’s Thor he uses a very light touch, it lacks detail and fails to capture the immediacy which Kirby can create in every panel. But, for all the negative comments that Colletta generates, when his style matures and evolves along with Kirby’s the results are fantastic. Heavier inks, with bolder, bigger black areas used to make the figures and set pieces stand out. This technique is ideally suited to Kirby. As ever though, as great as his inking is for Thor, you can’t help but wonder how much of Kirby’s background was left uninked and therefore never seen by the likes of you and I.

However, as much as I enjoyed Colletta’s inking, the real standout issues for me were 170-175, inked incredibly well by Bill Everett. I don’t recall seeing Everett inking Kirby before and the results are amazing. Since reading those issues Everett is up there with Joe Sinnott and Mike Royer as one of the few, perfect inkers for Kirby’s pencils.



Thor 174, Bill Everett inks



Reading these comics as a single run reminded me just how many mainstay Marvel villains were created in the pages of Thor. If you can measure a man by his enemies Thor must be second only to the Fantastic Four. Radioactive Man, Mr. Hyde, Crusher Creel, Ego the Living Planet and High Evolutionary are a few that come to mind (ignoring the aforementioned Gangsters that is).

So when push comes to shove, there are several reasons that Thor didn’t make it to the all time top spot as my favourite Silver Age Marvel comic, but wild horses couldn’t stop me recommending it as a must read for anyone interested in either the creators, era or genre.

Mad Thinker Reads………………

Norse Gods Smashing Living Planets in the Face with a Hammer that has a Name.