Review- THE WARLORD: THE SAGA

THE WARLORD: THE SAGA (DC, 2010; Softcover)

Collects Warlord Nos. 1-6 (cover dates June- November, 2009)

Writer: Mike Grell

Artists: Pencilers- Joe Prado and Chad Hardin; Inkers- Walden Wong, Jay Leisten, Joe Prado, Wayne Faucher, and Dan Green

Colorist: David Curiel

Now this is what I'm talking about! High flying sword and sorcery medieval action meets ancient advanced high tech Atlantean civilization...under the Earth's crust in Tibet. A group of explorers in then-modern day 2009 discover a fresh dinosaur corpse and stumble upon the hidden world of Skartaris, a land where dinosaurs meet science fiction at the center of the Earth. This group of folks, all with their own agendas, return and go exploring and things go awry. Enter the Warlord! The action is every bit as over the top as it was in the original series, back when the violence pushed the limits of the Comics Code Authority. 

Mike Grell's Warlord is woefully underrepresented in terms of collected editions, with this book being only one of three ever published. The first is a long out of print collection of the first ten or twelve issues, the second is an out of print Showcase phone book (I have stumbled across copies on comic shop shelves here and there, so they are floating around), and then there is this book. 

While creator Mike Grell handles the writing and issue covers, others handle the interior art on these issues. I adored Grell's work on the original series, and was thrilled to see that he picked up his pencils for the interior artwork of the subsequent issues. Then I became frustrated when I realized that the rest of the series was never collected in trade paperback. I hope that this becomes rectified at some point in the future, as I would love to read issues 7-16 but have no interest in hunting down the back issues. I hope that DC releases another trade paperback or two. Better yet, go back to the beginning and do Warlord Archives.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I can't stand how the covers are all collected in the back of the book, with no chapter break indication of any kind. I guess the mythological mainstream bookstore buyer that DC chases was fooled into thinking that this was a “graphic novel” and not a compilation of comic books previously published in the single issue periodical format.

DVD-style Extras included in this book: No extras to be had, really. No variants. No harm, no foul.

Paper rating: 4 out of 5. Decent weight coated stock with a slight sheen.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5. Standard glued binding.

Cardstock cover coating rating: 5 out of 5. Nice thick waxy lamination on the cardstock cover.

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Review- SHOWCASE PRESENTS WARLORD VOL. 1

SHOWCASE PRESENTS WARLORD VOL. 1 (DC, 2009; Softcover)

Collects 1^st Issue Special No. 1 and The Warlord Nos. 1-28 (cover dates November, 1975- December, 1979)

Writer and Artist: Mike Grell

Inker: Vince Colletta

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I only discovered Mike Grell over the last couple of years in those DC Bronze Age phone books like House of Secrets, etc. I was so blown away by Grell's artwork that I did a search online to see what else he had done. Warlord was at the top of the list, and for good reason.

The gist- Travis Morgan is a pilot whose plane passes through a hole in the Earth's crust, ending up in Skartaris, a “world” beneath the Earth's crust where the sun always shines. Skartaris is actually Atlantis, which sank into the ocean ages ago. It's a mix of high-tech and primitive civilizations, with a healthy assortment of dinosaurs and monsters as well. Magic and science exist side by side, and as Travis goes along he becomes known as The Warlord. This is sword and sorcery, science fiction high adventure at its finest.

Mike Grell's writing and artwork are great. I am impressed at the amount of violence that he was able to get by the Comics Code Authority back then, implied or otherwise. This was both timely and way ahead of it's time compared to what was on the stands in the late '70s. He makes great use of double page spreads, and uses what could be the first vertical page layouts, definitely the earliest ones that I've seen. Perhaps someone could point out if there were earlier ones. I am not a comics historian, merely a student of the artform. 

I like how Grell has a push and pull approach to his writing. He'll have dense, text packed captions for pages, and then launch into dialogue and caption free splash pages and double page spreads during action sequences. This is highly effective and was fairly innovative during the Bronze Age. It's definitely a precursor to the approach used in modern day comic books.

I guess that there's a color collection of some of the early issues out there, but it's long out of print and not cheap. I'd love to see DC do Archives or another full color, preferably hardcover, collection of this material. For the time being, this 528 page black and white phone book will have to suffice. I wish that there were more volumes in this line. There are plenty more issues for DC to collect.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 5 out of 5. 

The OCD zone- These phone books are great for what they are: Inexpensive, in depth primers on characters. They are printed on cheap pulp paper, which is fine at the price point.

Linework restoration rating: 5 out of 5.

Color restoration rating: Not applicable. It's a black and white reprint.

Paper rating: 3 out of 5.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5.

Cardstock cover rating: 5 out of 5.