Wednesday Covers: Xenozoic Tales

One of my favorite comic book series of all time is Xenozoic Tales by Mark Schultz. The series was alternately known as Cadillacs & Dinosaurs after the title of this collection and the subsequent Saturday Morning animated series (still not on DVD, dammit). Set in a wild post-Apocalyptic future where dinosaurs have been reborn and humanity struggles to maintain a balance between the new natural order and its pre-holocaust technologies, Schultz's series is gorgeously-drawn and cleverly written.

Schultz's artwork is classic, echoing the great illustrators of the past, while exhibiting a dynamism and romanticism all its own. I love it.

The writing is sharp, too, a genre mashup packed with adventure, intrigue, politics, mysticism, and great characters, topped off with satisfying helpings of dinosaur mayhem.

These covers are from the three oversized collections published by Kitchen Sink Press in the 90s. They're the ones I own, and don't quite collect the entire saga. The series has been re-issued a few times since, and I hope one day to acquire the complete collection.

Spy-Fi: THE BILLION DOLLAR THREAT

The Billion Dollar Threat was a 1979 TV movie/pilot that starred Dale Robinette as American secret agent Robert Sands, who must foil the nefarious plan of mad scientist Horatio Black - played by none other than John Steed himself, Patrick Macnee - to destroy the ozone layer with a nuclear missile. The movie was produced by TV veteran David Gerber (who tried a spy show again a year later with Once Upon A Spy), and co-starred Keenan Wynn, Ralph Bellamy, and Robert Tessier as a mechanical-handed henchman (de rigueur for supervillain henchmen of the time; see also Death Ray 2000/T.R. Sloane).

I actually taped this one off of TV, so I watched it a number of times. I remember it as a pretty fair - if cheap - little Bondian adventure, written by Hammer Studios vet Jimmy Sangster (Deadlier Than The Male), who seemed to have a penchant for this type of stuff (He also penned the aforementioned Once Upon A Spy and one of the better episodes of  A Man Called Sloane).

I watched that old VHS tape a lot and dug it as a teenager who was just starting to become obsessed with James Bond and spy-fi. I wish I still had that tape.

Wednesday Cover: BLOODTHIRST: THE NIGHTFALL CONSPIRACY

For this week's return to my occasional "Wednesday Cover" feature, I present the Joel Adams (talented son of comics legend Neal Adams) cover for the 1994 comic Bloodthirst: The Nightfall Conspiracy... one of my earliest efforts as a comics writer and one of the few that I'm not completely embarrassed by! 

The Bloodthirst comics (there were three: a one-shot and this two-issue miniseries) were about a vampire secret agent (think Emma Peel with fangs). The Nightfall Conspiracy featured interior art by the talented duo of Delfin Barral and Chuck Bordell. The snazzy logo was created by my pal Darren Goodhart.