His Name is... Savage
Encyclopedia
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
novel released in 1968 as a precursor to the modern graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
. Created by the veteran American comic book
American comic book
An American comic book is a small magazine originating in the United States and containing a narrative in the form of comics. Since 1975 the dimensions have standardized at 6 5/8" x 10 ¼" , down from 6 ¾" x 10 ¼" in the Silver Age, although larger formats appeared in the past...
artist Gil Kane
Gil Kane
Eli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
, who conceived, plotted and illustrated the project, and writer Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (comics)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...
, who scripted under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Robert Franklin, the black-and-white magazine was published by Adventure House Press, and distributed to newsstands.
Publication history
His Name Is... Savage #1 (June 1968), the sole issue published, was the first full-length comics story in a non-comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
format since 1950, when St. John Publications
St. John Publications
St. John Publications was an American publisher of magazines and comic books. During its short existence , St. John's comic books established several industry firsts. Founded by Archer St. John , the firm was located in Manhattan at 545 Fifth Avenue. After the St...
issued the digest-sized hardboiled detective novellas It Rhymes with Lust
It Rhymes with Lust
It Rhymes with Lust is a book, originally published in 1950, considered one of the most notable precursors of the graphic novel. Called a "picture novel" on the cover and published by the comic book and magazine company St...
and The Case of the Winking Buddha. Like them, Savage was also sold on newsstands rather than in book stores. Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, shortly after Savage appeared, published the first of a two-issue comics magazine, The Spectacular Spider-Man
The Spectacular Spider-Man
The Spectacular Spider-Man is the name of several comic books and one magazine series starring Marvel Comics' Spider-Man.The character's main series, The Amazing Spider-Man, was extremely successful, and Marvel felt the character could support more than one title. This led the company in 1968 to...
, starring that titular superhero
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
. Like the similar, anthological comics magazines of the time, such as Creepy
Creepy
Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. The anthology magazine was initially published quarterly but...
, Eerie
Eerie
Eerie was an American magazine of horror comics introduced in 1966 by Warren Publishing. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. Each issue's stories were introduced by the host...
and Vampirella
Vampirella
Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 . Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in...
, both His Name Is... Savage and The Spectacular Spider-Man cost 35¢, whereas a typical comic book cost 12¢ and double-size issues 25¢.
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
superheroes Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...
and the Atom. He was additionally an early and outspoken advocate of creators' rights in an industry that at the time did not offer character ownership or royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
. Circa 1963, Kane set up a studio on East 63rd Street in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and for five years worked sporadically on both His Name Is... Savage and a project that would become the paperback comics novel Blackmark
Blackmark
Blackmark is a Bantam Books paperback , published January 1971, that is one of the first American graphic novels, predating such seminal works as Richard Corben's Bloodstar , Jim Steranko's Chandler: Red Tide , Don McGregor & Paul Gulacy's Sabre , and Will Eisner's A Contract with God...
. Kane in 1996 said the actual drawing of Savage "was done, from beginning to end, in 30 days. That last page was inked at the printer while they were getting the book ready".
Kane conceived the character Savage, an espionage agent
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
and troubleshooter, and developed the story and art. He based his protagonist visually on actor Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
, whom Kane had seen in the movie Point Blank. Though Kane would alter the character's face for reprint editions, he said in 1996, "We never had any trouble from Lee Marvin — obviously he never saw the goddamn thing. We never had any trouble from anybody".
During this process, he brought in Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (comics)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...
, a writer-editor then at the black-and-white horror-magazine publisher Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...
, to script. Larry Koster handled production, with artist Robert Foster contributing a painted cover. Manny Stallman, a comic-book artist and Kane colleague, introduced Kane "to printers and sales representatives, and it was through Manny that I met the people who ultimately allowed me to turn out His Name Is... Savage," Kane said.
Kane entered into an arrangement with the large newsstand-distribution company Kable News, who jointly published the magazine with Kane under Kane's imprint, Adventure House Press, Inc.. Kane said in 1996 that Kable paid the printing and manufacturing costs but no art or editorial fees.
The project encountered production difficulties, with Kane having difficulty finding a printer willing to risk alienating the large mainstream comics publishers.
Difficulties continued at the distribution level. Adventure House Press printed 200,000 copies, but only approximately one-tenth reached newsstands, per Kane's private estimate. Local distributors, who took magazines on consignment from national distributor Kable, chose for unknown reasons not to carry the magazine, and returned their copies for credit. "We started to get all these boxes of comics back", Kane said. Though planned as a continuing series, with Kane having completed cover art for issues #2-3, only this initial issue was produced.
Synopsis
That sole story, "The Return of the Half-Man", is a science-fiction spySpy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
thriller concerning a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
renegade military general named Mace who kidnaps the U.S. president and impersonates him at a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
assembly in an attempt to ignite a world war. The story and art were more graphically violent than comic books and movies of the day, is with one panel showing a pulped and bloody crushed hand and another showing a metal gun-barrel smashing through a man's teeth and sending teeth flying.
"Savage depends on only two things: guys and his .357 magnum
.357 Magnum
The .357 S&W Magnum , or simply .357 Magnum, is a revolver cartridge created by Elmer Keith, Phillip B. Sharpe, Colonel D. B. Wesson of firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. It is based upon Smith & Wesson's earlier .38 Special cartridge. The .357 Magnum cartridge was introduced in...
, which he has no compunction about using," one critic wrote of the 1982 reissue."Broken noses, splintering teeth, and splattering brains are all depicted in lurid detail They are part and parcel of Savage's obdurate attempts to stop a madman from instigating World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
. Although this is an old theme, Kane and Goodwin present a tale that is riveting and upsettingly believable."
Legacy
The character returned, with his facial features changed, in a four-page vignette titled "Gil Kane's Savage" in the benefit publication Anything Goes #1 (1986, Fantagraphics BooksFantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
). Kane also drew the cover, featuring Savage.
Reprints
Fantagraphics BooksFantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
reprinted His Name Is... Savage in 1982 under the title Gil Kane's Savage with new cover art by Kane as well as slight changes by him to the interior art, "at least to the extent of altering it so its hero's face no longer looked exactly like that of a living actor."
Other alterations for the 68-page, black-and-white comics magazine, cover-priced $2.50, also included "a more aesthetic typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
(to supplant the older, which was shabby, uneven, and contained many typos
Typographical error
A typographical error is a mistake made in, originally, the manual type-setting of printed material, or more recently, the typing process. The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but usually excludes errors of ignorance, such as spelling errors...
);a foreword by comics journalist R. C. Harvey
R. C. Harvey
Robert C. Harvey , popularly known as R. C. Harvey, is an author, critic and cartoonist. He has written a number of books on the history of the medium, with special focus on the history of the comic strip, and he has also worked as a freelance cartoonist.Harvey describes himself as having created...
; and two ... interviews with Kane (one dealing specifically with Savage, the other concerned primarily with technique).
Further reading
- Scholz, Carter. "Kane's Progress" (review of His Name Is... Savage), The Comics JournalThe Comics JournalThe Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
#74, August 1982, pp. 35-39