This post is brought to you by the Bearshirt series, by G. W. Thomas, now six volumes long and growing. Arthan the Bear Man is a powerful swordsman who can also change into a thousand pound brown bear. Preferring a solitary life in the woods, he rarely enjoys such as terrible foes threaten his world, like an army of bee-men, lizard folk in a lost world, a horde of goblins in a secret city, and a war between the werewolves and bears. This is Heroic Fantasy filled with action and color.
In a previous post I listed all the Sinbad comics, whether based on movies or otherwise. This included the three versions of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad with animation magic by Ray Harryhausen. Seeing these three adaptations in parallel is actually more illuminating when it comes to adapting a film. The 7th Voyage has famous sequences, such as Sinbad’s fight with the skeleton that are memorable, and not always included. (Two of the fight scenes in this film made it into the top ten.) We are going to break down the three versions monster scene by monster scene so you can see how they compare. All three had only a single issue to do the entire movie and the adapters leave much out because they must. Some of their choices will surprise you. (The Golden Voyage of Sinbad got two issues and is a much better job for it.)
The first adaptation of the film was in 1958 when the movie came out. Dell offered it as a one-shot, Four Color #944 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. The adaptation was done by Gaylord DuBois, the guy who wrote so many Tarzan and Turok comics. The artwork was done by a young John Buscema, who wouldn’t draw Conan the Barbarian for another fifteen years. His version of Sinbad is less handsome and more macho than the actor Kerwin Mathews.
The next adaptation was in 1975 when the UK’s Legend Horror Classics #3 offered artwork by a young Kevin O’Neill who would later work at 2000 AD and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This version is more accurate because it was based on movie stills but fails to impress.
The last one was almost immediately after in Marvel Spotlight #25, December 1975. This comic had been used to launch superhero characters but Marvel had purchased the rights to 1973’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad along with 7th Voyage. They had no comic title to publish it in so Spotlight got the single issue version. John Warner did the adaptation. Artwork was done by Sonny Trinidad.
As you can see Buscema does his own version of scenes and monsters, perhaps because he didn’t have any movie stills to work from. The cyclops doesn’t have goat legs. O’Neill’s is slavishly copied from the film, obviously using stills, and Trindad’s is half way between them using Harryhausen’s design but drawing his own version of it. I find John Buscema’s refreshing since it is like seeing another version of the movie. Horror Legend Classics isn’t even full color and looks rather like a fanzine product. There is a second encounter with the cyclops that includes a guy getting roasted on a spit then eaten but I won’t belabor the point.
As a demonstration of his power, the wizard Sokurah conjurs a snake-woman for the entertainment of the crowd. This sequence did not appear in any comics except for one panel in Legend Horror Classics. As a non-essential scene, it was logical to trim this bit.
The Roc barely makes it into the comic books. All three use only as much as required. One page will do. One head will do.
The skeleton gets even worse treatment with only Marvel being smart enough to know that fans want that skeleton fight. Including it has a cost as you will see in the next section. Dell included the skeleton on the inside back cover (below).
The dragon is saved for the big finale of the movie and he is supposed to fight the cyclops. Only in the UK version does this happen. Both Dell and Marvel trim him out, making Sinbad kill the dragon all by himself. John Warner knows better but since Dell got away with it in 1958 why not Marvel in 1975?
Conclusion
Adapting a two hour film into twenty or less pages is a big challenge. The writers were smart enough to know that we wanted the monster fights and not the Baghdad intrigue with human actors. Much of that gets trimmed too. Marvel tried to keep the story whole by including half page wordy recaps that I know I would have ignored as a kid. It’s there so you can say you did the job but an extra ten pages would have been better. Squeezing a movie into a set product is never going to give you great results. That’s why other adaptations like Dell’s massive Sleeping Beauty or later four part mini-series at Marvel (The Dark Crystal, Willow, etc.) delivered better. The movie producers didn’t really care as long as the comics sold theater tickets.
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
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