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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 5:59am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

The movie PLANET OF THE APES was released fifty years ago today. Still the best out of all of them!

I had thought about doing a movie topic, but I've posted about POTA so many times, including in the "What are you watching?" thread. I believe there have been specific topics, too.

Let me briefly post about POTA comics, then. Marvel's Curtis Magazines imprint did some POTA comics, 29 issues in total. 

And then us Brits got a POTA comic which ran for 123 issues (1974 to 1977). Of course, it wasn't pure. undiluted apes: the likes of Ka-Zar, Dracula, Man-Thing and Black Panther were reprinted in the weekly title. I have no idea if Marvel UK's POTA comic eventually did original material, but I know they reprinted Curtis Magazines' stories. 

Marvel UK has rarely done original material (Captain Britain was one such story!). As our POTA comic ran for 123 issues, and featured the apes sharing the comic with the likes of Ka-Zar and Black Panther, I presume they "cut up" the original US strips and made them last 123 issues. But perhaps others know better.

Seems POTA strips featured characters other than apes and humans. I really would like to find the entire UK POTA run one day.

Here's a sample (US and UK):








Seems the poor apes were often "pushed aside" for the likes of TOMB OF DRACULA, though:


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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 6:05am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Hmmm. The IMDb gives April 3 as the release date. Where are you getting your date, Robbie?
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 6:21am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

It was here:


If I've goofed, can this remain akin an "early birthday present" to POTA fans? ;-)
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 6:33am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I wonder if the UK publishing included the
POTA Power Records comic? Most of those
were original material and didn't get
reprinted often.
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 6:59am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Robbie is correct.

The film first opened at the Capitol on 2/8/68.

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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 7:05am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I've been finding the 70's Marvel comics in the dollar boxes recently and pretty much enjoying them.  Doug Moench did the writing and he's always a favorite, and George Tuska did the art for the first movie and he's always solid.

I guess these are reprints from the magazine, which I just looked up on Grand Comics Database.  I see that Moench did most of the writing for the 29 issues, which is good.  The artists listed, however, are all people I sometimes like and sometimes don't--Mike Ploog did a lot of 70's Marvel work that was too loose for me, but I absolutely loved his TOM SAWYER adaptation; Tom Sutton was always a little too messy for me, but sometimes his energy and storytelling won me over; Alfredo Alcala and others of the "Filipino wave" always got the job done in a naturalistic style, but usually missing that dynamic quality so necessary in comics.  But, boy, those painted covers (Norem, Larkin, etc.) are just fantastic!  So, I'm torn.

PLANET OF THE APES always has a sadness connected to it for me.  That first movie was so amazing, and the potential for further stories so great, but the follow-up movies (without Rod Serling's influence) threw the concept of Taylor exploring an exciting new world out the window!  The TV show was blah, the book was a satire, all the later comics are cheap, the recent movies and are well-done but centuries away from the world that Taylor clashed with.

The Marvel magazines may be my last chance to find the APES stories I'd always hoped for.  Are they worth tracking down?


Edited by Eric Jansen on 08 February 2018 at 7:06am
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 7:11am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I only had a few Marvel magazines, Eric, but I enjoyed them. One had a reprint of an Invisible Man tale, based very closely on the original novel. There were reprints for the likes of TOMB OF DRACULA, too.

The black and white adds to the atmosphere, too. 
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Jack Bohn
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 7:45am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Was the British magazine where they redrew panels of Killraven so that it was apes rather than Martians in charge of the Earth?
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 7:46am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

It looks interesting, but I never saw them for sale. Never found a dollar box with Marvel Magazines in it, because I would indulge that too!

Damn you! Damn you all to hell! ;)

Tangent: it might be a matter of opinion, but was that the first movie with a really big Rod Serling-esque twist at the end? One to leave the cinema goers walking out of the theater talking to themselves? (It's opinion because some might feel that "West Side Story" had such an ending... which I guess it kinda did. But I hope you see what I mean.)
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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 7:54am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Robbie is correct.

The film first opened at the Capitol on 2/8/68.

http://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/09/movies/020968apes.html

••

sigh

IMDb is fast becoming about as dependable as Wikipedia!!

Well, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of my all-time favorite movies! (And may the Lawgiver curse all that came after!)

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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 7:59am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I, too, have checked IMDb and thought it was accurate (I didn't earlier as I am finding a heck of a lot of pop-ups lately), so it's no bad thing to have gone by IMDb. I think I've attributed dates to IMDB on at least a dozen or more occasions.

Maybe this should be the year I read the original novel. Waterstones had a copy recently but when I went back, it was gone. I do buy eBooks for my Kindle, but I think MONKEY PLANET would be a nice book to own physically.
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 08 February 2018 at 8:03am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

 Jack Bohn wrote:
Was the British magazine where they redrew panels of Killraven so that it was apes rather than Martians in charge of the Earth?

That rings a bell. Fairly amusing, I think. 
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