KG Murray's Climax Adventure Comic #6 was published c.November 1967:
The cover art is tentatively attributed to Pete Costanza. It is based on an interior panel:
The publication date is based on the date code on one of the advertisements.
The contents:
| Warning! Plutonium Pirates!, originally published in Adventures into the Unknown #167, September 1966 |
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| Through the Time Flaw!, originally published in Adventures into the Unknown #167, September 1966 |
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| Sammy's Secret!, originally published in Mystery Tales #40, April 1956 | |
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| The Marksman!, originally published in Battlefront #39, March 1956 |
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| The Real End, originally published in Texas Rangers in Action #7, April 1957 |
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| Mister Morgan's Monster, originally published in Strange Tales #99, August 1962 |
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| The Walker The Dragon The Army and the Navy |
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| Human Bait!, originally published in Rugged Action #2, February 1955 |
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| The Bowie Knife |
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| The Cosmic Sleepers, originally published in Ciclone #81, 1962 |
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The Peddler's Revenge
There are two unidentified single-page features in this issue. The feature title is Weapons of the West, and the instalments are The Walker... and The Bowie Knife. I have scanned the respective pages below:
The Peddler's Revenge is a Gringo feature presented as a Ringo story. As per AusReprints, the series was renamed in Australia specifically for the KG Murray issues.
It would be published in Australia as a Gringo story many years later by Gredown in Wild Cat Western:
As you can see the page has been reformatted and whilst the translation is the same, the lettering differs.
Climax Adventure Comic picked up from where the first dozen issues of All Star Adventure Comic left off and was effectively superseded in the KG Murray stable by Super Giant. The series ran for 21 issues over some 14 years, and this extended timeframe may be a contributing factor to the difficulty collectors face completing the series. This issue was the last one I needed to complete my collection but there was a 9 year wait until I finally scored a copy, and I know of a couple of other collectors who are one frustrating issue short of completing their runs. |
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Posts
6 comments:
Many thanks for covering this particular comic, Spiros. I had a copy as a nipper (it disappeared in the Great Parental Chuck-Out of 1969) , and it was very difficult to find a replacement copy when I started rebuilding my childhood KGM collection - in fact I only obtained a copy a couple of years ago. Some of those early issues of “Climax Adventure” are frustratingly scarce.
A couple of specific comments:-
I’d attribute the cover to “Unknown Local Artist, after Chic Stone”. While Pete Costanza was the original artist on “Nemesis”, the later stories in the series - including this one - were drawn by Stone. It’s clearly based on one of the panels midway through the story; I don’t know why didn’t simply use the cover of “Adventures in the Unknown #167”, which featured Nemesis - but that’s KGMs for you.
Incidentally, while KGM reprinted quite a bit of material from the American Comics Group (ACG), I’m pretty sure that this “Nemesis” tale was the only time they reprinted one of the company’s late-era, superhero stories. In fact after a 20 year publishing history ACG shut up shop completely around August 1967, not long before this issue would have appeared.
I’d agree with the publication date of late 1967. As far as I can recall (admittedly 50+ years after the event…..) I bought my original copy circa Christmas 1967 or January 1968 in the small town on the NSW South Coast where we used to holiday. That would tally with your tentative dating, particularly as “Climax Adventure” was issued roughly annually, and copies presumably hung around in the newsagents for some time.
Like early issues of “All Star Adventure”, “Climax Adventure” was a fascinating “bitzer” title, with contents drawn from a variety of non-DC sources. I hadn’t thought of “Super Giant” as a successor to “Climax Adventure”, but it does follow logically, as it had that same unusual mix of non-DC content. Good call!
Mark, thanks for the heads up on the interior panel - somehow I missed it - I've now added it.
And yeah, although Super Giant started well before Climax finished (sic), they had similar profiles for the era.
Hi, Spiros, tha Art attribution to the Nemesis story should be given to Chic Stone according to the GCD. Cost Anzac is much more cartoony.
Costanza is whom I meant to say, but autocorrect can be a pain.
Yep, Stone is credited on the splash page. It's the cover artist who is unknown. It doesn't look like Costanza, but that's the tentative credit - with a question mark - on AusReprints.
A late response... but I don't know why I had Costanza on AusReprints. Probably a wild guess based on a low-res image. I've updated to 'Chic Stone (concept); ? (Australian)'. I suspect it is the same unknown Australian artist that did several other issues of Climax based on interior panels.
Those two 'Weapons of the West' look to also be Spanish work, probably also sourced from Selecciones Ilustradas with Johnny Galaxy and Ringo. The Bowie Knife is also printed in Ringo (KGM) #2 - released at almost the same time as this issue.
Johnny Galaxy has a very bad title reworking, where it is obvious that the 'y' is redrawn (replacing the original Galaxia).
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