Set Description:
Long before 'Cowboys and Aliens', 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs', and, well, 'Archie meets the Punisher', Dell/Gold Key brought us 'Native Americans vs. Dinosaurs'....
I've been a huge fan of the Turok Son of Stone series (Dell/ Gold Key, and more recently the Valiant/Acclaim and Dark Horse runs) since I was maybe 5 years old. Regret not taking sufficient care of original raw copies I had over thirty years ago which I'd inherited from my dad (loved the covers so much ended up tearing some of them up and turning the pinups into posters, drawing all over them etc - the horror!). Then again, I can point to my childhood fascination with Turok as what led to my subsequent interest in both reading and collecting - so maybe it turned out okay in the end!
After a long journey, I've finally been able to complete this set. This is a combination of slabs which I'd begun purchasing in the 2009 SDCC (my first visit by the way, and now ticked off from by bucket list) from various other sources, as well as raw issues (procured from Milehigh, Worldwide, Metropolis and a host of individual Ebay sellers including a huge set from Neatstuff) which I personally had encapsulated. It's been a great and fullfilling experience so far! I'm now looking forward to working to upgrade my set (hopefully, a minimum of 8.5 grade or higher), as well as continuing to improve my set gallery e.g. replacing 'stock' scanned cover photos with actual scans and expanding this to cover foreign edition issues also (i.e. Spada/Italy, Pop Pictorial/ Australia, Novarro/Mexico) once I'm able to carve out enough time - and saved up enough money! - to do this. (Unfortunately, my work takes me overseas for extended periods of time, so I try and find time to scan and upload photos of books I have shipped back home, whenever get a chance to come back).
For other Turok Son of Stone fans out there, I'd also recommend you check out hhttp://psychosaurus.com/frames/index.html, one of the more comprehensive Turok fan site I've come across to date (unfortunately hasnt been updated lately though), and where I was able to get issue-specific synopsis which I'd embedded in the commentary section of my set. Kudos to whoever set this site up.
Thanks for reading, and happy collecting!
About the series (primary source: Wikipedia, psychosaurus.com and comichron.com):
Turok first appeared in Western Publishing/ Dell Comics' Four Color Comics #596 (October/November 1954). He then moved on to his own title, Turok, Son of Stone. Gold Key, Valiant in 1994 (later Acclaim in 1997) Dark Horse (in 2010) and Dynamite (in 2014) later published the character. Dark Horse has also been publishing 6-issue hardcover collections of the Dell/Gold Key series.
Rex Maxon drew the first book. According to Wikipedia, the writer-creator credit for the characters is disputed, with historians citing Matthew H. Murphy, Gaylord Du Bois and Paul S. Newman as the feature's earliest writers.
The Western Publishing version of Turok was an early, pre-Columbian Native American who, along with his brother Andar, became trapped in an isolated 'Lost Valley' populated by dinosaurs, which they refer to by their most obvious characteristics (Tyrannosaurs are called "Runners", Pterosaurs are called "Flyers", Velociraptors are "Screamers", Plesiosaurs are "Sea Demons", Triceratops are "Rammers", etc.). Interestingly, the Lost Valley was also home to prehistoric cavemen and others. Stories involved Turok and Andar many attempts (all failed) at seeking a way out. According to wikipedia, Du Bois was influenced by his visits to Carlsbad Caverns New Mexico and developed the "Lost Valley" from his visits to the area.
After two appearances in "Four Color" #596 and #656, the title ran 27 issues (#3-29) from publisher Dell Comics (1956–62); then issues #30-125 (1962–80) from Gold Key Comics; and finally issues #126-130 (1981–82) back under the Whitman Comics imprint.
The first Turok one-shot (Four Color #596) was originally written by Du Bois as a "Young Hawk" story. "Young Hawk" was an earlier Native American comic book feature Du Bois created, which appeared in Dell's The Lone Ranger comic-book series.
As late as issue #8 of Turok, Du Bois's last scripts for the series, when the artists had long since established Turok as an adult, Du Bois continued to introduce the two Turok stories in that issue (as he had in previous issues) by describing Turok and Andar as "youths," more befitting Young Hawk than Turok (though Andar was depicted as a youth). The first story in that issue begins, "Turok and Andar, Indian youths, have found their way into a strange network of deep canyons in the Carlsbad area, where ancient forms of life still exist...They have found no way to get out." The second Turok story in that issue begins, "Trapped in a deep canyon in the Carlsbad area of New Mexico, Turok and Andar, two Indian youths, have met ancient forms of life which have disappeared from all other parts of the world."
In Du Bois' last Turok story (issue #8, "Turok Seeks the Trail to Freedom", in which Turok encounters a herd of horses, which he calls "slim-legged creatures," having no word for them, as the horse had not yet been introduced to the Americas by the Spanish), Turok scales the cliffs, and escapes the Lost Valley. He is out, but he returns for Andar, who was wounded. Then an avalanche permanently seals the way out, and the series begins anew. Paul S. Newman wrote the Turok stories afterward.
Approximately 15 million copies sold throughout the 1960-1970 run. Becoming quarterly after it spun out of Dell Four Color, the series entered the 1960s as a Top 20 title and may have been Dell's best-selling action series in 1960, behind only Lone Ranger. Sales began sliding gradually once the title came under Gold Key imprint, and it went from bimonthly back to quarterly. It was one of the last Gold Key action titles around, surviving into the Whitman bagged-only era, where it was available only in three-packs.
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