Comments on: 365 Reasons to Love Comics #152

By: Greg Hatcher

Greg Hatcher — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:27:33 +0000

But the concept is great, and Iâ€™d love to see it made into a movie.

Well, it IS a great concept. It's technically not Bob Kanigher's though. He was doing a riff on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Caprona books: The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, etc. At the time I think the books were out of print and nature of the comics business was such that this kind of riffing/homage/theft went on all the time. Kanigher may well have thought something like, "Hey, World War II soldiers on a dinosaur island? I should do something like that," and not considered it plagiarism. All this is by way of saying there WAS a movie. In 1975 Amicus Pictures released Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot starring Doug McClure. I still really like it, despite its low-budget look. It's available on one of those Midnite Madness double-feature DVDs with the sequel, The People That Time Forgot. Haven't seen the sequel but the first one is a first-rate Burroughs adaptation, it very much captures that adventure/romance vibe all his books had. You can read more about it and see some stills here.

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:52:57 +0000

Yeah, I gotta say, in a 500-page volume format, TWTTF does get more than a little repetitive. Especially since Kanigher seems to feel that stories about dinosaurs fighting soldiers in World War II isn’t interesting, and he needs to spice it up with human interest stuff. Like the story where the one soldier was an Olympic bobsledder, and the other soldier is the brother of his partner, who died in a bobsledding accident, and now the two are fighting over whether the brother’s death was his fault…while fighting dinosaurs.

But the concept is great, and I’d love to see it made into a movie. I even have the opening scene in my mind–a soldier gets called in to a secret briefing about a mysterious cloud-shrouded island where two previous patrols had been lost. The government presumed it was enemy-held territory until they broke a Japanese code…the Japanese think we hold it. This soldier’s mission is to find out: If we don’t hold it, and the Japanese don’t hold it…who does?

By: Mullon

Mullon — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 20:11:20 +0000

Someone really needs to build a tank/ship/gorilla.

By: Mike McGee

Mike McGee — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 13:10:23 +0000

I didn’t comment on the Other Side post because, um, at the time I was in the middle of reading The Other Side. Having read both it and as much of TWTTF as I could handle, I gotta say, The Other Side wins. If you’ve read one story about a bunch of Marines/sailors/paratroopers accidentally ending up on an island full of dinosaurs, you’ve just about literally read them all. A 60-or-so-page collection covering the highlights of the series* would have been sufficient…and maybe MORE than sufficient…

*G. I. ROBOT!!!

By: Steve Flanagan

Steve Flanagan — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 08:34:02 +0000

Not quite the maddest war comic ever. For me, that honour goes to The Black Max, a British comic strip about a WW1 German air ace who kept a giant bat inside the fuselage of his Fokker triplane. He would release it to attack entente aircraft.

By: Tyson

Tyson — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 05:02:19 +0000

I didn’t comment on yesterday’s post ’cause I haven’t read it. But I did have my LCS order it for me today (they had already sold out).

So, even when you aren’t getting many comments, you’re still doing good in the world.

By: The Mutt

The Mutt — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 04:32:35 +0000

Weird War #94. That’s a cover that has it all.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:54:20 +0000

“Mr. Kanigher, upon careful consideration, I’ve decided not to endorse your park.”

“Who are you? Get the hell out of my office!”