Monster Monday: The Partial Resurrection of Simon Garth, aka the Zombie!

I have expressed my love for Marvel's Tales of the Zombie a few times here before.  TOTZ, Dracula Lives, Vampire Tales, I loved all of those mags.  But the Zombie was special--a character that allowed Steve Gerber to write some really crazy stories.  And best of all, it almost seemed like a limited series, when issue #9 was published.  The lead Zombie story was titled "Simon Garth Lives Again" by Tony Isabella.  The Zombie is transformed back into a living man for 24 hours--enough time to attend his daughter's wedding--before turning back into the undead.  By the end of the tale,  Simon Garth engulfed himself with a Gris-Gris (the only thing that could destroy a Zombie) and was buried in a new grave.



I thought that was pretty final end to the Simon Garth's story.  Yet, the next issue blurb did say he would return in issue #10!  But we never got the story.  When the final issue of TOTZ appeared, editor Don McGregor wrote an editorial explaining that Gerry Conway had written and Rico Rival had drawn a 30 page story featuring all-new adventures of Garth.  But these pages got lost in the mail and were probably in Guam!  I always wondered what happened to that story; it was never published.  But I just found the pages on Heritage Comics auction site a while ago!

The opening page shows that Simon Garth is right where Papa Doc and Tony Isabella left him, buried in a graveyard.  It's been two months since the events of TOTZ #9.  Which would have been appropriate if this had appeared in issue #10--the magazine was published bi-monthly!

A team of scientists is using a "vibro-mole" to dig Garth out of his grave.  It was interesting that Conway chose to have the military-industrial complex be the agent of the Zombie's return.

On the title page "The Partial Resurrection of Simon Garth", the Zombie is lifted out of his grave.  He remains motionless, inert, deader than the usual dead guy.

But Simon Garth's body is still somewhat intact--it hasn't decomposed any further.  Which was something quite mysterious about this character.  He was attacked by giant spiders, set on fire, hacked at with an axe--yet he never lost any body parts.  This Zombie was tough.

By the fifth page we see a man retrieve a very familiar object, the medallion used to control the Zombie, being stolen from a detective's office.

I have scans of the next few pages but not the entire story.  What happens next is that the Zombie is studied by the military.  Someone goes wacko (Andrews or the guy who stole the medallion) and starts killing people.  Would love to know how Garth was reanimated.  Was this story ever published in one of the Essentials?   Nuff Said!

Monster Monday: Tales of the Zombie, Simon Garth!

Some images just remain stuck in your head for eternity.  I remember being utterly frightened by just the thought of the Exorcist, for example.  Couldn't even watch the commercial on TV without getting frightened.  When Marvel started publishing monster magazines, I didn't get creeped out too easily.  Dracula was scary, but guys like Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night were heroes to me. 



On the day I saw Boris Vallejo's cover to Tales of the Zombie #1 (1973) in the bookstore, I definitely felt pangs of fear and apprehension.  I hadn't even planned on buying this magazine, but when I saw the cover, I was sold.  A monster, holding a pretty lady by the arm in a foggy graveyard?  It's not Vallejo's greatest painting by any means, but it just nailed the look of the Zombie.  This was the first time I had ever seen anything by Boris Vallejo.  He did a few more Zombie covers, some Savage Sword of Conan covers, and then his career took off outside of comics.

I think I was doubly sold when I opened up TOTZ to find that Steve Gerber had written the story (with plotting help from Roy Thomas) and John Buscema / Tom Palmer / Syd Shores did the artwork.



The new story was a framing sequence around an early 50s horror tale by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, was given the classic Gerber treatment.  Simon Garth is a wealthy industrialist who lives in New Orleans.  To say that Garth was a Type-A personality doesn't come close.  One thing after another happens and Garth is kidnapped and used in a Voodoo ritual, run by his gardener and secretary.  Garth is killed, turned into a Zombie, but with a twist: he can be controlled by whoever holds the Amulet of Damballah.  The matching talisman hangs around Simon Garth's neck.  The 2nd person narration in the captions that Stan Lee wrote would be used in the 1970s version.



Pablo Marcos took over the artwork on Tales of the Zombie #2 and redefined the character visually.  The Everett version was skinny had sunken flesh around the bones; his eyes were dark slits.  Marcos' version is more robust, which matches Buscema's depiction of Garth as a man who liked to work out.  But it also more closely matched the illustration of the Zombie on Boris Vallejo's cover painting.  The stories called for Simon Garth to rip apart humans and other monsters with supernatural strength, so this change made sense.  Garth's eyes changed from slits to open eyeballs that had rolled upward.  White, blank, and ten times more frightening.

While other Zombies usually deteriorate after a way, this one remained intact after getting whipped, mauled, chewed on by giant spiders and even set on fire.  Simon Garth was the superman of Zombies!



The Zombie presented another writing challenge that only Steve Gerber could conquer.  How do you write a story with a main character who cannot speak?  The Zombie didn't even have thought balloons.  Gerber solved this problem by using Stan Lee's 2nd person narrative in the captions, like on this splash page to issue #5:

You stand in a dark windswept field somewhere outside New Orleans...but you do not feel the chill of the blustery night breeze.  You do not feel anything.

The supporting cast was another obstacle.  Aside from Garth's daughter Donna, there wasn't much of one.  But the Amulet of Damballah floated around from person to person, most of them with terrible plans for a Zombie.  One of the good ones was Phillip Bliss, who rewarded Simon Garth with a grave.  The bad ones included a group of partying swingers who used the Zombie to kill people they hated.



Tales of the Zombie magazine lasted only for 10 issues and 2 years, but it's one of my favorite Marvel horror series.  Ironically enough, the story of Simon Garth concluded in issue #9 story, "A Day in the Life of a Living Dead Man", where he was transformed back into a living human for 24 hours before returning to the grave for his eternal rest.  Making this Marvel's first maxi-series, in a roundabout way.  Nuff Said!

Update: Comments from my old MT blog...

3 Comments

By Andrew Wahl on October 27, 2010 8:26 AM

Man, that Bill Everett splash is awesome. Some of the other art is nice, too, but that Everett piece really makes me want to read these. There might be a Essential Tales of the Zombie purchase in my future!

Cheers,
Andrew
ComicsBronzeAge.com

By Richard Guion on October 27, 2010 10:18 AM

Just so you know--the Bill Everett story is only 10 pages.

Makes me wonder how many great other horror Everett gems are around waiting to be discovered?

By Edo Bosnar on October 28, 2010 12:59 AM

Essential Tales of the Zombie is a really nice package - it collects pretty much everything, and you lose nothing in reproduction since it was a b&w magazine (well, except the color covers...).

Monster Monday: Tales of the Zombie ads

I’ve been collecting scans of Marvel house ads for some time and just ran across this collection of ads for Tales of the Zombie magazine.  The ad above, for the first issue of the magazine, shows the original Bill Everett drawing of the character from a short story published before Marvel became the House of Ideas.  You gotta love the blurbs:  No Grave Can Hold Him!  The Zombie Cometh!

The ad for the second issue started featuring the art of regular artist Pablo Marcos. 

The color ads for TOTZ could appear in Marvel Comics, but Zombies themselves could not appear in any comics-code approved book.  Fans seemed to crave a team-up between the Zombie and Spider-Man.  We didn’t get that, nor any team-ups with any other horror characters. 

This ad is for my favorite issue of TOTZ—featuring the Steve Gerber story where Simon Garth gains his life back for one day, A Day in the Life of a Dead Man.

I hope you do not feel like a zombie on Monday, dear readers!  Nuff said.

Monster Mondays: Pablo Marcos tribute to Steve Gerber

A while back I mentioned Back Issue #31, a tribute to Steve Gerber.  This contained a nifty illustration by Pablo Marcos, Gerber’s artist on Tales of the Zombie:

These were all of the horror characters that Gerber wrote during his tenure at Marvel.  From left to right: Simon Garth (Zombie), Morbius, the Living Mummy, Lilith, Son of Satan, and of course, Man-Thing.  You can visit Pablo Marcos’s website for more illustrations.  Nuff said.