While Conan the Barbarian had rampaged thru pulp magazines in the 1930s...
...another barbarian would be the first to slash thru comic books!
Crom was the brainchild of writer Gardner Fox and artist John Giunta.
His first story appeared in the one-shot anthology
Out of this World, then was reprinted the next month in
Out of This World Adventures #1, an offbeat pulp magazine/comic book hybrid combining b/w text and spot illustration sections with a color comics section.
After a second appearance in
OoTWA, he moved over to the comic
Strange Worlds which reprinted his second
OoTWA appearance, then ran one more tale before the barbarian disappeared into the mists of history.
If the name "Gardner Fox" sounds familiar, he's best known for his extensive Golden and Silver Age superhero work including creating the Golden Age
SkyMan,
Sandman,
Dr Fate, Starman,
Kenton of the Star Patrol and
Moon Girl; the Silver Age
Adam Strange and
Atom,
both the Golden
and Silver Age
Flashes and
Hawkmen, and conceptualizing and writing the first stories of both the
Justice Society and Justice League!
He also made important contributions to
Batman (utility belt, batarang, bat-gyro) and introduced the parallel-world concept of
Earth-One/Earth-Two to comics in "Flash of Two Worlds" which united his Golden and Silver Age Scarlet Speedsters.
Including non-series comics stories he wrote over 4,000 stories.
Fox wrote at least one prose novel per year, sometimes under pen names covering genres from sci-fi and fantasy to romance to espionage as well as numerous short stories.
Besides scripting
Crom, Fox wrote two paperback series in the 60s-70s featuring barbarian heroes;
Kothar (five books) and
Kyrik (four books).
In addition he did a pair of
John Carter/Barsoom-style novels featuring
Alan Morgan on Llarn.
and these barbaric goodies from Amazon...
And that's it!
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