Parent company | Marvel Comics |
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Predecessor | Marvel Classics Comics |
Founded | 2007 |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Headquarters location | New York City |
Key people | Roy Thomas, Eric Shanower, Nancy Butler, Skottie Young |
Publication types | Comic books |
Fiction genres | horror, fantasy, adventure |
Marvel Illustrated was a Marvel Comics publishing imprint specializing in comic book adaptations of classic literature. Each novel's story is told in the form of a limited series, the issues of which are later collected as a trade paperback. Writer Roy Thomas has adapted many of the titles; the imprint is also known for its six adaptations of books from the Land of Oz series, all done by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young; and its four adaptations of Jane Austen novels by writer Nancy Butler.
Marvel Illustrated was started in 2007, the first attempt by the company to adapt classic literature since the short-lived 1970s series Marvel Classics Comics . Their first title was a 64-page one-shot adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book , by Mary Jo Duffy, Gil Kane, and P. Craig Russell, which collected material originally published in 1983 in Marvel Fanfare . Other titles launched in 2007 included The Last of the Mohicans , The Man in the Iron Mask , and Treasure Island , all of which were adapted by Roy Thomas.
2008 saw publications of The Iliad , Moby-Dick , The Picture of Dorian Gray , and The Three Musketeers , all adapted by Thomas.
In 2009 Marvel Illustrated published Kidnapped and Thomas' telling of the Trojan War, as well as the first of Nancy Butler's adaptations of Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice . That was the year they also released Shanower & Young's adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , which has been followed by The Marvelous Land of Oz (2010), Ozma of Oz (2011), Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (2011–2012), and The Road to Oz (2012–2013).
In 2010, the imprint published Dracula , adapted by Thomas and Dick Giordano, which collected material originally published in the 1970s and mid-2000s. They also published Butler's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility , illustrated by Sonny Liew.
In 2011, they published Butler and Janet K. Lee's adaptation of Emma ; since then the imprint has only released Oz adaptations.
Roy William Thomas Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, who was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E. Howard's character and helped launch a sword and sorcery trend in comics. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes – particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America – and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and The Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.
John Buscema was an American comic book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop-culture conglomerate. His younger brother Sal Buscema is also a comic book artist.
Eric James Shanower is an American cartoonist, best known for his Oz novels and comics, and for the ongoing retelling of the Trojan War as Age of Bronze.
John Tartaglione, a.k.a. John Tartag and other pseudonyms, was an American comic book artist best known as a 1950s romance-comics artist; a Marvel Comics inker during the Silver Age of comic books; and the illustrator of the Marvel biographies The Life of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the first of which at least sold millions of copies worldwide in several languages.
Tower of Shadows is a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by the American company Marvel Comics under this and a subsequent name from 1969 to 1975. It featured work by writer-artists Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Johnny Craig, and Wally Wood, writer-editor Stan Lee, and artists John Buscema, Gene Colan, Tom Sutton, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson.
Chamber of Darkness is a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by the American company Marvel Comics. Under this and a subsequent name, it ran from 1969 to 1974. It featured work by creators such as writer-editor Stan Lee, writers Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, and Roy Thomas, and artists John Buscema, Johnny Craig, Jack Kirby, Tom Sutton, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson. Stories were generally hosted by either of the characters Digger, a gravedigger, or Headstone P. Gravely, in undertaker garb, or by one of the artists or writers.
Frankenstein's Monster is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is based on the character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The character has been adapted often in the comic book medium.
Skottie Young is an American comic book artist, children's book illustrator and writer. He is best known for his work with various Marvel Comics characters, his comic book adaptations of L. Frank Baum's Oz books with Eric Shanower, his I Hate Fairyland comic book series, and a series of novels with Neil Gaiman.
Nestor P. Redondo was a Filipino comics artist best known for his work for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and other American publishers in the 1970s and early 1980s. In his native Philippines, he is known for co-creating the superheroine Darna.
The Savage Sword of Conan was a black-and-white magazine-format comic book series published beginning in 1974 by Curtis Magazines, an imprint of American company Marvel Comics, and then later by Marvel itself. Savage Sword of Conan starred Robert E. Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, and has the distinction of being the longest-surviving title of the short-lived Curtis imprint.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2009) is an eight-issue comic book limited series adapting the L. Frank Baum novel of the same name. The series was written by Eric Shanower with art by Skottie Young and published by Marvel Comics.
Dracula Lives! was an American black-and-white horror comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. The series ran 13 issues and one Super Annual from 1973 to 1975, and starred the Marvel version of the literary vampire Dracula.
Pendulum Press was a publishing company based in West Haven, Connecticut, that operated from 1970 to 1994, producing the bulk of their material in the 1970s. The company is most well known for their comic book adaptations of literary classics. The Pendulum Now Age Classics series published black-and-white paperback adaptations of more than 70 literary classics, such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The War of the Worlds, and Moby-Dick. These stories were later widely reprinted by other publishers well into the 2000s. Pendulum also published a line of historical comics, a line of comic book biographies, and a line of comic book adaptations of inspiring stories and morality tales.
Marvel Classics Comics was an American comics magazine which ran from 1976 until 1978. It specialized in adaptations of literary classics such as Moby-Dick, The Three Musketeers, and The Iliad. It was Marvel Comics' attempt to pick up the mantle of Classics Illustrated, which stopped publishing in 1971. Thirty-six issues of Marvel Classics Comics were published, 12 of them being reprints of another publisher's work.
Graphic Classics is a comic book anthology series published by Eureka Productions of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Graphic Classics features adaptations of literary classics by authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe, with art by top professionals, many of whom hail from the underground or alternative comics world. Created and edited by Tom Pomplun, the series began publication in 2002.
Celso L. "Sonny" Trinidad was a Filipino comics artist who worked in the Filipino and American comic book industries. In the U.S., he is mostly known for his work for Marvel Comics in the mid–1970s.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2005) is a collection of three stories adapting the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum. The stories were written by David Chauvel with art by Enrique Fernandez.
Comics Feature was an American magazine of news, criticism, and commentary pertaining to comic books, comic strips, and animation. Published by New Media Publishing, it produced 57 issues between 1980 and 1987.
The House of Hammer was a British black-and-white magazine featuring articles and comics related to the Hammer Film Productions series of horror and science fiction films. The brainchild of Dez Skinn, almost every issue of the magazine featured a comics adaptations of a Hammer film, as well as an original comics backup story, such as the long-running feature Van Helsing's Terror Tales.