Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (43 page)
Read Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) Online
Authors: Will Murray
Tags: #Action and Adventure
Renny rumbled, “That explains where he got the idea, but it doesn’t go very far toward revealing what motivated him to do it in the first place.”
“That,” said the bronze man glumly, “we may never know.”
The four men fell silent as they reflected on the strange story and its sad aftermath.
Monk opened his simian mouth to offer another comment, but just then a buzzer sounded.
“Someone at the door,” grunted Renny.
“Maybe it’s somebody in trouble!” beamed Monk. “Ever since missin’ out on that King Kong fracas, I’ve been itchin’ after some action.”
Doc directed, “Ham, show them in. Let us see what new adventure fate has brought to our doorstep this time.”
About the Author: Will Murray
WILL MURRAY (1953- ) has written the exploits of heroes ranging from Remo Williams to Squirrel Girl, but
Skull Island
is the first time he has teamed up two legendary characters in one iconic adventure.
While the author has been long associated with Doc Savage, his connection to King Kong is less well known. He initially encountered the magnificent monkey back around 1963, but has forgotten whether he first saw Kong on TV, or read about him in
Famous Monsters of Filmland
#25. Either way, he became a lifelong fan.
Unlike most, Murray actually met the Eighth Wonder of the World. Back in 1986, as a journalist for
Starlog
magazine, he visited the set of
King Kong Lives!
at the old De Laurentiis Entertainment Group Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Kong was temporarily indisposed, being strapped down on a huge operating table while awaiting a mechanical heart. But he was still impressive. On the DEG backlot lay Carlo Rambaldi’s forty-foot mechanical King Kong robot from the 1976 remake, sadly rusting away. So technically, Murray faced two incarnations of the fabulous ape that day.
None of this prepared him for writing
Skull Island,
but it didn’t hurt.
Skull Island
is the first exploration of the family history and origins of Doc Savage, and is a dramatic departure from the Doc Savage stories written by Lester Dent and the other writers who worked under the house name of Kenneth Robeson. Hence the decision to publish it under his undisguised byline.
With nearly sixty novels to his credit, Will Murray can only wonder: What next?
About the Artist: Joe DeVito
FOR OVER thirty years, Joe (1957- ) has specialized in SF, Fantasy and imaginative genres of all kinds. Along the way, he has painted and sculpted many of Pop Culture’s most recognizable icons. He also illustrated and co-authored (with Brad Strickland) two novels. The first is
KONG: King of Skull Island
(DH Press, 2004). Over ten years in the making, it is a Cooper-endorsed prequel/sequel to the original King Kong story. The second book,
Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong
(St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005), is an expanded updating of the original 1932 novel credited to Edgar Wallace and Delos W. Lovelace.
The year 2012 saw the release of electronic versions of
KONG: King of Skull Island,
as well as Part 1 of an interactive iPad app. Part 2 of the app, an audiobook version from Radioarchives.com, and a Young Adult series based on the
KONG: King of Skull Island
book, are scheduled for 2013.
DeVito recently sculpted the 100th Anniversary statue of Tarzan for the Edgar Rice Burroughs, LLC, is painting covers for The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage written by Will Murray and Lester Dent, and is participating in the development of two films:
KONG: King of Skull Island,
and his newest creation,
The Primordials.
About the Patron: Gary A. Buckingham, P.E.
IF A fascination with books and reading is hereditary, it must have come only from my parents, Allen and Lynn, as there are few other traditional readers in the extended family. It seems there is a corollary in education, as we each have a college advanced degree. Although we have moved and traveled extensively around the country, our home is Wisconsin.
I met Joe DeVito at the Edgar Rice Burroughs Centennial Celebration near Los Angeles in August 2012. While I have attended a number of popular culture conventions in the past and met many artists, there was something about Joe’s friendly greeting each time I passed by his table. Of course, his Tarzan art statues (three formats) on display were of primary interest. Before this, I was aware of his Wild Adventures of Doc Savage cover paintings, as well as Will Murray’s excellent new and ongoing writing contribution to the Doc Savage canon. I had already read the first volume and was very positive on my outlook for the rest of the series.
However, my collection of Doc Savage previous to this was only ten of the Kenneth Robeson Bantam paperbacks and some Marvel, DC and Millennium comic books and magazines. I had none of the seven collaborations done by Joe and Will twenty years ago. My main interests of collecting had concentrated in other areas.
To quite an extent, Joe’s admirable realistic art style has pulled me in to expanding my collection. The ultimate expression of this, to-date, is commissioning the cover painting for this book. I thought about it for a week after Joe mentioned the possibility to me in August, and then made the telephone call that started the three of us on the cover design and implementation.
Glad to say, Joe was right in his enthusiasm for the process, in that I feel my participation in the cover design was welcomed equally by Joe and Will. I’m pleased to mention that the autogyro on the cover was my idea, and the addition of a different frontispiece drawing from Joe as well as making the cover a wraparound conclude my contributions. Naturally, Joe DeVito deserves almost all the credit for his wonderful renditions of the ideas he, Will and I proposed.
I have been published just once in the field of popular culture. This was a seven-page, 15-illustration article entitled “Illustrations of the Canaveral Press Editions” in the (Edgar Rice)
Burroughs Bulletin
#77, Winter 2009. I hope to write more in the near future.
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