THE HEAP
Vol. 1, No. 1 (One-shot)
September, 1971
Skywald Publishing Corporation
Editor: Sol Brodsky
Cover: Tom Sutton; Jack Able
Pages: 52
Cover price: 25 cents
Skywald's comic book line was thin and short-lived, offering western, romance, jungle and this title, THE HEAP, "The Nightmare Who Could Not Die!". It contains a new, 17-page Heap story scripted by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Tom Sutton and Jack Abel. The rest of the issue is filled with reprints from STRANGE FANTASY (Ajax-Farrell), STRANGE WORLDS (Avon), and STRANGE JOURNEY (Ajax-Farrell).
So, why, out of all the horror topics available to choose from, did Sol Brodsky pick The Heap? In an article by George Khoury in the magazine, ALTER EGO (Vol. 3, No. 81, 2008), Roy Thomas explained: "I was also responsible for Skywald Publishing introducing a Heap character. I had lunch with [Skywald co-founder] Sol Brodsky soon after he left Marvel Comics to co-found Skywald. He was looking for heroes to do. I couldn't write for him, so he was kind of picking my brain, and I wanted to help without getting too involved, since [Marvel editor-in-chief] Stan [Lee] wouldn't have liked that. I told Sol, 'Well, we have the Man-Thing, so you ought to get someone to revive the Heap'. He remembered the character since he was a comic-book artist in the 1940s."
Why did Sol Brodsky leave Marvel? Did he have a fight with Stan Lee and get fired? Or did he leave just for the opportunity to run Skywald?
ReplyDeleteThe short answer is, I'm not sure. He went back to Marvel after Skywald's demise, so it must not have been anything acrimonious. Brodsky apparently wasn't a "comics man", he was a businessman and my guess he and Waldman formed Skywald as a potential money-making business venture. While it didn't do that, it certainly has gone down in horror comics history!
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