of Erik the Red

MY FAVOURITE FUNNIES No. 16

Ø

norse by northwest

Eric the Red, THE WORLD AROUND US No. 23 (July ’60) [THE ILLUSTRATED STORY OF GREAT EXPLORERS].

Ø

Travels of the Vikings, THE WORLD AROUND US No. 29 (January ’61) [VIKINGS].

Ø

The Colonists, THE WORLD AROUND US No. 29 (January ’61) [VIKINGS]; art: Sam Glanzman. Eric the Red is banished from Iceland.

Ø









Stuart Taylor, JUMBO COMCS No. 36 (February ’42); story: Curt Davis?; art: Seymour Reit. Stuart Taylor turns back time 900 years–with Laura Hayward and her father, Dr. Hayward–to discover Eric the Red and his son, Leif the Lucky, in exile.

Ø





The Colonists, THE WORLD AROUND US No. 29 (January ’61) [VIKINGS]; art: Sam Glanzman. Eric the Red establishes a colony on Greenland.

Ø

Greenland—map showing the Norse settlements, from THE VINLAND SAGAS: THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA (Penguin, 1965).

Ø

The Far Shores, THE WORLD AROUND US No. 29 (January ’61) [VIKINGS]. Bjarne Herjulfson travels off course on his way to Greenland and sights other lands before finally landing at Greenland. The Vikings had no instruments for navigation and tried to stay within distance of coastlines so as not to get lost far out at sea.

Ø

Leif the Lucky, Viking Adventurer, REAL LIFE COMICS No. 52 (April ’50), reprinted in THE COMPLETE FRANK FRAZETTA WHITE INDIAN (Vanguard, 2011); art: Frank Frazetta. Erick’s son, Leif the Lucky, longs to travel to new found lands.

Ø

fellow travellers







Batman and the Vikings, BATMAN No. 52 (April-May ’49), reprinted in BATMAN No. 193 (July-August ’67) [80 PAGE GIANT G-37]; art: Bob Kane and Charles Paris. A Viking artefact reveals that a Norseman, who looked just like Bruce Wayne, was a coward. This haunts Bruce Wayne, so he and Dick Grayson look for help from Professor Nichols. The professor puts them in a hypnotic trance that sends them to the Norway of a thousand years ago. There as Batman and Robin, they journey on a Viking longship to Byzantium to free Bruce’s look alike from a prison. The doppelganger is named Olaf Erickson and he has a cousin that has travelled to Vinland–this is possibly Leif the Lucky, but that is never made clear in this adventure. The Dynamic Duo help Olaf prove his courage to his cousin in the New World, before returning to their own time.

Menace of the Future Man, WORLD’S FINEST COMICS No. 135 (August ’63); story: Bill Finger; art: Dick Sprang and Sheldon Moldoff. With the aid of their old friend, Carter Nichols, Batman and Robin return to the ancient Norseland in pursuit of Future Man. There they encounter a Viking strongman named Thor who wields a big hammer.

Ø





THE ADVENTURES OF JERRY LEWIS NO. 78 (September-October ’63); cover and inside art: Bob Oksner. Jerry travels back in time to the Viking age. More about this story in next issue’s VINLAND SAGA, stay tuned.

Ø

PRINCE VALIANT (1947 Sundays); story and art: Hal Foster. In one of the greatest epic adventures of Prince Valiant, his young wife, Aleta, is kidnapped by Ulfrun, the Sea Raider. Prince Valiant pursues his wife’s abductor in his own Viking longship, from Thule across the North Sea to Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario and Niagra Falls. During her abduction, Aleta is pregnant with her and Valiant’s son and will give birth to him in the New World. These beautifully illustrated panels give Foster the opportunity to display the great natural beauty of his native homeland–Canada. As the time period of Prince Valiant is around the 5th century A.D., his landing in the New World predates the other Vikings by several centuries. The entire continuity is collected in PRINCE VALIANT Vol. 6: 1947 – 1948, by Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books, 2012).

Ø

ASTERIX AND THE GREAT CROSSING (Orion Books, 2004), translated from ASTERIX: LA GRANDE TRAVERSÉE (Editions Hachette, 1975); story: René Goscinny; art: Albert Uderzo; English translation: Anthea Bell and Dereck Hockridge. Asterix and Obelix go out to sea to fish but are caught in a storm and end up somewhere else that they’ve never seen before, where they encounter a strange nation of people before they meet up with a group of Vikings. As this story is set in 50. B.C., it predates the Viking voyages of exploration by more than a thousand years.

Ø

For More on Erik the Red and the Norse in Greenland—

THE NORSE IN GREENLAND–Dr. Kathryn Denning

NORSE CULTURE–Descendents of Eric the Red in Greenland

in the next issue

More Viking Adventure:

top

Ø

THE MOST SHOCKING DC HOUSE AD YOU WILL EVER SEE!

The house ad for SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE No. 77 (September-October ’67) [80 PAGE GIANT G-39]; art: Kurt Schaffenberger. The scariest of house ads–this one is taken from BATMAN No. 195 (September ’67) [on sale July 20th], but the same promo page appeared in all the other DC comics on sale around that time–the advertisement that comes after it is the two page centre-spread for Major Matt Mason [see below]. It was always a nervous experience trying to get by the shocking house ad to the Major Matt Mason one. The actual LOIS LANE Giant is just as terrifying!

top

____________________________

All characters, logos, and images are owned and © 2014 by current copyright holders. They are used here for educational and review purposes.