Savage Tales is the title of three American comics

American comic book

An American comic book is a small magazine originating in the United States and containing a narrative in the form of comics. Since 1975 the dimensions have standardized at 6 5/8" x 10 ¼" , down from 6 ¾" x 10 ¼" in the Silver Age, although larger formats appeared in the past...

 series. Two were black-and-white comics-magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 anthologies published by Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 (the first of these under the company's Curtis Magazines

Curtis Magazines

Curtis Magazines was an imprint of Marvel Comics that existed from 1971 to 1980. The imprint published black-and-white magazines that did not carry the Comics Code Authority seal. Initially, page counts varied between 68,76, and 84 pages....

 imprint), and the other a color comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 anthology published by Dynamite Entertainment

Dynamite Entertainment

Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises of adaptations of other media. These include adaptations of film properties such as Army of Darkness, Terminator and RoboCop, literary properties such as Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in...

.

Marvel/Curtis

The first of the two volumes of Savage Tales ran 11 issues, with a nearly 2-year hiatus after the premiere issue (May 1971, then Oct. 1973 - July 1975). It marked Marvel's second attempt at entering the comics-magazine field dominated by Warren Publishing

Warren Publishing

Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...

 (Creepy

Creepy

Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. The anthology magazine was initially published quarterly but...

, Eerie

Eerie

Eerie was an American magazine of horror comics introduced in 1966 by Warren Publishing. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. Each issue's stories were introduced by the host...

, Vampirella

Vampirella

Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 . Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in...

), following the two-issue superhero

Superhero

A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 entry The Spectacular Spider-Man

The Spectacular Spider-Man

The Spectacular Spider-Man is the name of several comic books and one magazine series starring Marvel Comics' Spider-Man.The character's main series, The Amazing Spider-Man, was extremely successful, and Marvel felt the character could support more than one title. This led the company in 1968 to...

in 1968. Starring in the first issue were Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard

Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....

's sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...

 pulp-fiction

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

 character Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...

, adapted by writer Roy Thomas

Roy Thomas

Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and 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...

 and artist Barry Windsor-Smith

Barry Windsor-Smith

Barry Windsor-Smith, born Barry Smith is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best known work has been produced in the United States....

 (as Barry Smith); the futuristic, Amazon

Amazons

The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...

-like Femizons, by writer-editor Stan Lee

Stan Lee

Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....

 and artist John Romita; the swamp creature Man-Thing

Man-Thing

The Man-Thing is a fictional character, a monster in publications from Marvel Comics. Created by writers Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and Gerry Conway and artist Gray Morrow, the character first appeared in Savage Tales #1 , and went on to be featured in various titles and in his own series, including...

, plotted by Lee and Thomas, scripted by Gerry Conway

Gerry Conway

Gerard F. "Gerry" Conway is an American writer of comic books and television shows. He is known for co-creating the Marvel Comics vigilante The Punisher and scripting the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man...

 and drawn by Gray Morrow

Gray Morrow

Dwight Graydon "Gray" Morrow was an American illustrator of paperback books and comics.-Biography:Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Morrow is best known as art director of Spider-Man between 1967 and 1970 and as illustrator of the syndicated Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant comic...

; the African-American inner-city defender Joshua, in the feature "Black Brother" by Dennis O'Neil

Dennis O'Neil

Dennis J. "Denny" O'Neil is an American comic book writer and editor, principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of books until his retirement....

 (under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Sergius O'Shaughnessy) and penciler Gene Colan

Gene Colan

Eugene Jules "Gene" Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series...

; and the jungle lord Ka-Zar

Ka-Zar

Ka-Zar is the name of two jungle-dwelling comics fictional characters published in the United States. The first appeared in pulp magazines of the 1930s, and was adapted for his second iteration, as a comic book character for Timely Comics, the 1930s and 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics...

, by Lee and artist John Buscema

John Buscema

John Buscema, born Giovanni Natale 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...

.

Thomas, who would shortly thereafter become Marvel editor-in-chief, recalled in 2008 that
When the magazine eventually began publishing again years later (after Goodman had left the company) in the wake of a Conan-inspired sword-and-sorcery trend in comics, it starred the likes of Conan; fellow Robert E. Howard hero Kull of Atlantis; and John Jakes

John Jakes

John William Jakes is an American writer, best known for American historical fiction.-Early life and education:...

' barbarian creation, Brak. As of issue #6, the magazine cover-featured Ka-Zar.

The series featured painted covers by comics artists including John Buscema

John Buscema

John Buscema, born Giovanni Natale 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...

 (#1-2), Pablo Marcos

Pablo Marcos

Pablo Marcos Ortega, known professionally as Pablo Marcos is a comic book artist and commercial illustrator best known as one of his home country's leading cartoonists and for his work on such popular American comics characters as Batman and Conan the Barbarian, particularly during the 1970s...

 & John Romita

John Romita, Sr.

John V. Romita, Sr. is an Italian-American comic-book artist best known for his work on Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man...

 (#3), Neal Adams

Neal Adams

Neal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...

 (#4-6), Boris Vallejo

Boris Vallejo

Boris Vallejo is a Peruvian-born American painter. He immigrated to the United States in 1964, and he currently resides in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He frequently works with Julie Bell, his wife, painter, and model....

 (#7, #10), and Michael Kaluta (#9). A 1975 annual, consisting entirely of reprints, mostly from Ka-Zar's color-comics series, sported a new cover by Ken Barr.

Volume 2, published after the abandonment of the Curtis Magazines name, ran eight issues (Oct 1985 - Dec. 1986). It featured adventure and action stories with a military fiction slant. Stories in the first and fourth issues, a feature called "5th to the 1st" by writer Doug Murray

Doug Murray (comics)

Doug Murray is an American comic book writer. He served in the Vietnam War, and was the main writer on the popular comic book series The 'Nam.-Bibliography:*The 'Nam #1-45, 49-51, 75 Dec 1986-Dec 1990*Mark Hazzard: Merc #5-12, March 1987-October 1987...

 and artist Michael Golden, were the forerunners of the duo's color-comics series The 'Nam

The 'Nam

The 'Nam was a war comic book series detailing the U.S. War in Vietnam from the perspective of active-duty soldiers involved in the conflict...

.

Dynamite Entertainment

A second company's Savage Tales, a color comic-book sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...

 anthology starring the character Red Sonja

Red Sonja

Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, is a fictional character, a high fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith, and loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's 1934 short story "The Shadow of the Vulture"...

, began publication in 2007.