Saturday, July 20, 2013

Unpublished Gems: Unearthly Spectaculars

With his origin and first appearance in October of 1965, Paul Canfield could change into the wild Tiger Boy as shown on this unusual cover from the short-lived three issue anthology series. Doug Wildey was chosen the illustrate the first five page story that carried over to the second issue where Gil Kane drew our feral hero as he  fought his villainous sister  for his last appearance! Cover artist Jack Sparling unleashed a  striking image of the mysterious Tiger Boy attacking two State Troopers  for Unearthly Spectaculars #1. Shocking as it is, perhaps editor Joe Simon felt that it just wasn't quite shocking enough, so he asked for the changes as seen in the printed version above. Sticking with the main center figures which were photostatted to the cover on a smaller scale, Sparling altered the shaggy "moss-men" on the left to the surrounding gnarly and watching "tree-creatures" for an extra creepy weird scene. I would image writers would have been very limited in the story lines they could produce for this furry hero, so I guess its for the best that  he only lasted ten pages over two issues, so Harvey could move on to their next unique creation.
 



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