Gold Key Comic, 1964: The Mystery of the Lizard Men
Content © 2008 by Lyle P. Blosser and Craig Fuqua / Scans © 2008 by Craig Fuqua
Aside from the COMICO productions, there is one very special comic book that is the Jonny Quest collector's "holy grail" - Gold Key's 1964 issue of "The Mystery of the Lizard Men." This was an adaption of the 1964 series episode of the same name, and is very rare today. A 1998 check of a comic book value guide lists this comic, if in mint condition, at a value of $300! Even a good condition copy goes for $25 or more. (In 2009, these have increased in value to $450 for mint!) If you have one of these, by all means, appreciate it! That means protecting it, but not hiding it away and never looking at it. There are many JQ collectors who have never seen this book, but would love to. I've only recently been able to locate a copy, thanks to a fellow JQ fan (HS, gracias!), and can tell you it's worth the search!
The Gold Key book reads like a still frame version of the episode, with many of the same scenes (see below), and the art style is similar to that of the show, although no artist is given credit in the book. This is the jewel of my JQ comic collection!
In addition to the U.S. comic, there were at least two other versions featuring the same cover and artwork, one in Mexico and the other in Australia. The Australian pages were in black and white and the 80-page book also featured stories based on the Hanna-Barbera series of Dino Boy ("The Raiders of Ra"), Moby Dick ("The Submarine Pirates"), The Three Musketeers ("Masks of the Spider"), The Mighty Mightor ("Wrath of Tazarr"), Space Ghost ("Zorak's Revenge"), The Arabian Knights ("Captive Princess") and The Herculoids ("The Energy Creatures"). Some of these stories also appeared in the seven-issue comicbook series, "Hanna Barbera Super TV Heroes," published by Gold Key, 1968-1969. The Australian book has a copyright date of 1966, but this is clearly wrong. Some of the characters in the other stories didn't appear until after 1966 (Herculoids, Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor were 1967 shows and Arabian Knights was 1968), plus the copy Craig has doesn't look 40 years old.
The Gold Key "Lizard Men" comicbook adaptation was also reprinted in the 1965 Jonny Quest Annual in Great Britain.
In Japan, Jonny Quest fans could buy comics and "sonosheet" records of the "Lizard Men" and "Robot Spy" stories.
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| Cover for the American Gold Key comic | Cover for the Mexican comic, "El Misterio de los Hombres Lagartos," published in 1964 by Domingos Alegres |
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| Cover for the Australian comic published by the K. G. Murray Publishing Company Pty. | |
| The American version had a back cover and two inside-cover pages that were not printed elsewhere. Click the thumbnails for larger versions. |
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| As mentioned above, the artwork looks like it was pulled from the episode. Here's an example - on the left is the page as seen in the comic book; on the right is the page re-created using screen grabs from the TV episode. | |
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| Page 20 of the American Gold Key comic | Page 20 redone with screen grabs |
And here's how the pages looked in the Mexican and Australian versions:
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| Page 20 of the Mexican comic |
Page 22 of the Australian comic
The cover and inside-front counted as pp. 1-2 |