Jan 14
Good Show Sir Comments: One of our good friends at Goodreads sums up Zanthar: “The bad news is that if you want to read an exciting mashup of Doc Savage / Buckaroo Banzai, John Carter of Barsoom, and the yellow peril tales of Fu Manchu, with just a soupçon of Lovecraftian horror, then this book isn’t it.”
1. Jeff Jones runs out of paint
2. Jeff Jones remembers he can’t paint feet
3. Jeff Jones eats the brown acid
4. Jeff Jones takes the day off
Thanks to Andre for sending these in!
Not to be confused with this or this or this.
Published 1967, 1968, 1969
January 14th, 2020 at 9:56 am
1: “What is this golf you speak of, Earthman?”
2: The mutant maidens have really let themselves go.
3: I could murder some croutons right now.
4: Obviously job interview day for Zanthar.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:42 am
Those blurbs are… hard to understand:
“An eerie wind blew men’s minds […]”
I don’t know what’s going on here, and perhaps I don’t want to know.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:45 am
1: ZANTHAR’s Bad Acid Trip
2: ZANTHAR’s Hernia
3: ZANTHAR Down and Out in a Sewer
4: ZANTHAR Quits and Becomes a Mail Order Catalogue Model
January 14th, 2020 at 1:42 pm
Zanthar….more clothing options than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….more correct muscle definition than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….more words in the cover blurbs than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….he’s got a cute curly cue attached to the last letter of his name, while Dick Blade just has a stabby letter or two.
Zanthar….cares for your eyes more than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….seems to have fewer issues with women than Dick Blade.
January 14th, 2020 at 3:37 pm
My god, the sci-fi universe is lousy with Faux-nans and Tar-shams.
January 14th, 2020 at 3:46 pm
1. Zanthar always wins the carnival Test-Your-Strength game
2. Original Title: Zanthar, the Lunatic
3. Pandering to the hippie sci-fi market
4. In the womb of time itself, men battle for the future, and time seeks an abortion
January 14th, 2020 at 4:57 pm
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have a ray gun, everything looks like a wicket.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:19 pm
1. Zanthar cleans up at the Space Highland Games despite a malfunctioning holo-kilt.
2. He may be the unacknowledged son of Yoda and a wookie but Zanthar will make him a Space Highland Games champion yet.
3. Zanthar falls into a vat of space scotch.
4. Surprise twist. Zanthar isn’t actually a Space Scottish Barbarian but a Space Middle Manager with a Walter Mitty complex.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:40 pm
@JuanPaul: Leave the little Ewoks alone!
January 14th, 2020 at 8:10 pm
There is something to be said for getting the whole bloody series out of the way in one Megapost.
January 15th, 2020 at 12:20 am
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer all over these many worlds…
1. “super science has failed me. I guess I’ll have to just hit things with a hammer instead.”
I guess that’s when he was just starting out with hammering: I mean, that doesn’t look like an approved hammering grip to me. And as @Good Show Sir points out, those blotchy watercolors and sketched-in spaceship on a blank white background make it look like the artist threw in the towel while only partway through.
2. Or “Zanthar and the really heavy hammer.” Well, it’s a bit of a stretch to go from “mutant maidens kidnapping people” to “entire universe of 100 billion galaxies is in peril.” Or by “universe” do you mean the usual gratuitous SF exaggeration, Zanthar my boy?
“Moon’s Madness” seems an odd name for a bar.
These aliens with the multiple vertical mouth slits puzzle me. Surely the artists doesn’t think they live off Krill?
Is that a magic hammer? Like, Thor’s backup emergency hammer?
3. Guess not, he got a gun instead! I think: that is one murky looking cover. I can see boobs, but it’s hard to tell what the other bits of anatomy in the area are doing and how many people are involved.Why is our Hero crouching by a puddle? Is he just doing it to show off his muscular thighs? And is that a Moon with gears and a drive belt reflected in the puddle?
4. The publisher seemed to think the audience would be rather more interested in the fact that it’s an Easy Eye book than Zanthar being in it, and in this point in the series they may be right.
That certainly doesn’t look like the Zanthar we all have come to know and be largely indifferent too: it’s got Robert Moore Williams [1] name under it, perhaps that’s a picture of the author in his Future Man cosplay outfit?
“At the edge of time…” which edge? The front edge is now, and we’re always battling for the future, or at at least for a better cup of coffee.
[1] Don’t confuse with Ward Moore, a rather better writer.
January 15th, 2020 at 12:47 am
Real A-List fantasy heroes don’t change their hair styles the way Zanthar does.
January 15th, 2020 at 6:15 am
Plus, if he were really cool, he’d spell his name “Xanthar.”
January 15th, 2020 at 9:06 am
Zanthar has a musical theater font for his name. Or maybe one of those shows in Las Vegas/cruise ships. “Zanthar on the Main Stage, Twice Nightly!” Hammering to an audience of bored tourists.
Especial GSS to @fred, @Francis, and @Bruce.
I think @GSSAdmin’s list can be summed up as:
5. Jeff Jones went to UAI.
January 15th, 2020 at 2:19 pm
But then people would pronounce it X-anthar and nobody wants to be an ex anthar.
January 15th, 2020 at 9:15 pm
@Francis Boyle: but it made a cool theme-song for his saturday morning cartoon
‘He’s the one and only, truly original
Anthar-ex-anthar from head to toes’
January 15th, 2020 at 9:59 pm
@Tat W—Say, that is a snappy tune! 😉