When magazines experience success like Warren's did, there are always rival publishers waiting to jump on the bandwagon and grab a quick profit. However the Warren books were never really successfully imitated.

The earliest attempts dredged up some of the worst material from 50's horror comics and packaged them in gory, ineptly drawn covers. Titles like Weird, Horror Tales and Terror Tales were the epitome of low-quality comic dreck.

There were some exceptions however. Skywald Publications; edited by Sol Brodsky, (who was Stan Lee's production chief during Marvel's formative years); put out three black & white magazines that featured some good work; as well as the first American showcase for the work of fantasy painter Boris Vallejo. Though not in the same league as Warren's material, the titles: Psycho, Scream and Nightmare were a major improvement over Warren's other competition. Other contributors were Jeff Jones and Larry Todd.

The late 1970's saw the greatest number of challengers to Warren's lead in the b/w field. Marvel attempted to capitalize on the niche created by Warren by flooding the marketplace with over ten titles ranging from Vampire Tales and Monsters Unleashed, through Planet of the Apes and Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, to Savage Tales and Savage Sword of Conan.

In time the Marvel magazines withered and died. With so many titles to support, the overall quality was uneven. But they did manage to expand the field of b/w beyond the horror/fantasy range staked out by Warren. And they created the only b/w magazine to stand the test of time and the marketplace, Savage Sword of Conan. Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith collaborated to produce the epitome of comicdom's sword & sorcery genre with their beautifully executed adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Red Nails.

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