Russ Manning - Splash page Korak #8

These days, when people mention Russ Manning it seems that most think of his work on Star Wars. But his career began in 1952 when Jesse Marsh got him a job at Western Publishing. For the first 10 years, he worked on the entire line of Dell comics; he worked on westerns, historical (Ben Hur), movie and TV tie-ins (77 Sunset Strip, Sea Hunt, Roy Rogers, Wyatt Earp), and even some Disney titles. Regardless, even with his distinctive style, he was relatively unknown thanks to Western's policy that artists NOT sign their work. Still, when the strict Comics Code Authority caused a slump in the comic book industry resulting in many artists leaving the field, Dell's "wholesome" books continued to sell well and provided Manning with all the work he could handle.

Things took a bit of a turn in 1963 when Dell published Magnus, Robot Fighter 4000 A.D. It became very popular and Manning was referred to as a worthy successor to Alex Raymond and Flash Gordon. Manning called Magnus his "Tarzan of the future."

That year, Manning was assigned Korak, Son of Tarzan. and two years later he took over the major Tarzan title from the ailing Jesse Marsh

While Korak 8 begins with a painted cover (there is some discussion whether it is by Morris Gollub or Alberto Becattini), the lead story, "Lair of the Dragon," is 24 pages of all Manning, Written by Gaylord Du Bois, the story begins when Korak rescues three Peace Corps volunteers from a plane wreck. They then discover a lost cave city held captive by a water dragon, and Korak saves the female Peace Corps volunteer from a forced marriage with the overly grateful king.

A nice, twice-up page from 1964 with a large panel of Korak.