Tower of Shadows #7 - Of Swords and Sorcery! - pg. 2

When I started collecting originals by artists I admired, Wally Wood was the one that mattered.

And I stayed that course, and was astonished at my beginner's luck in locating quality pieces that exceeded my modest expectations. Never an EC or Marvel example, though. So now I'm happy again, because I've added another fantastic piece of Woodwork to my treasures. And it's a Tower of Shadows page, to boot!

This was a magical story, so to speak, for me when I was an adolescent. I knew little about sword & sorcery, and was beginning to explore its delicious delights. It seems that Wally Wood was similarly enchanted by this genre, since he wrote and drew four s&s stories for Marvel and five for Warren during this period. Art from these is pretty aggressively contested for nowadays.

To the best of my knowledge, this gem of a page is all-Wood, story, pencils and inks. The only thing that isn't is that classic Artie Simek lettering, which is pretty neat in itself.

Every character in the tale is here, except for the villain. There's Vandal, a barbarian, presumably the quasi-historical figure who inspired the word ; Pit Tippit, a doppelganger of Odkin from The Wizard King ; Trolkin, a dwarf-turned-lizardman and the victim of a curse ; and Princess Lissal. It's no coincidence that this unlikely band of intrepid adventurers is reminiscent of The Fellowship Of The Ring, since Wally Wood was a Tolkien fan, like a lot of us in the '60s.

The complete mini-saga can be read online: https://tinyurl.com/2mybfndw

I like to post some special new art every year for my birthday. I think this qualifies!

(POSTSCRIPT, 5/22/25: Wally Wood seems to have regarded this story highly among his personal and favorite works. In Bhob Stewart's excellent Against The Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood, the author excerpts a letter from Wood in which he describes Of Swords and Sorcery! as "the best thing I've done in years." Discovering this gem of information in a recent perusal of this well-thumbed tome in my Wood collection makes me treasure this page all the more.)