Star-Crossed Swords

Excerpted from...
A Very Personal Word from Roy Thomas

For months, ever since we had to lop off Savage Tales #4 from our schedule and decided to sit around waiting for reader reaction, we've got it - in Hyborian spades.

People not only sent in letters and lambasts - they also actually bought the blamed thing!

Admittedly, first reports were depressing. A good friend of mine phoned to tell me that in two of the five Brooklyn locations he visited, Savage Tales #2 was displayed not alongside Zombie, Dracula Lives, and the like, but alongside men's sweat titles. An early, inconclusive check-up of a handful of newstands showed medicore sales, poorer than our other titles - and, much as we'd like to, we simply can't carry an expensive, hard-to-produce mag that doesn't pull it's own weight.

While we were waiting, we made sure that the cover of issue #3 featured a scene designed to attract the fan of the supernatural as well as the physical. And we sat back and waited some more.

Finally, a couple of months later, we recieved an indication (again inconclusive, but based on more evidence this time) that, lo and behold, Savage Tales #2 had fared better than any previous 75 cent title, not worse. Being a natural optimist at heart, Stan gave the go-ahead to put the mag back on schedule, not as a quarterly this time, but as a full-fledged bimonthly. There were four months between #2 and #3, and only five months between the last issue and this one - so, for all practical purposes, it's as if we've never really been away.