BROADCASTS.com

Back in the mid-1980s, when serious comic book fans heard that artist and writer Mark Schultz had created a world that crossed dinosaurs and Cadillacs, their first reaction was: “Cool!” Some no doubt thought that it was too much of a gimmick to succeed. Again: dinosaurs? And Cadillacs? No doubt a big seller at the recently opened Creation Museum in Kentucky, but some couldn’t help but be a little dubious. Until you opened the pages of Xenozoic Tales, that is, and experienced first-hand the ingenious storytelling and rich tapestry of comic art. I remember seeing a couple random issues of the book, which was published for more than a decade, and finding it captivating. But I was outside the comics scene and it wasn’t easy to find. The stories later were published as “Cadillacs and Dinosaurs,” and even adapted into 13 episodes of a popular Saturday morning cartoon series in 1993. MARK SCHULTZ podcast excerpt: "I'm working on completing my Storms At Sea project for Flesk. My next project is a new Xenozoic story, which will probably be prose, heavily illustrated. Lots of pictures of Hannah and ugly old Jack."  After a long absence, the collected adventures of Jack Tenrec and Hannah Dundee are back in print in a hardcover edition simply title Xenozoic. Reading it from start to finish, I was struck by several things: the oozing sexuality and pinup beauty of almost every woman Schultz draws; the ugliness of most all the men; and, most interesting of all, the sturdiness of the environmental subplot moving of the overall narrative forward. Even better: Schultz promises more Xenozoic tales in the near future! Mark Schulz •