Xenozoic Tales - The New World!

As the saga of the Xenozoic Age unfolds the secrets of how the world came to be the way it is are somewhat revealed though always with a hint of more to come and sense that no one is able to really grasp it all. We are mere humans after all and the Earth is much larger than we can comprehend really. 

The misadventures of Hannah Dundee, the ambassador from the fishing nation of Wassoon and her reluctant ally Jack Tenrec, the Old World Mechanic who argues for and makes manifest his desire that the human race keep its perspective and understand its role in the world which is not to dominate it utterly. Whatever happened to the Earth it affected the Moons too since there are two of them now.

The gravitational effect of those Moons proves deadly in a weird and oddly natural way. Mark Schultz is dandy in telling stories in which menace is lurking but not necessarily intelligence. This is a dangerous world and though malicous people abound, living to confront them is a major and ongoing task. Resting easy is not allowed in the Xenozoic Age.

Mark Schultz's talents as an artist really bloom into full form as the series progresses. He is an artist clearly inspired by Frazetta and other grand painters and illustrators of that ilk and he brings his understanding and familiarity with Frazetta and his kin to the page not in a slavish fashion but with new vigor. He has synthesized that which makes them evocative . Also in the latter issues of the run there's more than a hint of the mysterious depths of Skull Island and I think Shultz might've even have treated us to a trip to infamous Spider Pit in one sequence. He's not above giving a shout out to classic images from time to time as the the call-back of the vintage Weird Fantasy cover above shows so beautifully.

As the series proceeds, the time it takes to produce is a problem and Schultz's popularity means he has less time to devote to this labor of love. Our entry into the Xenozoic Age becomes more and more precarious as Shultz has less time to guide us on our way.

Soon the saga which draws together its protagonists against their twin cultures of Wassoon and The City in the Sea becomes effectively an annual event.

Each issue is a gem, a beauty to behold but the story momentum slows and the saga begins to  grind to a halt.

I say to a halt and not to a conclusion for reasons that reading the saga will reveal. This is one of those great unfinished masterpieces to be experienced in the moment.

Don't hate it because it leaves you wanting more, that's really what they all are supposed to do. 

If you've never read these stories I heartily recommend them and as I've said the black and white works best for me and Shultz's art shines. The weakness in the two Dark Horse volumes I have is that they don't reproduce the covers in any way and that does make the experience feel a bit incomplete. But only a little. You don't get everything you want in this life and that's really the theme of Mark Shultz's Xenozoic Tales. It's not a parable for our modern times and woes, but it could be. 

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Xenozoic Tales - After The End!

I love dinosaurs! And in that regard I'm like almost every other kid of my generation and includes Mark Schultz, the man who gave us Xenozoic Tales. Xenozoic Tales are a amazing batch of stories detailing a far but recognizable future when the Earth has suffered a massive trauma and civilization as we know it crumbled. The survivors held on and centuries after today cobbled together a new  society, but one tucked into a world in which massive dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals of all kinds dominated the landscape. 

We meet Jack Tenrec a man with a respect and talent for machinery but a devotion to the natural order. He is a man with some secrets, some we learn as the story unfolds. He is matched by Hannah Dundee, a beautiful ambassador from Wassoon, a culture dominated by its relationship to the sea and has come to the "City in the Sea" for reasons which are not fully understood, hut which we learn. She and Jack face off against natural threats, violent poachers, dangerous politicians, and each other as they seek to understand one another and to do what they need to do.

Jack has access to ancient technology and so recuperates old cars such as his favorite, a vintage Cadillac. When the series is later reprinted in color and brought to television in animated form it will be known as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. But I've always preferred Xenozoic Tales.

There are a host of weird and dangerous secrets in the wilderness which surrounds the City in the Sea and men who venture there are not safe and not in control.

That lack of control, that need to come to grips with nature and to accomplish goals in harmony with the powers of nature is really the core theme of these stories. This is not mankind as the dominant species, but mankind as just one more species in a mysterious world.

It's a story of man contending with nature, albeit a nature unknown to us today, but still about trying to build, to hunt, to fish, to find a way forward. Survival in this new world is not certain by any means.

Jack and Hannah find many secrets alone and together and they constantly fight to stay alive in a world that is actually  quite indifferent to that fact.

As the plague which has put our own society on a tilt has proven, the natural world is a mighty thing and man's dominance is tenuous and momentary. Like Hannah and Jack we fight for survival all the time we just don't know about it. But ignorance will not save us, only understanding and courage. 

The fisrt volume of Xenozoic Tales is dubbed "After the End" and I hope that's not some dark prophecy for our own times.

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