The Saga of the Victims TPB from Gwandanaland Comics

 

TITLE-The Saga of the Victims
SOURCE-Gwanadanaland Comics #2420

Off and on for the past 20 years I have heard about "The Saga of the Victims". This was a 6 chapter comic serial. Appearing in issues of Skywald Publishing's Scream horror magazine. Scream was a clone of Warren's better known Eerie and Creepy

 

Josey Foster and Anne Adams are college students. Going to a fancy private college. Then one night their dorm gets invaded by demonic looking beings from below the Earth's surface. They learn that the leader of these dwellers from below is the Head Mistress of their college. Using their brains and a bit of luck our two college ladies escape. But end chapter one in a room where a man with no skin has just walked in.

And with this first chapter ,running 20 pages of gorgeous B/w art from artist Suso,establishes the forumula we would get in the next 4 chapters. Each starts off with "the Victims" escaping a cliffhanger from the last chapter. They run into something even more odd and creepy. End up about to die and chapter ends.

Like how they end up on a pirate ship full of zombie pirates. Josey and Anne are made to walk the plank. They fall into a shark infest sea. But a giant squid grabs them and drags them deeper into the sea.

But wait that Giant Squid is actually a submarine. Captained by a midget Nazi,who goes around the world in his Squid-Sub terrorizing various seaside towns and cities.

Just when I thought the writer,Alan Neweteon,couldn't top a Midget Nazi who piloted a Squid-Sub he strands the Victims deep in the darkest jungle. Where they get captured by a tribe of cannbials lead by a giant man who got a masters in psyhcology from Harvard

In the final chapter in this trade,Chapter 5,our leads faced all kinds of insane deathtraps

Before being put into a odd looking spaceship. Being taken to a huge castle.

Which in the final panel takes off into space. All through out the 5 chapters we keep being told that someone/something is torturing the Victims and will keep doing it till they two ladies give up. In Chapter 5 they strongly suggest that in chapter 6 we will learn who/what this ringleader is. And why they chose Josey and Anne to be the Victims.

Now I have hinted that this TPB doesn't contain every chapter of this sadly forgotten batshit insane comic serial.And there is a major reason for that. See Scream was a magazine sized comic that got published by Skywald. Skywald never put a proper copyright notice in their comic mags. Which means they are all public domain now. The issue of Scream that Chapter 5 ,issue 11 aka the Winter of 75 special,was the last issue of Scream to be published.

So what about the final chapter? Well from what I can find it has been published 2 times now. Once was in a horror comic that was published in Spain. This version is of course in Spanish. Then in the early 2000s there was a small print run of a hardcover collection. This collection has ,IIRC in color,all 6 chapters of The Saga of the Victims in English. This hardcover is long out of print. I keep checking a few used book sites and never find a copy for less than 200 bucks.

Honestly even with the story being incomplete this collection is worth grabbing. All of Gwandanaland Comics can be found for sale on Amazon. Or you can buy direct from Lance,the guy who runs Gwandanaland. If you buy direct from him you can get the volumes a slight bit cheaper but have to pay for shipping. Either way you get them they are made by Amazon's print on demand service. I think for the cheap price this volume is worth it.