HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 1

"DAY OF THE COMET" | "VENGEANCE OF THE VIPER KING"
Story: Jim Schull (story 1) & Chris Weber (story 2)
Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton | Colors by: Connie Schurr
Editor: Karen Wilson

So... from what I've gathered, when the HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE TV series ceased production, Mattel wanted to keep the characters appearing for children on a daily basis somehow. Obviously the cartoon would remain in repeats alongside new episodes of SHE-RA, but while the latter series would introduce some MASTERS characters into the Filmation canon, others would be skipped. So, in order to keep on showcasing the newest toys, Mattel commissioned a HE-MAN newspaper strip. The strip apparently had pretty limited circulation (I sure never knew it existed until Dark Horse published their collected edition a few years ago), but it ran for over four years, outlasting the original MASTERS toyline and even running alongside the sequel line, HE-MAN, which started in 1989!

Filmation was apparently pretty heavily involved in the strip as well; according to writer Chris Weber, they packaged the entire thing for syndication, using their own in-house talent to do so. As a result, a few Filmation-exclusive characters show up in these storylines; for example, Shadow Weaver, Hordak's right-hand sorceress, appears in the very first arc. Thus, ostensibly, the strip is a direct continuation of the cartoon series -- though as we'll see momentarily, at least for the first arc this isn't exactly the case.

As a result of having a Filmation artist on the strip, nearly every character is beautifully on-model with the TV show. Gérald Forton takes some liberties, but for the most part, He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Randor, and so forth look very much like their animated counterparts. The villains, meanwhile, are pretty much all spot-on to the Filmation model sheets, perhaps even moreso than the heroes (especially the Evil Horde characters), though somehow Forton's Skeletor never looks quite right.