Jules Verne, Part 21

(Continued from Jules Verne, Part 20)

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN NEMO
Episode 6  /  "ISLE OF THE LOST"

Now it gets complicated.  I had to do some research.  I used the search engine at the GCD site to locate all the remaining episodes, and found that the first 4 stories had all been reprinted in the Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST anthology, out of sequence.  Following them, a new 5th episode made its debut, some 6 YEARS later.  It was only after completely cleaning up the scans, and then double-checking at both the GCD and Inducks sites that I realized there were actually 6 episodes, and I was missing the 5th one!  (The GCD does not have the 6th one listed at all-- but fortunately, the Inducks site does.)

At first, I thought the later one might have been sitting around unpublished for several years, but on closer inspection of the art, I've come to the conclusion it was actually done NEW just for the digest.  Dan Spiegle's art, which I could barely recognize before, has noticeably evolved into the style I'm familiar with here, and, he's only using 4 panels per page, which to me, strongly indicates the story was created specifically for the smaller digest format.

Suffice to say, I'm rather proud at being able to re-present them here, all beautifully cleaned up, and in the proper sequence!

The shame is that, as far as I can tell, the last 2 Dan Spiegle episodes have never been printed in America in a regular, full-size comic-book.  Somebody who licenses Disney material should really look into correcting this.  I can easily picture a collection of all the Dell / Gold Key CAPTAIN NEMO material-- all 6 episodes by Dan Spiegle (clocking in at 60 pages plus covers) and the earlier 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation by Frank Thorne.  That would make a nice package, I think!  Until then, this blog will have to do.

Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST  36  /
Cover by (??)   (August 1972)

"ISLE OF THE LOST"  /
story & art by DAN SPIEGLE

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

This story's conclusion pays tribute to a plot element that surfaced in Verne's "THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND", when the castaways briefly journey to a nearby island, and discover another castaway, who-- later in the narrative-- is revealed to have been the villain of yet another Verne book, "CAPTAIN GRANT'S CHILDREN", who was marooned there in punishement for his crimes.

(Continued in Jules Verne, Part 22)

Copyright (C) Walt Disney Productions

Cover scans from the GCD site
Raw scans of the story from the Nemo Nautilus site
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

Special thanks to Cory Gross for his blog article,
     Jonathan Leslie for the scans of the story
     &  Patrick Ford for possible writer & cover artist identification. 

For More:
Read about Dan Spiegle at Wikipedia
Read about Dan Spiegle at Comic Book Resources
Read an interview with Dan Spiegle at the Dan Gheno site

See the 20,000 LEAGUES overview!
Read the Jesse Marsh 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Frank Thorne 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Wally Wood 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read the Jack Kirby 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read the Dan Spiegle CAPTAIN NEMO series!
Read the Jim Fair CAPTAIN NEMO series!
Read the Bill Baker 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Gary Gianni 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Ernie Colon 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!

See the JOURNEY overview!
See the MYSTERIOUS ISLAND overview!