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Classics Illustrated #15: The Call of the Wild
The story of Buck, the fiercely loyal and powerful dog of the Yukon, has been author Jack London’s most popular novel since it was first published in 1903. Veteran comics writer Chuck Dixon teams with frequent collaborator Ricardo Villagran in this adaptation of London’s novel, which School Library Journal described as “handsome to look at, inviting to read, and a boon to anyone charged with introducing today's youth to classic works.”
56 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1990
19 people want to read
About the author
Chuck Dixon
3,435 books1,037 followersCharles "Chuck" Dixon is an American comic book writer, perhaps best-known for long runs on Batman titles in the 1990s.
His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.
In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.
His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million , Contagion , Legacy , Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.
He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin , Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl , as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey .
While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow , regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998.
In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.
On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."
His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.
In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.
His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million , Contagion , Legacy , Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.
He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin , Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl , as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey .
While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow , regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998.
In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.
On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 31, 2020
Oh man, CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED COMICS - what can I say?
Well...a lot, apparently.
I just finally read the book The Call of the Wild for the first time (long story), but also saw this right next to it at the library, so figured "what the hell" because, y'know, CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED !!
But apparently not that CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, and therein hangs a tale.
THE BEGINNING: The original CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED were published between 1941 and 1969 as a passion project by Albert Kanter, who ultimately churned out 169 titles that probably introduced more children to classic literature than any elementary school even managed. (Since that period included my entire pre-teen years, I well remember buying a number of these comics over the years - originally sold at 15¢ apiece, but later going to the outrageous price of a quarter by the time I was buying them - my whole weekly allowance at the time). You can see a pretty frickin' awesome collection of all the original covers here - https://www.comics.org/series/30403/c... - which shows both the original colored line drawing covers, as well as the much cooler paintings that came later. However, despite their success, Kanter eventually sold his business in 1971, before dying in 1973 (of what I can only imagine was seller's remorse).
THE MIDDLE: Skip ahead to 1990, when First Comics obtained the CI rights and revived the brand with 27 titles, consisting of all-new adaptations of many of the originals as well as some new, more "modern" titles such as Conrad's The Secret Agent, Sinclair's The Jungle and others. However, this came to an end (again) when First went out of business in 1992.
THE END: For some reason, another 15 years later Papercutz acquired the CI license in 2007, and decided to reprint 19 of the First Comics series, as well as continuing First's efforts by publishing new adaptations of another dozen or so of the original CI titles that First never got around to. This effort ended in 2014, when to the best of my knowledge CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED finally came to an end, (although they're probably still being put out somewhere in digital format).
Hope that makes sense - if not, you can get more detail (and coherency) by just going to Wikipedia. Meanwhile, for obsessive-compulsive completists like me, here is the original (very St. Bernard-like) 1953 CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED edition:
...which is not to be confused with either the GREAT ILLUSTRATED CLASSICS edition:
...or the Saddlebacks' ILLUSTRATED CLASSICS edition:
Phew.
Well...a lot, apparently.
I just finally read the book The Call of the Wild for the first time (long story), but also saw this right next to it at the library, so figured "what the hell" because, y'know, CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED !!
But apparently not that CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, and therein hangs a tale.
THE BEGINNING: The original CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED were published between 1941 and 1969 as a passion project by Albert Kanter, who ultimately churned out 169 titles that probably introduced more children to classic literature than any elementary school even managed. (Since that period included my entire pre-teen years, I well remember buying a number of these comics over the years - originally sold at 15¢ apiece, but later going to the outrageous price of a quarter by the time I was buying them - my whole weekly allowance at the time). You can see a pretty frickin' awesome collection of all the original covers here - https://www.comics.org/series/30403/c... - which shows both the original colored line drawing covers, as well as the much cooler paintings that came later. However, despite their success, Kanter eventually sold his business in 1971, before dying in 1973 (of what I can only imagine was seller's remorse).
THE MIDDLE: Skip ahead to 1990, when First Comics obtained the CI rights and revived the brand with 27 titles, consisting of all-new adaptations of many of the originals as well as some new, more "modern" titles such as Conrad's The Secret Agent, Sinclair's The Jungle and others. However, this came to an end (again) when First went out of business in 1992.
THE END: For some reason, another 15 years later Papercutz acquired the CI license in 2007, and decided to reprint 19 of the First Comics series, as well as continuing First's efforts by publishing new adaptations of another dozen or so of the original CI titles that First never got around to. This effort ended in 2014, when to the best of my knowledge CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED finally came to an end, (although they're probably still being put out somewhere in digital format).
Hope that makes sense - if not, you can get more detail (and coherency) by just going to Wikipedia. Meanwhile, for obsessive-compulsive completists like me, here is the original (very St. Bernard-like) 1953 CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED edition:
...which is not to be confused with either the GREAT ILLUSTRATED CLASSICS edition:
...or the Saddlebacks' ILLUSTRATED CLASSICS edition:
Phew.
February 20, 2025
This has always been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. I still have the tattered comic and a two volume set of the collected works of Jack London now replaces my moldy paperback original. The story is well known, both from film and countless adaptations in youth literature, and revisiting this story has done much to rouse my own pleasant memories of what it means to have a dog and the bond that lies between, and how domesticity is something fairly recent, and lingering below are primal urges that go way back.
For more explorations of those primal urges that linger below our domesticities, I also recommend watching the Genndy Tartakovsky's animated Primal.
For more explorations of those primal urges that linger below our domesticities, I also recommend watching the Genndy Tartakovsky's animated Primal.
January 11, 2025
Villagran’s art is fantastic and Dixon does a pretty decent job adapting this novel, but really should have been given more pages, 48 just isn’t enough to adapt a classic, still the story is coherent and works.
January 29, 2019
Good solid story and the artwork really befits the time period. Look forward to reading the full novella.
May 10, 2019
Love the illustrations! Having read the book, I think this was an accurate representation of Buck's journey.
April 24, 2010
A quick, enjoyable read. I liked it so much I am going to continue on with White Fang. I pulled this book down off of FeedBooks.com and gutenberg.org and read it primarily on the Droid using Aldiko. The impetus for reading it was that my daughter, Paige, was reading it in English class. She too plans to continue on with White Fang afterwards.
April 20, 2010
It was soo cool! The call of the wild is an amazing story of the life journey of a huskie from domestic to wild. Written soo well!
Read it if you like wolves and adventure!
Read it if you like wolves and adventure!
February 18, 2015
Not a bad adaption per se but the story was sort of dull although the ending was quite powerful. I guess I do not like a super dog as a main character.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews