In the mid ’70s, Marvels Planet of the Apes magazine was better than National Lampoon and Playboy combined.

To some of us anyway.

Being a small drug store in a small Midwestern town, there was no set schedule.

What the distributor sent them, they put out and didnt think about it too much.

So it was always a bit of a crapshoot.

Sitting there right next toWomans DaywasPlanet of the Apesmagazine, issue one.

Above the title was the tagline, Where man once stood supreme, now rule the apes!

It took all I had to keep from screaming.

I didnt even need to flip through it to see what I was getting into.

I snatched it off that bottom shelf and brought it to the checkout.

It was the perfect magazine.

I mean, THE perfect magazine, the one Id been waiting for my whole young life.

Then I did it again.

I would do the same thing with the next 28 issues until the mag was abruptly cancelled in 1977.

ThePlanet of the Apesmagazine offered another option.

The final feature in each issue was the latest installment of the serialized adaptations of all five films.

Each adaptation ran from five to seven issues.

What stuck with me the most along these lines were the radiation-scarred mutants fromBeneath the Planet of the Apes.

It was the first timeApestories unrelated to anything in the films had been published.

In between the major and minor strips was a handful ofApes-related articles, interviews, and photo spreads.

Pages and pages of glorious mid-70s comic book ads.

screamed an ad for a kung fu course.

promised an ad for a detective kit that consisted of a plastic badge.

I guess these people figuredPlanet of the Apesgeeks probably had bully problems and rich fantasy lives.

the TV show only ran one season, andthe Saturday morning cartoon which began in 75didnt run much longer.

Article ideas and interviews were drying up, as there was nothing new or relevant left to talk about.

There are only so many times you could interview Roddy McDowall about the same thing.

The once perfect-bound mag grew smaller and was stapled.

The price dropped from a buck to seventy-five cents.

The killer, though, wasStar Wars.

The magazines material had dried up, and suddenly so had its audience.

Abruptly with issue 29Planet of the Apesmagazine was unceremoniously discontinued, leaving several ongoing storylines unfinished.

It wasnt a complete loss, though.

After all, which one of these more recent comic series would run a long interview with Natalie Trundy?

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