Today is Alan Davis 61st birthday so we take another look at what should have been one of Marvel´s best selling mutant books of the 1980s - and it would have been if the title had been X - CALIBUR instead of EXCALIBUR.
![]()
Now last year I posted the complete EXCALIBUR - THE SWORD IS DRAWN graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis. The idea was to bring more attention to this severely underrated and underappreciated by comicfandom in general series. I don´t know if it was really my post that got things going but soon after the first Epic Collection was announced that reprinted this book. There had been trades before but most of them were out of print at that time so I´m glad that at least the first 11 issues of the series are out there again and can hopefully find a new audience.
Which is why instead of just doing a post with Alan Davis best inked pages - or at least the best ones I could find - I had to make it difficult for myself and make another EXCALIBUR - centric post. First the idea was to include stuff from the issues reprinted in the Epic Collection but then I decided to go for quality instead which brought the dilemma that most of the pages ( the bulk of them was found at HERITAGE AUCTIONS ) are from later issues. So this is less a celebration of the first 11 issues - although there is a page from the second issue - and more a taste of things to come. As usual I am posting the color versions alongside the black and white art but this time I couldn´t find any good original color pages. One last thing I want to clear up before we get to the wonderful art pages by Alan Davis.
For me the title of the graphic novel was not a good choice since it panders to one of the biggest common misconceptions concerning the arthurian legend. Excalibur was NOT the sword in the stone. Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone looking for a sword but the sword in the stone got destroyed later on and THEN the Lady in the Lake gives him Excalibur.
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
stone
Now last year I posted the complete EXCALIBUR - THE SWORD IS DRAWN graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis. The idea was to bring more attention to this severely underrated and underappreciated by comicfandom in general series. I don´t know if it was really my post that got things going but soon after the first Epic Collection was announced that reprinted this book. There had been trades before but most of them were out of print at that time so I´m glad that at least the first 11 issues of the series are out there again and can hopefully find a new audience.
Which is why instead of just doing a post with Alan Davis best inked pages - or at least the best ones I could find - I had to make it difficult for myself and make another EXCALIBUR - centric post. First the idea was to include stuff from the issues reprinted in the Epic Collection but then I decided to go for quality instead which brought the dilemma that most of the pages ( the bulk of them was found at HERITAGE AUCTIONS ) are from later issues. So this is less a celebration of the first 11 issues - although there is a page from the second issue - and more a taste of things to come. As usual I am posting the color versions alongside the black and white art but this time I couldn´t find any good original color pages. One last thing I want to clear up before we get to the wonderful art pages by Alan Davis.
For me the title of the graphic novel was not a good choice since it panders to one of the biggest common misconceptions concerning the arthurian legend. Excalibur was NOT the sword in the stone. Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone looking for a sword but the sword in the stone got destroyed later on and THEN the Lady in the Lake gives him Excalibur.
stone