Southern Knights
| Southern Knights | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher |
Guild Publications Comics Interview Heroic Publishing |
| First appearance | Crusaders #1 |
| Created by | Henry Vogel, Audrey Vogel, Dennis Mallonee, Jackson Guice, Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Mark Propst |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Hampton House, Atlanta Georgia |
| Member(s) | Electrode Kristin Connie Dragon Aramis |
Southern Knights was a comic book created by the husband-and-wife team of Henry and Audrey Vogel. It chronicled the adventures of a superhero team based in Atlanta, Georgia. Initially known as "The Crusaders", they were renamed The Southern Knights with their second issue due to Archie Comics' Red Circle Imprint having their own group called The Mighty Crusaders, though an in-context explanation is proffered in issue #2. Jackson Guice and Chuck Wojtkiewicz both made their comics debut on the series before going on to greater fame with other titles.
The team's groundskeeper, Bryan Daniels, would sometimes don a high-tech suit of armor, designed by David Shenk, to help them out.
The superteam debuted in The Crusaders #1 (December 1982). The original creative team included three writers: co-creators Henry and Audrey Vogel and co-plotter/letterer David H. Willis. The team was filled out by Jackson Guice on both pencils and inks, though Guice would be penciling only on Southern Knights #2 and gone entirely after that. The series was published quarterly at first by the Guild, a company founded by Willis and Henry Vogel for the sole purpose of publishing the series. Artists came and went in quick succession, but with issue #5 penciler Chuck Wojtkiewicz and inker Steve Kent came on as the steady art team, and sales became exceptionally high for a self-published series. After issue #7, Southern Knights was taken on by Comics Interview (a company which had previously only put out magazines), and following a half-year's hiatus, went bi-monthly. Comics Interview president David Anthony Kraft quickly came up with the idea of using the tagline "The #1 Super Team of the South".
However, the success of the Knights was mixed with creative turnover. Issue #8 was the first to be published by Comics Interview, and the last to feature Audrey Vogel as writer (though several later issues of the series credit her as "story consultant"). According to Henry Vogel, she gradually fell out of writing the series due to exhaustion from working a full-time job. Willis left two issues after, leaving Henry Vogel to write the series by himself. Southern Knights gradually became less oriented on long-term plot threads and character development, and increasingly consisted of short story arcs and single-issue stories. Wojtkiewicz left after issue #11, and with issue #13 Mark Propst began both penciling and inking the Knights. The look he brought to the series broadened the series' readership, and Comics Interview began publishing numerous Southern Knights spin-offs, mostly using reprints. For instance, a "Dread Halloween Special" was actually just a reprint of Southern Knights #14, and a three-issue Aramis limited series was simply a reprinting of select Aramis appearances from issues #5-26, with brief textual segues. The Southern Knights also guest-starred in Aristocratic Xtraterrestrial Time-Traveling Thieves (vol.2) #1.
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