New Artist Injects A Dose of Creativity
The cover proclaims "A Wondrous New Era..." begins with this issue, and from what I can tell, this may indeed be a ratcheting up of quality. New artist Ron Randall steps in, and the art is indeed impressive. It's not that he renders things - people, animals, landscapes, etc. than the past artists on this book - it's his creativity as a layout artist (he does all the art; pencils and inks and cover). Randall creates all kinds of different size panels depending on the situation. Small panels for important details, large full page or even two-page spreads of grand vistas; overlapping panels (a common practice now, but pretty unusual for the time), and then some really cool compositions, like a split-screen type effect in one place in this issue where, during a chariot race we see the left half of one competitor's face on the left, and the right half of the other competitor's face on the right.
Roy Thomas turns in a standard Arak script, featuring the aforementioned chariot race in Byzantium, but it's really Randall who has all the issue's best moments. If Roy turns in a really superior script and Randall can match the quality of this issue, that will be an outstanding comic.