Skartaris

Skartaris is a fictional Hollow Earth fantasy setting created by Mike Grell for the sword and sorcery comic book The Warlord, published by DC Comics. Skartaris debuted in 1st Issue Special #8 (November 1975), where the character Travis Morgan, a U.S. Air Force pilot, discovers a passage into this world through the Earth's North Pole. Subsequent to that first issue, the Warlord series tells of Morgan's adventures in Skartaris.

Publication history

According to Mike Grell, creator of Skartaris and The Warlord, "the name comes from the mountain peak Scartaris that points the way to the passage to the earth’s core in Journey to the Center of the Earth."

While Grell never drew a map of Skartaris during his tenure on the book, one was created towards the end of the original volume's run, and the illustration appeared in The Warlord Annual #4 (1985). In an interview from Comic Scene in 1983, he says: "I did things like moving my character around the countryside; I never drew a map so I could move him from one side of Skartaris to the other just for the sake of the story." In a later interview with Comic Book Resources Grell said, "Anything that can happen in fantasy happens in the lore and it’s one of the reasons I always refused to draw a map of Skartaris. Year after year after year went by, and I was always hounded by the editors, 'When are you going to have a map?' The reason I refused was because once you draw a map, you establish boundaries. And why would you want to put boundaries on your imagination?"