It was just at the end of April that I blogged about... William Patrick Maynard who I had 'met' through my Facebook Network. William had a new book that had just been released.
In that blog I reviewed his book, THE TERROR OF FU MANCHU, (the first Fu Manchu thriller authorized by The Sax Rohmer Literary Estate in 22 years), which was published by Black Coat Press.
Before I wrote down my thoughts on that book, I mentioned why I personally had an interest in this new work by William.
You see there was a 'Fu Manchu' connection with comics quite a while back. There was a Marvel Comics comic book series that was published in the mid 1970's. The title of that series was 'Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu', (MOKF).
During that period Marvel Comics held the comic book rights to Sax Rohmer's pulp novel villain Dr. Fu Manchu, while they also held the rights to the Kung Fu television program that David Carradine starred in!
David, who just passed away yesterday, was a very interesting choice in lead character for this TV Series. It was only years later I read about Bruce Lee's involvement with the series, and his not getting the part that instead went to David. There is still some contention to this day about Bruce's real involvement with the series, but this blog post is about David Carradine and what he meant to me.
However, not knowing that controversy at the time, I liked the TV series with David, as it was a fresh style of 'western' on TV. In truth, it was an 'Eastern' Western story line... Yeah I liked it... This from a guy who grew up with 'Bonaza', 'Rawhide', 'Wagon Train', and so many more TV Westerns since the late 1950's!
I enjoyed the early seasons of the Kung Fu TV show, which ran for a total of three seasons from 1972-1975. I watched a few episodes from the next series, but by that time I was cutting back on my TV viewing. Plus it was two decades later, and my tastes had changed. The second series ran from 1993-1997 and included David Carradine also.
It was the first series that really introduced me to David Carradine and re-introduced me to martial arts as an entertainment format.
I was already a fan of the Green Hornet TV Series that ran for one season. Bruce Lee as Kato was a martial arts master. Gold Key Comics printed a few comics on the Green Hornet with photo covers.
Now with David Carradine on TV I was hoping for a Kung Fu comic book series. Then it was told that Marvel Comics obtained the rights to both the novel series of Fu Manchu and the Kung Fu TV show series. Thinking that what I would see would be similar to either or both of those franchises, I settled in to see what would be published.
However, what Marvel Comics published was something totally different, creating their own main character, but taking some of Sax Rohmer's characters, most notably Fu Manchu and Sir Denis Nayland Smith, and adding them to their comic book series storyline.
That story and more was told in my earlier archived blog post. What I want to finish up here with, is that although I was never a big David Carradine fan in that I had to see everything he played in, I did see the 'Kill Bill' film series and enjoyed his performance there as well.
David was an important part of my early twenties TV viewing, and I appreciate his impact on my viewing and collecting habits, both in TV, Film, and Comics collecting. His works live on thanks to DVD collections, and he will be remembered in the decades to follow. My thanks to David for sharing his God given talent with all of us...
~ Michael 
"Hammering Out the Web
For You Since May 12th, 1998!"
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