Stark's Quest

Stark's Quest is a genuine lost classic that's long, long overdue for a glitzy trade reprint, but sadly, I guess that'll never happen 'cos Lee Marrs isn't that big of a name these days. Except to those in the know, natch.
Lee was quietly all over the Bronze Age, contributing strips and story ideas to Plop! and popping up occasionally in Heavy Metal and Epic, sometimes with stories set in the same world, or along the same themes, as this four part serial that ran through Star*Reach.
It's really an early graphic novel, actual proper adult science fiction, with fully rounded characters and a fully realised future world, and Stark is a great three-dimensional lead you completely root for.
It's very of it's time, though, and may come across a bit hippie-ish to some, but it still works for me.
This first part can be read as a solo tale, with Marrs opening up her world only in future instalments, but it's a great beginning.

Elric: The Prisoner Of Pan Tang

Star*Reach #6 was, as I've bored about before, a seminal comic book, in my collection anyway. It was the first properly independent, adult book I ever saw, and it completely blew my mind.
Here's one of the reasons why: An original Elric story from Eric Kimball & Bob Gould, working as' Two Man Horse '. The  pair had sent this completed strip, unsolicited, to editor / publisher Mike Freidrich, and he liked it so much he immediately scrabbled around to contact Elric creator Micheal Moorcock to use it. All of which led to Gould almost making a career out of doing Elric book covers.
There's the obvious Barry Smith influence here, but the art has a definite style all it's own. I just really like the textures of the linework, where everything sort of seems to be made of sticks and twigs, and you are very definitely in another world.

Wooden Ships On The Water & Childsong

Here's a couple of wonderfully groovy pieces from the Age Of Aquarius, via Star*Reach. Adapting songs into comics is something that doesn't seem to happen all that much anymore, but it was all the rage in the Bronze Age. 
Wooden Ships On The Water is from the song by Crosby, Stills & Kantner, and though I've never actually listened to it, Mike Friedrich & Steve Leialoha sure are fans. They just killed the world, man!

But hey, don't let it bring you down. The people will find a way, as proven here with Steve ( again ) and the late, great Gene Day. Beautiful, man, just beautiful.

Siegried & The Dragon

Here's a beautiful Craig Russell piece from the 2nd issue of Epic Illustrated, more a fragment than a story, adapted from Wagner's Ring Cycle, and came out I think, just after Russell's first Opera comic, the Parsifal one-off book for Mike Friedrich's Star*Reach.

You can see Russell stretching his muscles here, revelling in the chance to do his own thing, and starting to subtly move away from the Marvel style of Killraven.

It's not often noted what a great colourist Russell is, as well as everything else. His later works The Magic Flute and Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde have some of the best colouring you've ever seen anywhere, and it all starts here.

Interestingly, this is a piece with two slightly different endings: Siegried was originally due to run in the 5th issue of Imagine, the companion title to Star*Reach, before Friedrich's money troubles brought his publishing empire to a close, and he realised he couldn't afford to print it.

Epic picked the story up, but editor Archie Goodwin didn't like Russell's last page, where the bird speaks in modern day New Yoik, and asked him to redo it.

Mike, not seeing what the problem was, went ahead and printed the original ending as the back page of Imagine's final issue. So here's the version Archie preferred:

And here's the original: