"Captured by the Cliff Men" Valley of the Dinosaurs #7 (Charlton) Art and story: Unknown April 1976

Katie is captured by one of the cliff dwelling tribe.

Story Summary

Katie and Greg go exploring and discover an apple grove, where they pick some apples to take back to the village. Then Greg realizes they are in taboo territory due to a danger in the nearby cliffs. Just then, a pterodactyl dives at them from the cliffside, with a human rider on its back. The two Butlers run, but the flying reptile grabs Katie up in its talons and takes her to a nest on the cliffside. Greg runs back towards the village for help and runs into Lok, fishing at a stream. Lok sends Greg on to the village to tell Gorok and John, while he himself rushes to Katie's rescue.

Lok reaches the cliffs and shouts for Katie, who responds that the cliff dwellers are away hunting for now. He climbs up to the nest to her, but the cliff dweller who captured her suddenly comes swooping back in on his flight. Lok uses his bow and arrow to shoot the beast through the wing, sending it plunging down into the jungle. The pair then descend and race back towards the village, coming upon a relieved Gorok and John on the trail. Katie gives Lok a kiss as reward.

THE END

Didja Know?

"Captured by the Cliff Men" is a 2-page text story appearing in Valley of the Dinosaurs #7.

Didja Notice?

While exploring, Katie and Greg stumble upon what is described as an apple orchard. But the definition of "orchard" is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs for food production. But there is no evidence that this grove is an intentional planting.

Up in the apple tree, Katie tosses an apple down to Greg, but he fumbles it and it falls onto the ground, splattering "into applesauce". These must be some awfully soft apples!

Greg tries to excuse his faulty catching abilities by saying they've been lost in the valley for a long time and, "...I've missed alot of little league practice." Little League is a non-profit organization in the United States (with some international chapters) for local youth baseball and softball leagues. Also, "alot" is not a word; it should be "a lot".

The story mistakenly capitalizes "Pterodactyl". This is a generic term commonly used to describe members of the Pterodactylus genus (or just pterosaurs in general) and thus should not be capitalized.

A cliff man rides a pterodactyl, which is able to grab Katie in its talons and fly off with her. Most pterodactyls were not big enough to carry off an adult human. Probably only the largest pterodactyl genus, Quetzalcoatlus, might have been capable of a such feat. Of course, in the real world, Quetzalcoatlus existed and went extinct tens of millions of years before humans evolved on Earth. The pterodactyls appearing in the illustrations of this text story are very sketchy, but don't appear to be the more long-necked Quetzalcoatlus specimens; they look more like overly-large Pteranodons.