It is one of the first American graphic novels, predating works such as Richard Corben's Bloodstar (1976), Jim Steranko's Chandler: Red Tide (1976), Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy's Sabre (Sept. 1978), and Will Eisner's A Contract with God (Oct. 1978).

A 119-page story of comic-book art, with captions and word balloons, published in a traditional book format, Blackmark is the first graphic novel with an original heroic-adventure character conceived expressly for this form.

[4]The 2002 reissue, in its afterword, credits cartoonist and Mad magazine founder Harvey Kurtzman as laying out a small number of pages, and another major comics artist, Neal Adams, as inking some of Kane's pencil work, both doing so as a favor to help Kane meet his deadlines.

It does not include the original final page: a full-body shot of Blackmark with sword, and a Kane floating-head self-portrait and one-paragraph biography / afterword.

New Earth lives on as a shadow world, inhabited by the vestiges of humanity, divided into tyrannical petty kingdoms, wracked by fear, superstition, barbarism and poverty.

Strange, fearsome mutated beasts roam the blasted lands and waters, while any followers of science are hunted.

On the cold northern frontiers, a race of malformed men with strange mental powers plots the eventual conquest of the planet from the fortress of Psi-Keep.

Lyllith, the queen, attempts to seduce Blackmark, but he refuses, and in the process of escaping, kills his overseer before being captured and thrown in a dungeon.

Blackmark cuts through Kargon's soldiers, reaching the palace interior and killing the king's personal guard, demanding to know where Lyllith and the warlord are.

The book won its creator, Gil Kane, a Shazam Award for Special Recognition in 1973 "for Blackmark, his paperback comics novel."

Associate Professor Rachel Thorn of the School of Cartoon & Comic Art, Kyoto Seika University, in Japan, said of the 1971 paperback: "[I]t's a great read, beautifully illustrated.

The book does not look particularly revolutionary in 2002, but when you consider that it was created over 30 years ago, this illustrated novel that is a mixture of science-fiction and fantasy genres and is unquestionably aimed at an adult audience, starts to look a lot more impressive.

...Goodwin and Kane take a fairly predictable plot and stock characters and make it a fascinating and twisted ride.

It's a piece of comic-book history, a solidly produced book and an example of work from two of the finest creators to grace the medium".

[10] Comics historian R. C. Harvey notes that "several sequences ... gain enormous power from the juxtaposition of pictures and prose.

"[11] Breaking down a four-page scene in which the mother of a six-year-old Blackmark is raped as the child is forced to look on, Harvey observes that, Upon first examination, it would appear that the pictures add nothing to the story that is not present in the words.

But a careful reading ... suggests that Kane's visual treatment has contributed a dimension of horror to the incident that is but hinted at in the accompanying words.

... As scripted by Archie Goodwin, the prose is spare, almost flat: It narrates the action in nearly emotionless, descriptive language.... Kane handles the accompanying visuals with similar restraint.

[The mother's] staring but unseeing eyes and her silent scream convey in an instant all the horror, revulsion, and sense of violation that the otherwise restrained sequence only suggests ... [and] derives a good deal of its power from its contrast to the emotionless context in which it appears.