Turok debuted in the pages of Four Color Comics, an anthology series covering a wide range of genres, from westerns to fables, cartoons and radio show adaptations, never sticking to just one theme. Son of Stone was seemingly one of the few strips not based on a pre-existing property, but one of its longest lasting off-shoots.
The series follows Turok and Andar, two young men "who lived some hundreds of years before the coming of the white man to America," unwittingly entering a strange cavern and finding themselves in what they would later name Lost Valley: a seemingly endless domain of prehistoric creatures and savage lands, populated primarily by human throwbacks and towering carnivorous reptiles, referred to as "honkers" on account of their screeching roars.
Now looking for a way back home, the pair face peril every step of the way, from ferocious wildlife to territorial denizens. Their tools of poison arrows and fire serve them well in getting out of scrapes, but also paint a target on their backs, a draw for scheming tribes to acquire those secrets by force.
The series' writers and artists went largely uncredited in its day, and it's still tricky to find clear attributions to its key players. Dell Comics editor Matthew H. Murphy is sometimes credited as co-creator, though it is now known that the series was first written by Gaylord Du Bois, repurposed from scripts for his boys adventure serial Young Hawk. Du Bois' departure after the eighth issue put Paul S. Newman in the writer's chair, an extremely prolific comic writer whose claims of writing 95% of the series is probably legit.
Although vintage tales of man versus the primeval world, the series has a heart to it, emphasising the characters' wit, ingenuity, and compassion when it comes to solving their problems, not just going in guns blazing. Paired with its rare depiction of Native Americans as the starring characters, bereft of (most) stereotypes and cliches of the time, the series is still remembered fondly today. It'd have to be, or I wouldn't be talking about the franchise that followed!
Son of Stone issue list
A list in order of date published of all issues and tie-ins, related releases under different imprints squeezed in to the closest available month.
links & resources
Wizard #47
Dated July 1995, writer Paul S. Newman chews out Valiant's The Original Son of Stone reprints while clearing up the facts. Transcribed here.
Turok Dot Com: The Origins of Turok
An earnest if factually questionable glimpse at Turok's origins on Acclaim's official website. 164 issues?! Where'd that come from!?
Psychosaurus
A lovely ol' dinosaur of a site, all about dinosaurs! Has a nifty cover gallery of all the issues with quick recaps and trivia for each of them.
Mexican publisher Editorial Novaro were licensed a number of properties from Western Publishing, Turok: Son of Stone just one of them. But in addition to straightforward reprints in their variety of anthology comics, a number of these series received brand new stories penned and illustrated by South American talent, telling brand new stories in the vein of their North American source material.