EC for me, see?

SolitaireRose

On my solo podcast, I am starting on a VERY long series about EC comics, the history, the comics and the creators. This means I have the wonderful task of going back and READING my EC Library volumes and going through all of the EC comics that have been reprinted. What I thought might be fun would be to talk about them here as well.

I don’t know how many people on the board have ever read any EC comics, but there are plenty of ways to get your hands on them. Sadly, the EC Library volumes are all out of print, and the few that people are selling go for CRAZY money. OK, maybe not all that crazy when I think about it. The Tales from the Crypt 5 volumes oversized hardcover in slip[case originally sold for $100, and at SpringCon this year, I saw someone selling a used one in decent shape for $350…I guess with inflation, that isn’t that bad of a deal.

Russ Cochran did reprint the line in comics in the 90’s, and then took all of his inventory and bundled them into “annuals” that collected 4 – 5 issues…he still has those on his website. And now it seems that Dark Horse has taken over the new archives, and Fantagraphics is doing artist-focused collections…

And the IDW artist editions, which are WAY out of my range.

Anyone else here an EC fan? Anyone interested in me doing “annotations” to my EC series here?

RickM

I've read more histories of EC Comics (like Hajdu's Ten-Cent Plague and Jones' Men of Tomorrow) than the actual comics themselves, but I would love to see the annotations. Can you provide a link to your podcast?

bralinator

Loved the old EC stuff, especially the straight horror genre. Looking forward to your coverage of this material.

CageNarleigh

^ That's all I've read. I think there are like 5 issues per "volume".

SolitaireRose

Rick: They aren't up YET....probably next week, so I'll post the link then.

RickM

I think you should do one entire show on Bernard Krigstein's "Master Race".

SolitaireRose

Krigsteins stuff was just amazing. His "Birnging Up Father" parody in MAD was sheet genius, and his Bradbury adaptation about the flying machine could be a whole episode...or the story abut the man who tries to get a duplicate key made for a robbery.

SO much good stuff there.

Mr_Cosmic

Is there a digital option?

WetRats

I've never been able to afford to pursue my love of the EC books, but what little I've had the opportunity to read, I've loved.

I did get to opportunity to see all the covers a few years ago, when my FLCS got the Motherlode collection. Complete runs of every title. Pristine.

SolitaireRose

Mr_Cosmic said:

Is there a digital option?

Not that I know of yet. I think it would probably be a BIG moneymaker for Russ Cochran if he took his files and digitized them, especially since everything in the EC Library was shot from the original art. Gaines kept ALL of the original art until an auction in 1992 (I think, I can't remember the date, but it was whiel gaines was still alive).

phansford

Fantastic.

You might find a copy of R.C. Harvey's The Art of the Comic Book. If memory serves me correctly he has a great chapter on Harvey Kurtzman….. particularly the EC War titles. Frontline Combat is hands down the best war book you'll ever read.

nweathington

phansford said:

Fantastic.

You might find a copy of R.C. Harvey's The Art of the Comic Book. If memory serves me correctly he has a great chapter on Harvey Kurtzman….. particularly the EC War titles. Frontline Combat is hands down the best war book you'll ever read.

Or you could go to Denis Kitchen’s book on Kurtzman, which is an excellent resource. But, yes, Frontline Combat is an excellent series. Aces High is pretty darn good, too.

SolitaireRose

phansford said:

Fantastic.

You might find a copy of R.C. Harvey's The Art of the Comic Book. If memory serves me correctly he has a great chapter on Harvey Kurtzman….. particularly the EC War titles. Frontline Combat is hands down the best war book you'll ever read.

Two Fisted Tales became a war book as well pretty quickly, and since Kurtzman edited both, they are pretty much the same comic with two different names. Once MAD became Monthly, John Severin became editor of Two Fisted Tales, and while still artistically great, the stories dropped a notch.

Another great war comic that was HIGHLY influenced by Kurtzman's war comics was Blazing Combat, which lasted four issues at Warren. It was edited and written by Archie Godowin, used many of the EC artists, and go go further in terms of story content and length than Frontline Combat or Two Fisted Tales could. Fantagraphics has reprinted the entire run in a hardcover, and it's well worth the price.

Aces High had some incredible Bernie Krigstein artwork and may well be George Evans's best work.

dubbat138

I got a huge stack of the early 90s Cochran reprints. Love how each issue reprints 2 comics.

nweathington

SolitaireRose said:

phansford said:

Fantastic.

You might find a copy of R.C. Harvey's The Art of the Comic Book. If memory serves me correctly he has a great chapter on Harvey Kurtzman….. particularly the EC War titles. Frontline Combat is hands down the best war book you'll ever read.

Two Fisted Tasles became a war book as well pretty quickly, and since Kurtzman edited both, they are pretty much the same comic with two different names. Once MAD became Monthly, John Severin became editor of Two Fisted Tales, and while still artistically great, the stories dropped a notch.

Another great war comic that was HIGHLY inlfuenced by Kurtzman's war comics was Blazing Combat, which lasted four issues at Warren. It was edited and written by Archie Godowin, used many of the EC artists, and go go further in terms of story content and length than Frontilne Combat or Two Fisted Tales could. Fantagraphics has reprinted the entire run in a hardcover, and it's well worth the price.

Aces High had some increible Bernie Krigstein artwork and may well be George Evans's best work.

Yeah, Blazing Combat was quite good too, with some of Goodwin’s best writing, but it was really following in the spiritual footsteps of Frontline Combat. I second the recommendation of the Fantagraphics collection.

I would say Aces High probably was Evans’ best comic book work, even better than his work for Blazing Combat, but I haven’t seen every story he drew. But it was him doing what he loved. He was an aviation nut—he was even an aircraft mechanic and sometimes pilot (non-combative) during World War II. And he drew

Here’s one of his illustrations for a 1975 novel:

nweathington

dubbat138 said:

I got a huge stack of the early 90s Cochran reprints. Love how each issue reprints 2 comics.

That's how I read that stuff too. My wife got the horror books (before we started dating) and I got all the war books.

With the first Mad comics, though, I read them in the giant oversized hardback collections.

SolitaireRose

I'm startng through the re-read, and the firtst few issues of The Crypt Of Terror feel like inventory crime stories, and not very good ones at that. There's little information that I can find, but I am thinking that the change over to the New Trend decision was made pretty quickly, so they had to use up stories that were done for other comics.

The "Crypt Of Terror": story by Feldstein in the anchor position was decent enough, but the rest of the stories in the first two issues were just crime with a hint of horror...a man who used the story of a werewolf to cover up a murder, an executioner who was upset people were set free by juries...pretty tame stuff.

Weird how I didn't remember these early issues being like this...

phansford

SolitaireRose said:

I'm startng through the re-read, and the firtst few issues of The Crypt Of Terror feel like inventory crime stories, and not very good ones at that.

I wonder how much of that is colored by our own sensibilities verses the societal standards of the 1950's?

Looking forward to your podcast!

RickM

I have heard the same thing -- that some EC stories are gems, but a lot of them, frankly, were pretty lousy. That could just be the nature of the comic industry in that era, where publishers were under pressure to fill a lot of pages, so a half-baked story was better than no story at all.

SolitaireRose

phansford said:

SolitaireRose said:

I'm startng through the re-read, and the firtst few issues of The Crypt Of Terror feel like inventory crime stories, and not very good ones at that.

I wonder how much of that is colored by our own sensibilities verses the societal standards of the 1950's?

As I read through, it’s clear that they are using up old inventory and finding their way in these early issues. The Kurtzman story is nearly unrecognizable, while the Feldstein story has his signature style. No one has said so in any interviews, but I am thinking that the switchover came pretty quickly, and since they were a shoestring operation the first couple of years, they just used up what was in the pipeline while moving to the new stories.

Fun fact I discovered a couple of days ago: The ONLY artist who came in to EC/Mad from answering an ad was cover artist Norman Mingo. EVERY other person who worked at EC either showed up at the office looking for work or sent in work looking to get hired. They took out two “Help wanted” ads in the company’s history. Once during the EC era, and they got NO ONE from the ad they could use, and an ad in the early days of MAD for a cover painter.

SolitaireRose

A GREAT interview with Willaim Gaines.

sandman

SolitaireRose said:

Rick: They aren't up YET....probably next week, so I'll post the link then.

Looking forward to it.

SolitaireRose

Got it started!! http://www.krayzcomix.solitairerose.com/?p=461