EC ed

Great question @OtherEric ...those two books are indeed the contenders. Pic. Stories from the Bible NT #2 was the first indicia appearance of Educational Comics (March 1945), and Pic. Stories Amer. History #1 was the first EC cover logo appearance (November 1945). Good arguments could be made for either, but right now Pic. Stories from American History #1 gets my vote. It's the first book that Max Gaines published under the EC branding, and the first book he published after he officially parted ways with his old business partners at National/DC. Of course, I have both books, just to be on the safe side As an aside, another contender could be the 7th printing of Pic. Stories from the Bible Complete Old Testament edition (that's a complicated situation that would take another post to explain), but the problem with that is that we don't know the exact date of its printing (also, it doesn't have an EC cover logo).

I agree that it is not an EC. In my view, it is impossible for anything published before 1945 to be considered an "EC" comic book…the company literally did not yet exist. As an aside, I have seen some of Max Gaines’ other early work incorrectly referenced as an EC publication. For example, Narrative Illustration (1942) is often referenced as an EC publication– this is just flat wrong. EC literally did not exist until 3 years later. It’s an awesome book, and a grail for a “Max Gaines completist,” but it’s not an EC publication. Same thing with Max’s book Good Triumphs Over Evil (1943), etc. Also, here's my take on All-American - I think you could make an argument that pre-1945 All-American books are "DCs" - after all, the DC logo was on the cover! However, beginning in February 1945 Max put an All-American Publication logo on his books, after he had his falling out with the National/DC crew. In my opinion, those 1945 books with the "All-American Publication" logo on the cover are not DC books. In December, 1945, all of the former All-American titles except for Picture Stories (e.g., Sensation Comics, All-Flash) were once again published under the DC logo...DC officially owned them at that point...so, after 1945 they became DC books "again."

While we're posting up some books...an all-time boardie, @cheetah, is prowling the boards once again. While we have him back for a bit, I thought I'd throw out some books that he contributed to my collection. There are about a dozen of them, so hang on....

I don't have any of your old Fiction House books, but if we want to move over to the E.C. Fan Addict thread I can show off a dozen or so killer books that are in my collection that came from you.

cheetah sighting!!!!

Agreed . I never met him

Coincidentally, #23 & 24 are the two highest graded TFTC issues in my collection. Here's a picture I took with them when they showed up in the mail about a year-and-a-half ago And, the scan "proper" of the 24:

I've got a pretty good copy of that one ....although not signed by Al