EC Comics returns! 3 3

[Robot Man]

On 2/21/2024 at 2:05 PM, shadroch said:

They sold well, but Pacific didn't understand the market and vastly over-printed.  Eclipse took them over, with some changes and was doing okay until several distributors went bankrupt , owing them hundreds of thousands of dollars.   Then their warehouse and office got flooded out. The books didn't fail, as much as the publishers did.  The Dave Stevens covers are highly collected, and the rest have a niche.

I have always felt the Pacific EC homage books were the best of the bunch. Being a long time EC fan, I bought them off the rack when they came out and loved them. 

[shadroch]

I  first read EC books with the bootleg reprints that came out in the 1970s. I liked them well enough, but when I opened my store, I stocked a few of the black and white coffee table books, and I was blown away by the art. 

[Mmehdy]

do we have an actual release date for the SC-FI issue?

[Ken Aldred]

On 2/22/2024 at 8:14 PM, Whacked said:

Al Williamson is more than fine 

I also thought that Krigstein and Frazetta were 'quite good' as well.

I’d rate all three as Gem Mint, 10.0

Edited February 23 by Ken Aldred

[Ken Aldred]

On 2/22/2024 at 3:37 PM, Robot Man said:

Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear. Crypt seems to get a slight edge out of the group probably due to the TV show. To me, they are all pretty much equal as far as quality is concerned. 

Yup. Pretty much the same in terms of quality.  After the first couple of issues or so each title featured a cover and lead story by one particular artist; Davis in Tales From The Crypt, Craig in Vault of Horror, and Ingels in Haunt of Fear.

Edited February 23 by Ken Aldred

[OtherEric]

On 2/21/2024 at 6:53 PM, Gambold Vintage said:

The crime and war books - they are well-regarded but no-one is reading them and they sell for less than the "big six" (the three horrors, two sci-fis, and MAD).

I wish I could disagree with you on the war books; I think they're horribly underrated by collectors.  At least some of us are reading them, but it's a bit of a niche.

Crime Suspenstories, by contrast, has a lot of crazy expensive issues, and at least a few Shock Suspenstories are way up there as well.  I'll grant that an "average" issue is probably cheaper than an "average" horror book, but there's a lot of non-average issues.  Just the CSS 22 is brutal, and Shock 6 isn't cheap either.

[Ken Aldred]

On 2/23/2024 at 5:37 AM, OtherEric said:

I wish I could disagree with you on the war books; I think they're horribly underrated by collectors.  At least some of us are reading them, but it's a bit of a niche.

Despite being in a niche, they are absolute classics within that particular genre. Great comics.

[Ken Aldred]

On 2/22/2024 at 1:04 PM, wardevil0 said:

May I ask how many of your favorite Weird Science and Weird Fantasy stories are Ray Bradbury adaptations?  Just wondering if some of your appreciation for EC is actually appreciation for the source material.  It may be an unnecessary distinction, as EC definitely deserves credit for the artwork and scripting, as well as the recognition of quality that led to the adaptation itself.

I always felt that Weird Science was the stronger of the two titles, and the last half dozen issues are incredible, and have some of Bradbury's best Martian Chronicles stories, but I have just as much respect for the storytelling styles of Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman as well.  I agree that you might see familiar tropes used by them, but the delivery was great.  After all, some of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone stories, a few years later, were themselves very EC-like.

The debut issue of Weird Science, (issue 12) was the first EC I ever read, and I was immediately impressed by the first story, "Lost in the Microcosm", by Feldstein and Gaines, which uses the familiar Shrinking Man trope.  Well told, but elevated by my first exposure to Harvey Kurtzman's artwork, which I thought was fantastic, quite different and much less minimalist than his later war and humour comics.  In the early issues, my favourite artist and a great writer as well, also being responsible for an occasional Roald Dahl adaptation.  Feldstein wrote great alien invasion paranoia / Red Menace and other allegory stories, classic Atom Age 50's SF, and his stiff, tense, rigored art suited those really well.  Some of the early stories and art were quite weak, the comics comparatively patchy, especially the Wood / Harrison collaborations, but, I've always liked recognising potential and watching creators soar progressively skywards, as happened here in every way over such a short period of time.  As well as the fan favourite, iconic artists who've been mentioned elsewhere here, I also ended up being very fond of Jack Kamen's EC work, a superficially light style occasionally superimposed over some very dark stories.  

Fantagraphics has a new book compiling all of Ray Bradbury's EC stories, which is tempting me 'a little'.  Quite a collection.

 

Edited February 23 by Ken Aldred

[Gambold Vintage]

> Which of those are considered the three titles in the "big six"?<

EC published three horror titles, all of which are considered definitive and of equal value, by content or as collectibles.  Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear.  Crypt started out as "Crypt of Terror" but the name was soon changed. The other three "big six" are Weird Science and Weird Fantasy (later merged to Weird Science-Fantasy, which was renamed Incredible Science Fiction after the Code), and of course MAD. 

I call these the "big six" because they are the titles that are most popular with collectors and have some of the biggest values.  ALL of the pre-code ECs are collectible of course, but ShockSuspense, CrimeSuspense, Panic, Two-Fisted Tales, and Frontline Combat are "second tier" in terms of overall collector value. One could go further and put Shock and Crime alone at second, and Panic and the war books at third.  As others have pointed out, there are a few issues in Shock and Crime that are quite expensive now. 

Probably the number one EC series is Tales from the Crypt. This is the most known title outside of the collector community because of the TV shows, and is usually the one cited in articles that want to name one pre-code horror comic. As far as the highest-valued individual EC comic, I think it's the first issue of Vault of Horror, although the the first issue of MAD is up there too.  My personal favorite series is Haunt of Fear, although my gateway EC was Weird Science. 

Edited February 23 by Gambold Vintage

[Gambold Vintage]

>I always felt that Weird Science was the stronger of the two titles.....Some of the early stories and art were quite weak, the comics comparatively patchy, <

The two science fiction books are not at the level of the three horror books, in terms of consistency or stories.  But they are beautifully drawn, mostly by Wood and Williamson, and the covers by Feldstein are also wonderful and truly capture that age. For those of us who grew up on science fiction before Star Wars, discovering these comics and their art was a revelation.  Here are two of my favorite covers:

 

Edited February 23 by Gambold Vintage

[The Commissioner]

Of the E.C. books in my collection, I almost exclusively collect Weird Fantasy. They're excellent books. I'm really looking forward to the Cruel Universe title that will be released later this year. 

Edited February 23 by The Commissioner

[Gambold Vintage]

I too am partial to Weird Fantasy over Weird Science, for the only reason one can be for two comics whose content is identical* - the cover art.  Feldstein drew almost all the WF covers throughout its run, while Wally Wood drew all the WS covers after its first year. 

The three horrors are identical in content too, and are notable for their primary cover artists.  Crypt had Jack Davis and Haunt had Graham Ingels after the series' first years, and Vault had Johnny Craig for its entire run. Craig also wrote almost all of his own stories in Vault, so that title is a *little* different in tone than Crypt and Haunt. 

*Some aficionados can find differences in content between Weird Science and Weird Fantasy - I haven't fully read either series to comment on that.  

[Buzzetta]

If you know what this meme is from you are awesome  

Edited February 23 by Buzzetta

[Mmehdy]

Weird Science is the better of two.

[OtherEric]

I love all of them, although I've only got a little over half the New Trend/ New Direction books:

[Brock]

On 2/21/2024 at 1:00 AM, Mmehdy said:

hey lets give them a CHANCE ....

Did you forget where we are?

[Gambold Vintage]

>EC was socially conscious at a time when Will Eisner had characters like Ebony White.<

Indeed. Racism in comics - it's not often discussed but it was pervasive well into the 1960s.  EC was an exception to the rule - I can't remember any black or Latino characters that were stereotyped or lampooned for laughs in the horror and science fiction books.  If anyone can think of an example, let us know.  And the war books were generally pretty even-handed when dealing with the Japanese in the Pacific-theater WWII stories.

MAD may have slipped a bit but everyone in those stories was being satirized so its hard to draw the line. Were the Ookabalaponga in "Ping Pong" a racist portrayal?  Or were they a satire of native representations in Hollywood films? 

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by Gambold Vintage