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Bold-but-bashful BARRY PEARL has done it again! "What has he done?" you ask. Only gone and provided yet another fascinating and informative article about how he discovered (he's a 'discoverer', remember) EC comics. So don't let me hold you back, straight over to Barry.
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How I discovered EC comics.
I grew up during America's Comics Code era, the 1960s, when comics were heavily censored. There were no stories about true crime, real relationships, drugs, zombies or racism.
I had read Mad and had gotten the reprint paperbacks and I loved them. But as much as I'd heard about EC comics in newspaper and magazine stories about the Comics Code being started, I had not seen much. The old newspaper articles always presented the EC comics in a horrible light, and I knew they had led to the creation of the Comics Code censors.
Around 1978 I gave up reading new comics (see this link). I still loved the medium, just not the comics then produced. I began looking for older comics, and in the 1980s I discovered the Russ Cochran EC sets. These republished, in black and white and in a larger than usual size, the various EC titles of the late 1940s to the mid 1950s. They were beautiful reproductions!
Upon reading, the set's second biggest surprise was how consistently well drawn they were. They were just beautiful, every story, every issue. They were also so well written - perhaps a bit to wordy at times - but incredibly consistent. I felt Marvel had much of that for the 1960s, but EC was just outstanding.
I loved the Sci-fi titles the most. The suspense stories were excellent, often including social issues (racism, sex, drugs, infidelity, etc.) totally absent from then modern comics. I was not a fan of the censored war or western comics of the 1960s; they were action adventure comics with none of the issues regarding war. My biggest surprise was the Harvey Kurtzman war comics. They dealt with real issues of suffering, death, heartache, and patriotism in great dramatic fashion. The stories were outstanding and rivetting, not like then-current war comics of Marvel or DC.
I had not previously known about Panic, but I loved them too! They were funny, in a different way than Mad, and done by Al Feldstein who would later edit Mad.
I was not a fan of the horror stories and really thought, and still think, they often went a bit overboard. The horror genre also invaded the other genres at times. Again, they were drawn and told well, but just not my favourite.
I waited nearly two decades for Picto-Fiction to be published and I found them mostly not very interesting. (Don’t anyone here hit me!!!!!!!)
My last surprise came in the last decade or so. I had not seen many of the competitors' comics from the 1950s - the Harvey, Avons, St. Johns, etc., until PS Publishing and Gwandanaland starting reprinting them. Simply put, they just were not very good and didn’t compare to EC. There were occasional well drawn and well told stories from artists such as Matt Baker, but no consistency from one story to another, or even one issue to another. Often, future EC artists would appear, but they saved their best work for EC.
EC had a very short life and didn't live long enough to lose their artists or repeat many stories. But nothing has ever topped it, although many have tried.
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(Take a look below at just a small part of Barry's extensive library of collected edition books. Impressive, eh?)
And below are some of the newspaper articles about the Comics Code and what eventually, perhaps inevitably, led to it. Click to enlarge, then click again for optimum size. (Fifth one only enlarges once.)
And below is a page (plus a close-up) of the kind that resulted in the sensational stushie. Overreaction, perhaps? Remember though, that it's important to judge such things by the standards of their time, not with the inured outlook of today.
6 comments:
I didn’t know about EC until the Cochran reprints . I couldn’t afford them. I read the Gladstone color reprints which came out in the 80s. I loved the SF- suspense and war comics . I thought the horror stories were too intense for kids but fine for adults. If you have Not read an EC comic oh how I pity your comic knowledge. And as usual I thought Wood was the stand out talent .
I've got a few reprint EC titles, PS, but nowhere near as many as even a fraction of Barry's.
I agree with Phil, Wood was at his best here and he was outstanding. I especially like his Sci-Fi material and Mad and Panic.
EC certainly influenced comic book storytelling. Creepy, Eerie, Blazing Combat and Marvel's later suspense books, such as Chamber of Darkness were influenced by the EC line.
I think Wood was Kirby's best inker, BP. I'd have liked to see him ink the FF, and to see John Severin ink Thor. Wouldn't that have been something?!
I loved Joe Sinnott inking Kirby. And Bill Everett did a great job inking Thor.
Joe Sinnott was excellent on the FF, BP, but I think Wood would've been better. Actually, their styles on faces weren't too dissimilar, but Wood did great lighting effects. Just look at his inks on Challengers of the Unknown.
I wasn't too keen on Everett's inks on Thor (and apparently sales dipped when he inked the comic), but I think that was more Jack's fault because Bill was inking more like Kirby drew, whereas Colletta disguised some of the more cartoony aspects of Jack's pencils (whereas Bill didn't).
Having seen Severin's inks on Jack's pencils on Nick Fury, I think he'd have been great on Thor. However, to each their own.
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