The EC Reign Month by Month 1950-1956
31: February 1953
Kurtzman |
"Dragged Net!" ★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Bill Elder
"Sheik of Araby!" ★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin
"V-Vampires!" ★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Wally Wood
"Lone Stranger!" ★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Jack Davis
"Dragged Net!" |
"Sheik of Araby!" |
"V-Vampires!" |
"V-Vampires!" |
"Lone Stranger!" |
"Lone Stranger!" |
Severin/Elder |
"A Baby!" ★★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Wally Wood
"Geronimo!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin and Will Elder
"Napoleon!" ★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by George Evans
"Anzio!" ★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Jack Davis
"A Baby!" boy is born in Korea in 1948 and his father races home to see the joyous sight. A year later, the boy has his first birthday as the Russian occupying force is leaving; the child cries until his father returns home. In the midst of a tense standoff in 1950, the boy again cries till his father comes home. Midway through the year war breaks out and the boy's mother is killed. He cries for his father but we see that the father, too, is dead, leaving the child just one of many to be gathered up by "the proper agency."
"A Baby!" |
In the Old West, "Geronimo!" led the Apaches and terrorized Mexicans with raids across the border from Arizona territory. Eventually, U.S. soldiers caught up with him and he surrendered. Years later, at the World's Fair in St. Louis, Geronimo sat, an old man, selling picture postcards to curious onlookers.
Kurtzman deserves credit for not making the conflict among Apache, Mexicans, and U.S. soldiers into a black and white affair--the Apache are vicious but eventually are nearly wiped out. The end is not terribly effective but, like the Wally Wood story that precedes it, the art by Severin and Elder is sparkling.
"Napoleon!" |
For the most part, the George Evans art is gorgeous, but his depiction of Napoleon tries too hard to be accurate and loses the excitement of the rest of the panels. The story is told all in captions and pictures, with no dialogue and no human element, so it ends up little more than a pretty history lesson.
In 1944, tired U.S. soldiers land at "Anzio!" in central Italy. They dig in and wait, surviving German shelling for weeks that stretch into months. Finally, the German line is broken and the soldiers head for Rome.
Four out of four stories in this issue feature brilliant art and, while this one is just another story of a battle like "Napoleon!", at least there is some human element, with the tired, filthy G.I.s complaining and a Nazi commander yelling into his phone. Overall, a rather average issue of Frontline Combat, albeit with stunning art.--Jack
"Anzio!" |
Jose: For the most part, the art is indeed pretty stunning here. Wood seems to be taking a slightly more minimalist approach in “A Baby”, with less fun background noise and more time focused on the human element this time around. The way the story was going, I suspected that only the boy’s father would become a victim of the warfare—I know, apparently I had totally ignored the cover—so the finale wherein all of the child’s family is killed and he is left to cry amidst the corpses and the rubble hit me with that regular socko Kurtzman style. I really do love all the collaborations between Severin and Elder, and with the benefit of the reprint’s revitalized colors their illustrations in "Geronimo" just pop right out of the panels and arrest your gaze. Like a good amount of other EC war stories, this is one that makes it tough for you choose any sides. (As it should be.) The reader might not be able to abide the savagery of the fighting Apaches, but then again it’s awfully hard to condone the wholesale slaughter of nearly an entire race of people. But do you know what else I love? George Evans’ art. Evans had a cinematic flair when it came to illustrating light and shadow, and “Napoleon” is one of the best examples of that knack. As Jack said, there’s no dialogue here, so Evans had to do all the heavy lifting when it came to putting the people in the panels. His utilization of darkness makes the events unfolding feel almost operatic! “Anzio” was the only one in this bunch that I couldn’t quite dig into. It felt like something we’d seen before, and I know that Davis has done war grungier and more visceral than what’s shown here.
"Geronimo!" |
Wood |
"Plucked!" ★★
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Wally Wood
"The Island Monster" ★ 1/2
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Al Williamson and Larry Woromay
"Off Day!" ★
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Kamen
"The Long Years!" ★★★
Story by Ray Bradbury
Adapted by Al Feldstein
Art by Joe Orlando
At Thanksgiving dinner, Professor Sidney Hunton discusses an interesting fact his research has uncovered: every two centuries, a large number of people disappear from a population center with no explanation. His guest, James Farnsworth, suggests that hungry aliens treat the Earth like a turkey farm, visiting each 200 years to collect humans to eat at their alien holiday. No one notices that people have been "Plucked!" due to mass hypnosis and induced amnesia. As if on cue, horrible aliens come in and make off with the two men's wives, but the men don't notice and keep on chatting and enjoying their dinner.
Making off with the hens. ("Plucked!") |
Having heard tales of "The Island Monster," fabulous Broadway promoter Mike Rose charters a ship and takes a team out to the middle of nowhere, where they capture the monster and bring it back to exhibit in New York City. During the premiere, it escapes and wreaks havoc before being shot to death. Months later, a spaceship is discovered, having crashed on the remote island. A message is deciphered and it turns out the island monster was an emissary of peace from outer space.
It's clobbering time! ("The Island Monster") |
Professor Stanley Dingle delivers a lecture from a podium about the Law of Averages, since he is shocked to see that it has been broken. He discusses coin flips, baseball attendance, and Miami Beach vacation numbers before it's revealed that only one person out of 379 students showed up for his class. That one person solves the mystery when he admits to being the janitor and comments that it's Sunday and thus an "Off Day!" for the class.
Hoo boy, this issue is a real stinker! Blah, blah, blah goes the professor, a talking head for page after page. Gaines and Feldstein have a real problem in these sci-fi comics: they write stories as if they're not meant to be illustrated, leaving artists like Jack Kamen to try to figure out how to make something interesting out of a lecture. Thank goodness he manages to fit in a beautiful blonde in a bikini in one panel.
Kamen manages to squeeze one in. ("Off Day!") |
Hathaway is the aging patriarch of the last survivors of an Earth colony on Mars. After years of waiting, a spaceship finally arrives to take him and his family back to Earth. But the truth of the matter is, everyone but Hathaway died years ago and he built replacements who have not aged. Hathaway drops dead and the spaceship crew heads back to Earth, leaving his fabricated family alone on Mars to wait out "The Long Years!"
Without comparing this to the original story, I can't say how much of Bradbury's prose is used by Feldstein, but the story remains lyrical, elegiac, and a bit dull, like most of The Martian Chronicles. It's easily the best story in this issue, but that's not saying much.--Jack
"The Long Years!" |
Jose: Anyone else smell turkey? Cuz this issue is full of ‘em! OK, OK, lame joke aside, it’s more like a fifty-fifty split between the good and the oh-so-bad here, but the bad is really bad and the good only just so. Feldstein carries us through “Plucked” at a nice real-time rate that ends in a big cutesy bow, but the central conceit is just so dang silly and way too convenient to qualify this story as a lost classic. The other salvageable effort in this ish is the Bradbury adaptation, which maintains a fair amount of the author’s poeticism—red threads of rocket flame and wind whistling across dead seas—and is quietly aided by Orlando’s visuals. The curdled cream-center of this stale Oreo is undoubtedly “The Island Monster” and “Off Day.” The former is a blatant rip-off that under different circumstances might have been enjoyable were it not for Larry Woromay “helping” Al Williamson and the so-miscalculated-it’s-funny coda that has the human race discovering they’ve just killed a “peaceful” emissary from beyond the stars. Was the monster going to demonstrate a display of love and understanding before or after it tore down three bridges? We’ll never know now. And then there’s “Off Day.” “Off Day,” the story that surveys the vast field of mind-numbing science lectures that EC has mercilessly subjected us to in past issues and says, “Hey, let’s make one of those six pages long!” This does the last-second SF allusion of “The Island Monster” one better by building up a ridiculous probability-based apocalypse to serve as the speculative conceit of the tale before tearing it down and saying, “Just kidding! The old man’s just senile!” Think of the most drawn-out and painful knock-knock joke you’ve ever been told, then double the sadness you felt at the punchline and you’ll have a fair idea of what it’s like to read “Off Day.” I know we have quite some ways to go in this marathon, but I’m willing to bet (and pray to God) that this is the worst comic book story EC ever produced.
Ingels |
"Horror We? How's Bayou?" ★★★ 1/2
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Graham Ingels
"Gorilla My Dreams!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by George Evans
"A Likely Story!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Kamen
"Garden Party" ★★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Davis
"Horror We? How's Bayou?" |
Sidney hosts a mixer. ("Horror We? How's Bayou?") |
Jack Seabrook before his morning shave. ("Gorilla My Dreams!") |
"A Likely Story" |
"Garden Party" |
"Garden Party" |
Jack: I've been waiting for several stories to pop up, and "Horror We? How's Bayou?" was one of them. What sick mind could think this up and what sick mind could draw it? It's one of the essential Ghastly tales and an EC classic. "Gorilla My Dreams!" could stand alone as a short story in text, and that's the problem--the drawings are superfluous. As any student of Will Eisner will tell you, the best comic book stories show an inter-dependence between art and text that means you need to see and appreciate both to fully get what's going on. I'm already tired of the Grim Fairy Tales but Kamen gives us a socko last panel--at least for Kamen. The Davis story could be straight out of Mad--it's hilarious! That last panel is a keeper.
Jose: Like “Lower Berth” from last month, I first encountered “Horror We…” as one of four color reprints included in Digby Diehl’s seminal coffee table book, Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives. (The other two were “The Thing from the Grave” and the yet-to-be-seen “The October Game” from Shock 9. Having this book and not being aware of Russ Cochran’s reprints at the time, I had felt like I hit the frickin’ jackpot.) As such, “Horror We…” is hardwired into my brain as essential EC, so it’s hard for me to view it outside those fond parameters. Peter is right on the money when he mentions the savage nature of the story; even though we don’t see Everett rend his victims to bits, this is a story where murder is depicted not as a cute punchline or gimmick but as the soul-swallowing madness that it is. Sidney and Everett, living on the edge of nowhere, are perfectly at home in the symbolically-rich swamp, both caught in the quicksand pull of their respective neuroses as they eke out a pitiful existence feeding their endless appetites. We can see the influence of horror cinema in this tale, not just in its lost-motorists-at-the-old-dark-house conceit but in specific moments and images such as Sidney’s Island of Lost Souls-esque vivisection, here brought to chaotic life by Ingels with a finale that would have never gotten past Joseph Breen’s doormat. Also, I’ll be damned if Ingels didn’t have a reference photo of John Barrymore as Edward Hyde from the silent 1920 film at hand when conceiving the character of Everett. The famous still of the actor is practically identical to the panel of Everett that ends Page 4, right down to the aloof pinky. Wonder why I never noticed that before…
The source... (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1920) |
The translation. ("Horror We? How's Bayou?") |
I guess maybe now I should comment on the other stories too, huh? “Gorilla My Dreams” is zany, B-movie fun, one that immediately put me in mind of one of my favorite old-time radio dramas, “Spawn of the Subhuman” from Dark Fantasy. Phillip might never have sung opera like our primate companion from “Spawn…” but like that loopy story “Gorilla My Dreams” gets extra props for keeping an unbreakable stone face about the whole thing. George Evans was a curious choice to make in assigning this story’s art, but the draughtsman’s hyper-realistic style gives the final moments an aura of genuine pathos. “A Likely Story”: another crown bites the dust. Like you two, I’m just about through reading the Grim Fairy Tales, which is a shame since there’s such a wealth of rich, diverse, and bizarre folklore to be exploited in that vein. It makes you wonder if this is what the predominant perception of fairy tales was at the time, limited to that Walt Disney-scope of castles and princesses. For that reason this mini-series might be interesting from a cultural and sociological perspective, but as far as reading goes it can be a real drag.
Ever since the introduction of Mad, we’ve begun to see a lot of tonal cross-pollination between that title’s parodies and the “straight” horror yarns from the terror trifecta. “Garden Party” is a prime (rib) example of that interbreeding. Louella is so domineering and batty about her garden that it’s surprising that she turns out to be the victim and the one enacting the revenge. Other characters have paid for their similarly uptight, fastidious natures in the past (“The Neat Job,” Shock 1, for example), yet we find the tables turned when Godfrey proves to be a remorseless boor who doesn’t bat an eyelash at any of his childless wife’s crushed flowers. The drunken partiers reminded me of the rambunctious gang from “Horror House” (Vault 15), but these gate-crashers are decidedly more callous and sloppier, even going so far as to take some of Louella’s prized plants for themselves on the way out! The final panel does a pretty nice job of encapsulating that all-American Guignol feel of EC’s horror titles. --Jose
Kurtzman |
"Blockade!" ★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Wally Wood
"Campaign!" ★★★
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by John Severin and Bill Elder
"Donelson!" ★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman
Art by Jack Davis
"Grant!" ★★★ 1/2
Story by Harvey Kurtzman and Jerry DeFuccio
Art by John Severin
The second special Civil War issue of TFT finds us taking another look at the blunders, disappointments, victories, and general ephemera of that most unfortunate chunk of American history. “Blockade” details the seaside skirmishes of the Monitor and the Merrimac, two vessels forged completely from steel that heralded the shift from traditional wooden ships to a more mechanized and reinforced form of warfare. The South’s Merrimac thinks it’s doing alright for itself at first as it reduces its wooden enemies into kindling before the “tin can” Monitor rears its ugly, revolving battle turret and spits forth a few good whacks of its own. Wood stuffs his panels with brawny, rough-and-tumble sailors in a way that gives the reader a good sense of the confined, claustrophobic action of manning one of these “tanks of the ocean.”
"Blockade" |
"Campaign" |
"Donelson" |
"Grant" |
General Enfantino rallies the spirits of his co-bloggers. ("Campaign") |
Jack: I liked this issue much better than you did and thought it held together quite well. My favorite story is "Campaign!" Severin and Elder's art is gorgeous and the story really conveys a sense of the boredom that came between the battles. "Grant!" is a terrific little bio of the great general that avoids hagiography and shows all the warts. "Blockade!" and "Donelson!" fit together nicely to show the debut of the ironclad ships and then how they became commonplace later on. Kurtzman and Co. give life to the dusty pages of history in this issue.
"Donelson" |
Feldstein |
"In the Beginning..." ★★
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Joe Orlando
"Ahead of the Game!" ★★★
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Bill Elder
"The Aliens" ★★★
Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
Art by Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel
"There Will Come Soft Rains..." ★★★ 1/2
Story by Ray Bradbury
Adapted by Al Feldstein
Art by Wally Wood
After a wormhole throws a supply rocket and its crew back in time by one million years, the astronauts discover that the solar system of old contained a tenth planet, one teeming with primordial creatures including a race of ape-human hybrids. Taking two specimens back to the future with them, the astronauts astound the scientific world with solid evidence of what could be the missing link between mankind and its ancestors from the trees. The finding brings much jubilation and speculation until one scientist posits that the death of the female specimen in their time will effectively neutralize her entire potential lineage, essentially ensuring the gradual extinction of human life as we know it. Sure enough, the Earth of the future immediately slips back into the jungle age upon the female’s demise, with the remaining two specimens going on to kickstart a new line evolution on this planet.
Oops! ("In the Beginning...") |
Someone’s been nabbing heads in the naked city, and it’s up to grizzled Lieutenant Dan (no, really!) to find out who’s been making off with the craniums. And also why! After getting a line that both Chicago and St. Louis have recently suffered a string of the gory crimes, Dan heads out to each metropolis to scour the newspaper archives to see if he can find any clues. There is one tenuous connection: the arrival of lecturing scientist Professor Shorham around the time of the murders. Overhearing two college punks debating the methods of increasing voltage on batteries, Dan thinks he has an idea as to motive and then calls up on the prof. Turns out Dan is all-too-right: as it turns out, old Emile is in the process of constructing a giant mechanical brain, and he needs all the severed heads he can get his hands on in order to charge it up. Sadly, our brave lieutenant only pieces this all together after becoming a link in the chain himself.
"Ahead of the Game!" |
A group of reptilian aliens watch in shock as Earth blows to smithereens just as their spacecraft approaches the third planet from the sun. And just as they were on their way to warn us about the terrible potential of atomic power, too! Not ones’ to make a long trip for nothing, the extraterrestrials cruise out to one of the dead planet’s floating chunks to see if they can unearth some fragment of mankind’s past to get a clue about its identity. What they find is surprising indeed: an intact copy of Weird Fantasy #17! Marveling at the combination of pictures and words, the aliens are doubly shocked to find a story about themselves inside. Every detail occurs exactly as it happened to them, right down to the words they speak. It’s only upon turning to the final page that our hapless aliens discover that time has a funny way of acting like an echo chamber.
The gang at bare*bones seen preparing for this post. ("The Aliens") |
Dawn marks the start of a new day of the Armageddon, and though nothing remains of the people who once occupied the year of 2026 save some bleached silhouettes along the charred west side of a futuristic house and the piles of skull and ashes that dot the landscape, the computerized machinations of that house continue to go about their functions just as they did before. Meals and baths are prepared, dishes are automatically cleaned as are floors by dutiful robotic mice, and even luxuries such as pre-lit cigars and glowing nursery room landscapes are cued at the precise rotations of the house’s internal clock. And though the food goes to waste and no warm sounds of laughter or footsteps are heard in any of the rooms, the house of the future does not mourn its expired occupants nor the diseased, starving dog that comes calling back for them. A series of accidents incurred by a raging wind leads to a fire breaking out in the house and, try as the house’s built-in security might to choke back the flames, the blaze eventually prevails and destroys most of the structure, save for the errant voice of the alarm that continues to call out the time and date to a world that has no one left to heed it.
With the works of Ray Bradbury being so ubiquitous, it’s difficult to approach one of these EC adaptations without having already read the source material or even not having much knowledge of the content. Though I was familiar with the central premise of “There Will Come Soft Rains…”, I had yet to experience Bradbury’s original before undertaking this version as “retold” by Feldstein and artistically interpreted by Wally Wood. Having said that, I can tell you that this seven-page comic book iteration packs the same level of emotional wallop that I’ve received reading Bradbury’s stories in the past, so in that sense it’s safe to say that this is most certainly a successful translation of the author’s work. It definitely helps that Ray’s prose is essentially represented as-is, but even that hasn’t necessarily saved an EC adaptation before. (I’m looking at you, “The Coffin.”) And it *definitely* helps that we have Wood on board as artist. Though there’s not much here that would prove to be an obstacle for any one of EC’s other house artists (not even—gulp—Jack Kamen), Wood lends a quiet poeticism that perfectly matches Bradbury’s words, seen especially in that stunner of a splash page and the panels of the cheery house standing amidst piles of charnel remains.
In all fairness, this story could be potentially charged with the same offense that I lodged against “In the Beginning”: there’s not much of a conflict. And yet where WF’s first story left me cold by taking on a global scale, this final piece enraptured me for its small, emotional focus. This might just be a laundry list of cool, dream-life amenities that a house of the future could provide for us, but it’s in the depiction of each of those amenities that we’re reminded of the loss, of the failure of our people to keep themselves from destroying each other before there wasn’t anyone left to enjoy those luxuries. Every automatic sandwich and heated bed that the house provides is a just as much a reminder of our hunger for death as they are a celebration of our innovation. Look at all our wonderful inventions, and look what they have wrought. --Jose
Peter discovers why you must always knock first on the bathroom door at bare*bones HQ. ("Ahead of the Game") |
Jack: Definitely above average, but still not EC's best. I like Will Elder alone better than I like John Severin alone, but the two together are unbeatable; "Ahead of the Game!" is a neat mystery with a sci-fi ending. Imagine the days when one had to travel from city to city to read the newspaper! The Bradbury story was always one of my favorites of his and this vision of the future is strangely prescient, especially with the intelligent house and automatic floor cleaners. Roy Krenkel must bring a lot of polish to Al Williamson's art because "The Aliens" looks fabulous, especially when compared to "The Island Monster" in this month's Weird Science. "In the Beginning . . ." is over-written and tedious to read, representing yet another version of the EC science fiction story where scientists wreck everything for the rest of us.
The Gemstone reissue of TFT #31 |
Next Week In the Shrapnel-Filled 104th Issue of Star Spangled DC War Stories Sgt. Rock Dies?! |
2 comments:
A surprisingly weak month for EC, with a lot of clunkers here, although generally outshined by several classics, "Horror We How's Bayou?" and "The Aliens" chief among them. The former has arguably the best Ghastly Graham Ingels art from any of his stories, and lot of great, scary stuff including Everett and the walking corpse bonanza, not to mention that final panel. Had never noticed Everett's similarity to John Barrymore's Dr. Hyde before. Unlike Warren Publishing, EC's spiritual successor where one could often find swipes from well known sources (A particularly memorable one for me was one of Dave Bowman from 2001 in what was otherwise one of the publisher's best stories, "Stairway to Heaven" from Vampirella #29), it was always quite hard for me to notice any in EC.
Williamson's "The Aliens" (I hadn't realized Krenkel had anything to do with this story, as he usually did cities and buildings) is a blast, and we'll see similar looking aliens in upcoming Williamson stories in Weird Science #18 and Shock SuspenStories #9, although neither time as fun as the ones we get here. Perhaps homages to this story, or simply the type of aliens he liked to draw. In any case, unlike say "Off Day" which just comes off as them running out of ideas and throwing crap against the wall for a story that day, this story comes off as an interesting take on breaking the fourth wall like you've said. Incidentally enough, Gemstone Publishing would use most of the panels from "Off Day" to create a letter column character, Dr. DeRange for the EC comic reprints they published throughout the 1990's.
While you guys were a bit critical on "Plucked", I always enjoyed that story a lot too, and it features (along with the cover) one of the scariest aliens IMHO to appear in EC comics.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment. I agree with you on the Ingels story.
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