The EC Reign Month by Month 1950-1956
52: November 1954 Part I
Craig |
"Deadly Beloved!" ★★
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Johnny Craig
"Top Billing" ★★1 /2
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Reed Crandall
"The Purge" ★★
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Bernard Krigstein
"All for Gnawt" ★
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Graham Ingels
"Deadly Beloved!" |
A whole load of good stuff. ("Deadly Beloved!") |
Blye, Nash, and Winton, three unemployed Shakespearean actors, come across the Woltham theater backstage door one night and, suddenly, hope shines down on them. Entering the stage door, they find a motley crew performing Hamlet (and not doing a veddy good job at it) and having a bit of a kerfuffle on the side; someone keeps stealing the props and it's enraging the lead.
Sensing a production in need of an actor, Winton approaches the director and is immediately hired. Enraged, Blye heads up to his friend's dressing room and bashes his brains in with a sash weight. When he tells Nash that Blye has had a case of the jitters and headed back home, he's aghast that Nash has the audacity to volunteer his services to the stage director. Another trip to a dressing room and suddenly Blye is the last actor standing. And yet another prop goes missing. Retiring to his dressing room, Blye discovers the prop manager loping around, promising to open his goodie bag for the actor. When Blye has a look, he's shocked to see a sack full of human heads. Convinced he's seeing things, Blye heads for the window for some fresh air and the sign at the front of the building has him suddenly rethinking his career. The director and lead burst in to announce that Blye has been given the role of "poor Yorick . . ." Undeniably silly, yes, but entertaining as all heck. It's like one of those really long jokes that ends with a groan of a punchline (I mean, where in the world would you find an "Insane asylum for actors?") but you can't help smiling. The detail in some of Crandall's panels is mind-boggling (check out that splash above), a trait that the artist will become famous for in his work for Warren.
Krigstein's magnificent splash. ("The Purge") |
Verily, we are presented with the grandest conundrum: a beautifully-illustrated, well-written five-page story with one page of painfully bad expository. "The Purge" is, in fact, wrapped up with what could very well be the stupidest twist ever concocted for an EC tale. I was half-expecting we'd get a reveal that mirrored that of "Witch Witch's Witch!" (from Vault #36), where the accused is actually a witch, but Carl, in a very Wessler-like way, defies expectations. No clues are dropped and the only reaction a reader can have is "WTF?" Why would this king spend so much time and energy on "cleansing" Alicia only to rip her to shreds? Couldn't he eat "Satan-ised" meat? It's like telling a joke with the wrong punchline and the sad part is that the deadly dumb denouement takes a bit of luster off the exquisite Krigstein visuals. Some historians have thrown mud at the theory that EC was so obviously higher in quality than any of the competitors but just one look at a BK-illustrated strip scotches those theories.
True, it's a shocker cuz we never saw it coming. Doesn't make it a good shock! ("The Purge") |
Millie Mumford's been through four husbands and only has three grand to show for it. Obviously, her plan of "wed and then dead" is not working, but she decides to give it one more try and answers a "lonely hearts" ad for an old man who owns a sprawling estate and just wants someone to share it with. When Millie arrives at the estate, she's more than a bit surprised to see a run-down shack sitting on an overgrown lot. Alvin Tuttle ushers Millie in to his "quaint" house and asks her to sit on his sofa so they can get to know each other. As she sits, she hears a sickening snap and crunch under the sofa and Alvin joyfully raises a dead rat caught in a trap, explaining that the place is overrun with the damn things and just needs a woman's touch. Disgusted, Millie storms out and heads for a local bar, where the bartender lets on that Alvin Tuttle is worth four hundred grand and he keeps it somewhere in the house. Swallowing her pride and envisioning a golden ticket in her future, Millie races back, makes amends, and agrees to marry Tuttle. Months later, despite scouring the house, Millie still has no clue where the bounty is located and decides violence is the only solution. She threatens to wring Tuttle's neck and the poor old man confesses that the money can be found in the basement behind a large rock in the wall. The portly princess races down the stairs, dislodges the stone and finds several metal cases. As she's hauling out her new-found wealth, a steel trap closes on her arms and she's stuck. Alvin descends the stairs and opens the metal cases, revealing the skeletons of his former wives, all greedy money-chasers just like Millie. As Alvin says his goodbyes, the rats move closer to a very large meal. Poor Ghastly, loaded down with lousy script after lousy script. He does his best to make "All For Gnawt" at least "lookable" (even if it's nowhere near readable) but the tired plot and nagging logic lapses (so, no one ever reported any of Alvin's wives missing?) sink this one fast.
--Peter
Jack: Late-period, New Trend EC comics are starting to remind me of late-'60s, early '70s DC Horror comics in that the scripts are weak but the art is stellar. Hmm, what do both periods have in common? Carl Wessler! Craig's art is fine on "Deadly Beloved!" but I knew the gal was dead very early in the story. Likewise, Crandall draws beautifully in "Top Billing" but the punchline was obvious way before it was revealed. I can't say the same about "The Purge," which at least had an unexpected finale, even if it was out of left field. Krigstein's art is lovely to behold. Not so lovely is Ghastly's art on the last story, which also ends with a questionable conclusion that doesn't exactly make sense. This series is limping toward cancellation like a corpse shambling through a graveyard.
Kamen |
"Three for the Money" ★★
Story by Otto Binder
Art by Jack Kamen
"Dog Food" ★★★
Story by Jack Oleck (?)
Art by Reed Crandall
"Key Chain" ★★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Bernie Krigstein
"The Squealer" ★★
Story by Jack Oleck (?)
Art by George Evans
"Three for the Money" |
Oh, for the glorious 1950s, when autopsies weren't the necessary unpleasantry they are today. The twist is really not that bad, but "Three for the Money" sure takes a long time to get there and what we have to wade through is the same old soap opera crap that Jack Kamen seemed destined to illustrate. That horse has been beaten into microscopic atoms so I'll only say that this is just as average as the last JK strip I had to snore through (and, by the way, why does Jack's knife-wielder on the cover have cat's eyes?). It might have been nice if (the usually reliable) colorist Marie Severin had actually read the caption that read . . . "The next morning, I dressed in black and went into town to the Constable's office." before settling down to color Nan's dress blue! Any suspense as to whether Nan was an innocent is burnt to a crisp along with the paper in the fireplace (we later learn it was her forged suicide note for hubby, but we know she's up to something) on page 2. Blah!
"Dog Food" |
"Dog Food" |
"Key Chain" |
"The Squealer" |
Jack: When you have three stories well drawn by Crandall, Krigstein, and Evans, why in the world would you put the Kamen story first and have him draw the cover? Like this month's Vault of Horror, this comic excels in the art department (except for Kamen) and doesn't quite reach as high with the stories. "Three for the Money" has a dopey ending, "Dog Food" has a ludicrous finale, "Key Chain" is cool but the last panel is superfluous, and "The Squealer" is predictable the closer you get to the last page. Still, this is a decent comic and continues to show that (at least in late 1954) the crime books were better than the horror books.
Oh, so that's why Ed is such a rotten guy! ("The Squealer") |
Feldstein |
"Tick Dracy" ★★★
Story by Nick Meglin and Al Feldstein
Art by Bill Elder
"Panic's Dictionary of Sports" ★★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Davis
"Spots Before Your Eyes!" ★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Joe Orlando
"You Too Can Hook a Zillionaire!" ★ 1/2
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Wally Wood
"Tick Dracy" |
Finally! We finally get a strip in Panic that could easily be slotted into MAD and no one would know the difference. Oh, Bill Elder has come through for us with his giggly panels but the scripts have not been up to snuff . . . till now. I've got a feeling that's due to the addition of humorist Nick Meglin to the Panic staff (years later, Meglin would become editor of MAD); it might have given Al a much-needed helping hand with the funny stuff. And there's lots to laff at here: Mess's gruesome transformation from cute blondie to slasher-film victim (at one point the poor girl wears a bag over her head); Dracy's grotesque arch-enemies (in addition to my fave, Aircraft-Carrier-Noggin, there's also Raisin Puss and Shivery, a villain who lives inside a refrigerator); the birds that make a nest in Junyor's thick moptop; and, of course, the dead-on barbs aimed at Chester Gould. Could this be an omen of good things to come?
"Tick Dracy" |
Well . . .
Strop, You're Killin' Me! ("Panic's Dictionary of Sports") |
"You Too Can Hook a Zillionaire!" takes us right back to where we started from before I got so darned hopeful about this issue. "Zillionaire" is another Al movie parody that elicits exactly one laugh from this here jaded funny book reader and that one, when the movie producer calls for a "non-communist screen writer so we can get to work on the script," becomes less funny when you realize it's the first in a series of jabs at the comic book police. One full star of my star-and-a-half rating is awarded for Wally Wood's recreation of Lauren Backache's exquisite rear end. Sexist, yes, but I swear my bad jokes are better than the ones found in Panic. -Peter
Oh, that Lauren Backache! ("You Too Can Hook a Zillionaire!") |
Jack: "Tick Dracy" is the only ray of light in this otherwise recyclable issue. I liked the unrelenting attack on Chester Gould, with little, descriptive boxes in every panel, and I laughed at Dracy's long hair when his hat flew off. The villains didn't make me laugh, nor did the dated references to Jackie Gleason. As for the other three stories, they were just plain terrible. By the end of the Orlando piece, I was just scanning because I realized that there was no point in reading every word. I thought having Wally Wood illustrate a spoof on a Marilyn Monroe movie would be better, but even he seems uninspired this time out.
Wood |
"The Privateer" ★★★★
Story Uncredited
Art by Reed Crandall
"The Mutineers" ★★★
Story Uncredited
Art by Wally Wood
"Harpooned" ★★ 1/2
Story Uncredited
Art by Angelo Torres
"Shanghaied" ★★★ 1/2
Story Uncredited
Art by Jack Davis
Britain is at war with Spain, so Captain Ballard James has his ship registered as "The Privateer," allowing it to attack Spanish ships and collect their treasure. The first attack is so lucrative that Captain James soon doesn't care whose ship he attacks. He and his men go on a rampage, attacking ships and coastal cities and collecting loads of treasure, becoming pirates rather than privateers. Finally, his ship attacks what appears to be a merchant ship, only to sail right into a trap: the other ship is a pirate ship masquerading as a defenseless vessel and, in the battle that ensues, Captain James is killed and his ship ransacked.
"The Privateer" |
I did not have high hopes for Piracy; I thought it would be a desperate attempt to find a new topic to replace the rapidly fading horror and crime titles. Boy, was I wrong! The GCD does not provide writing credits for the stories in this issue, so I don't know whom to praise for the plotting, captions, and dialogue, but Reed Crandall's art is excellent and the story is thrilling.
"The Mutineers" |
Is there anything Wally Wood can't draw well? Nary a many-tentacled monster or flimsily-gowned maid in sight, yet he delivers another action-packed story of high seas adventure. It's not as good as "The Privateers" but it's close.
On the whaling ship Eban Dodge, things are tense. It's 1854, and they're looking for whales off the coast of New England. First mate Martin Ericson is jealous of Captain Mathew Strong and, when a whale is spotted and the crew heads out in a long-boat after it, Ericson sees this as his chance to get rid of the captain and take over the ship. The whale is "Harpooned" and Ericson makes sure Strong is caught in the rope line and dragged into the water after the thrashing whale, but when the whale finally surfaces and destroys the small boat, Ericson finds himself "impaled on the harpoon pole sticking out of the whale's back."
"Harpooned" |
This issue of Piracy is a feast for the eyes! "Harpooned" is not as heavy with plot as the two stories before it, but it moves smoothly from start to finish and the denouement is satisfying. Williamson and Torres have a style that is more fine art than comic art; it's nice to look at but it lacks the muscular excitement we saw in the Crandall and Wood stories.
"Shanghaied" |
A surprising and wonderful ending caps a highly entertaining story of revenge that turns out to be something else entirely. Who better than Jack Davis to illustrate a tale filled with drunken sailors, madams, and a writer who becomes a seaman? This is a great finish to a terrific comic!--Jack
Peter: As I approached the reading of an entire 32-page comic devoted to pirates (and the first issue of seven, to boot!), I thought, "Oh, this is not going to be good." Such a pessimist am I. It's early, of course, but Piracy may very well become the great adventure comic that Two-Fisted was supposed to be. All four tales are high-quality reading in both the script and art departments, with both "The Privateer" and "The Mutineers" earning four-star ratings from this funny book fan. "Harpooned" could have been comfortable in the pages of Shock and "Shanghaied" is unlike any story we've yet encountered on this journey. Piracy #1 gives me hope that the phoenix is rising even before the ashes have cooled.
Next Week! More Blazing Battle Action When Rock Tries to Tame a Tiger! |
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