Hiển thị các bài đăng có nhãn War Against Crime. Hiển thị tất cả bài đăng
Hiển thị các bài đăng có nhãn War Against Crime. Hiển thị tất cả bài đăng

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Tư, 9 tháng 11, 2011


Number 1049


"Dat takes care of dat!"


As I understand the stories from the history of EC Comics, after founder M.C. Gaines died in a boating accident in 1947, and his son, Bill, took over the editorial chores, one of his first hires was Al Feldstein. Feldstein had been an artist on teenage comics ( Fox's Junior). That was the direction they were headed until they stopped that project and went out for crime, love and Western fare. Al did stories in all three genres.

"Machine-Gun Mad Mobsters" is from War Against Crime #4, 1948. Al's artwork, while noirish, seems a little stiff, but a year or so later when he was drawing horror comics that was appropriate. He drew lots of stiffs.

The first two pages of the story in my copy of this comic are damaged, so I scanned them from Russ Cochran's 2000 reprint. The rest is from the 1948 printing.











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Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Tư, 31 tháng 3, 2010


Number 710


Bed of Murder!


War Against Crime! #11 was the last issue of that title. With the next issue it became Vault of Horror. This last issue of WAC featured the second story hosted by the Vault Keeper, and EC's first horror cover. Those must've been heady days at EC when they saw their circulation jump as they moved into horror.

I could've shown you the Vault Keeper's story from this 1949 last issue of WAC, "The Mummy's Curse," but I'm contrary and want to show you story number two from that issue because I have the original art scans I purloined some years ago from Heritage Auctions, and because of the confusion over the artist of "Bed of Murder." When I showed some panels from this artwork in Pappy's #351 I identified it as being by Harry Harrison, because that was the credit I'd seen elsewhere. In Russ Cochran's reprint of WAC #11 the credit for the artwork is given to John Alton.

John...who? To paraphrase sportscaster Dick Vitale, "Let's go to the internet!" I found that John Alton was a Canadian artist who had worked for Bell Syndicate in Canada, and had done some jobs in the States after the Canadian comic industry crashed. Credits for Alton are scarce over the years, and after a time they disappear. I find Alton's style very clean, no white-out and no patches. There's nothing exceptionally dynamic about his artwork but Alton was obviously a professional and his style seems perfect for the late '40s crime comics.

Tomorrow is a non-EC posting, then I'll come back on Friday with a couple of EC love tales.









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