FLOG! Entries tagged 'Al Feldstein'

Daily OCD 5/24/13

TheJenVaughn

The coldest Dip'n'Dots of Online Commentaries & Marketing:

• Interview: Comic Book Resources and Alex Dueben interview Peter Bagge about Other Stuff and his favorite collaborations in the book, "The earliest one in the book, "Life in These United States," didn't come out looking at all like I had envisioned it…what Clowes did with it was truly remarkable. Also, Gilbert [Hernandez] radically changed the faces, ages and even genders of almost everyone in the "Me" strip. That threw me for a loop! Though it didn't negatively impact the story in the slightest."

• Review: The A.V. Club looks at Peter Bagge's Other Stuff. "Other Stuff also brings together strips Bagge has written about rock icons, along with a few cartoon essays, and strips featuring his characters Lovey and The Leeways, who respectively represent hipster adventurism and dogged domesticity. It’s a full picture of who Bagge has been as an artist and humorist over the past 20 years, and as such is as valuable for newcomers as fans…" writes Noel Murray.

• Interview: Peter Bagge is interviewed on Societe Perrier by Christian J Petersen on comics, Seattle and growing up clever. "Did your parents encourage your creativity? No, though they didn't discourage it. They were drunk."

• Review: The Quietus looks at The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert and Pierre Bartier. Aug Stone writes, "Jodelle is fantastic in every sense of the word, filled with in-jokes and time-defying references, nudity and sex (not always coinciding), exaggerated violence, but most importantly a sense of pushing the edges of possibility…The original Pop Art comic and one of the first ‘adult comics’ (released a year after Barbarella by same publisher Eric Losfeld), Jodelle is an artistic tour de force."

• Review: Bookgasm looks at The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert. "…let the fleshy neon visuals explode into your eyeballs.…It won’t have the same impact today, as many of its visual ideas have been appropriated and subverted into the mainstream culture, but as both a time capsule of its era and as a visually stunning romp, it remains a unique experience that should certainly be at least sampled by any adventurous modern reader of comics. Playfully provocative, funny and smart, THE ADVENTURES OF JODELLE pops with a soft-lined splash of lurid color," writes JT Lindroos.

• Review: It's Nice That and look at The Adventures of Jodelle. "Peellaert was every bit the master of his craft and with enviable vision and flair managed to transform a previously safe medium into something exciting and dangerous…It’s intoxicating stuff!" exclaims James Cartwright.

• Plug: Russ Meyer and Juxtapoz plug The Adventures of Jodelle.

• Interview: Robin McConnell of Inkstuds interviews THE Ulli Lust, cartoonist of Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life.

• Review: Mr. Media looks at Sexytime and interviews editor Jacques Boyreau.

• Interview: HeroesOnline and Seth Peagler interview Ed Piskor about comics, music and Hip Hop Family Tree. Piskor states, "There were some interesting things to look at while writing the book. It’s necessary to know the political/economic climate at the time. The fine art scene plays an integral role in the development of early Hip Hop as well, which many people might not know. If it wasn’t for the downtown scene gravitating toward graffiti culture it could have all died out in the early 80s."

• Review: I Reads You reads Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. Leroy Douresseaux writes, "This publishing format is designed to appeal to the people who decide what will make the shelves of bookstores.…this is another volume of New Stories which proves that Love and Rockets is as strong as ever and is ready for 30 more great years."

• Review: Kotaku's roundtable discuss what they did and didn't like about Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez. Evan Narcisse posits "I did like how the family lived on the fringes of the 20th Century. It reminded me A LOT of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude. The weird almost-incest, characters with the same names and weird proclivities, home-as-a-black-hole-you-can't-escape, the outside world as an exotic dangerous place, nature as this karmic equalizer …"

• Interview: Nicole Rudick of The Comics Journal interviews James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook about 7 Miles A Second and their creative life together. James mentions, "…it is about empathy, the only thing we have that allows us to touch each other. So if there’s anything positive to be taken out of the book, it’s that we should be working toward a more empathetic experience while we’re on the planet."

• Review: Comic Book Resources looks at 50 Girls 50 by Al Williamson. "It’s interesting seeing how different some of the artwork is – Williamson liked science fiction, apparently, and was occasionally bored with the other stories William Gaines or Al Feldstein gave him, but there’s no story here that doesn’t at least offer something sublime…Fantagraphics has done a really nice job bringing a lot of the 1940s/1950s stuff back into print, and if they keep picking such cool stuff like this, I’ll just have to keep buying it!" exclaims Greg Burgas.

• Review: Spectrum Culture looks at 'Tain't the Meat by Jack Davis. "Davis was a phenomenal draftsman whose dynamic line work could imbue even static scenes with restless energy, and whose clean but detailed layouts could bring to life queasiness-inducing tableaux of rotting corpses and piled intestines…Al Feldstein and Carl Wessler wrote the lion’s share of these tales and had a knack for mixing cruel irony and creeping dread.…EC has been gone for decades now, but volumes like this help ensure that its influence won’t be forgotten." writes David Maine.

• Review: The Portland Mercury on Dash Shaw's New School. "The experience of reading New School is like temporarily inhabiting the body and brain of an artist: This is what growing up might feel like for someone who lives and breathes colors and shapes," writes Allison Hallett. "It's heady, hallucinatory, and bizarre, but it's grounded in the simple experience of growing up in the shadow of a beloved older sibling."

• Interview: Societe Perrier by Christian J Petersen interview Johnny Ryan. "You seem to be exploring a darkside in your work but you soften the blow with humor. What would your real darkside look like? Prison Pit. "

• Plug: Buzzfeed tells you what you want to read in the webcomics department: Steven Weissman's Barack Hussein Obama (and co) and Julia Gfrorer's Black is the Color (coming out soon in print)!

• Plug: Duckburg Weekly looks at Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley and Mickey Mouse Volume 2: Trapped on Treasure Island by Floyd Gottfredson. "With Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Classic Collection Fantagraphics Books published a must-have for everyone who's interested in early works of the Walt Disney Company!…[Vol. 1]offers amazing articles about the 'birth' of Mickey Mouse, bonus panels which were never published and different artists in the spotlight (such as Al Taliaferro and Jack King)…Again [in Vol. 2] there is a chapter with incredible bonus material which informs about the villains, Floyd's colleagues and additional comic strips."

• Interview: It's Nice That and James Cartwright interviewed Anders Nilsen about The End, coming out in print this fall. "…some of it is pretty raw, and that’s how I felt at the time. Some of it is funny, too, I think, which is also part of the experience. It can feel very absurd at times. If it feels like a crazy emotional roller coaster to read, then it’s doing the job."

• Plug: The Daily Rios reviews Chuck Forsman's The End of the Fucking World in its serialized form.

• Review: The Comics Journal reviewed the Kolor Klimax anothology, edited by Matthias Wivel. Robert Kirby writes, "I found myself drawn back to each several times…That, for me, is the common vibe generated by this and other Euro-comics anthologies: the sense of possibility and novelty that comes from having available a whole new frontier of previously hard-to-come-by alt-comics by accomplished artists to explore. Comics speak a universal, intuitive language, but this 'Nordic Hypnotica' opens Americans up to previously unfamiliar dialects that are a pleasure to read, enjoy, and occasionally decode."

• Review: Kitty Sneezes looks at Drew and Josh Alan Friedman's Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental. "Shemp acts both as a beacon of Drew Friedman's amazing artistic skill, but also as a signpost of what you'll find.…strips starring the semi-forgotten figures of old media. Figures like Abbott & Costello, Chet Huntley, Joe Franklin or Tor Johnson come up frequently. I especially love the Tor strips. And usually, though there's a surrealist bent like you'd find in the work of Michael Kupperman, there's usually a sense of love for the work of these people" writes Rev. Syung Myung Me.

• Plug: A JASON mural in Oslo!

• Commentary: Michael Netzer says some nice things and does a beautiful drawing of Kim Thompson.

• Commentary: Casey Burbachy writes about the history of Fantagraphics and our partnership with digital comics publisher/distribution company, comiXology on Publishers Weekly.

• Cool: A lot of our cartoonists have contributed to the Exquisite Corpse comic on Trubble Club!

• Commentary (photos): Inkstuds host Robin McConnell took some loverly photos of Larry Reid, Jacq Cohen and me at Emerald City Comic Con.

• Interview: Jacq Cohen describes why TCAF rocks and our new books there on Forbidden Planet International and soon to be in a store near you.

Daily OCD Extra: Booklist's June Reviews

TheJenVaughn

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed three recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below:

Peter Bagge's Other Stuff by Peter Bagge et al.

"The pleasing hodgepodge includes multipart sequences featuring Bagge creations like hipster wannabe Lovey and clueless suburbanites Chet and Bunny Leeway (resurrected from Bagge’s 1980s series, Neat Stuff); Bagge-scripted stories drawn by other alt-comics titans, including R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez as well as a story scripted by Alan Moore…While his rubbery, exaggerated visual style may be one-note (as effective and appealing as that single note might be), this diverse assortment of work, nearly all of it top-notch, shows that Bagge has plenty of arrows in his artistic quiver." –Gordon Flagg

Good Dog by Graham Chaffee

"Chaffee’s artwork is bold and straightforward, and he imbues each dog with its own personality while avoiding excessive anthropomorphizing. The natural audience for this work is, of course, dog lovers, but you don’t have to be a caninophile to appreciate Chaffee’s remarkable ability to get inside the mind of man’s best friend." –Gordon Flagg

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

"…while other EC artists were moodier or spookier, Jack Davis’ stories stood out for their distinctly cartoony tinge, leavening the terror with a mocking humor…they remain entertaining six decades later, or as the Crypt-Keeper would put it, “There’s no ghoul like an old ghoul.” –Gordon Flagg

EC Comics and Peanuts: NY Times Best Sellers

TheJenVaughn

We've had three books hit the NY Times Best Sellers list for two weeks this past month! Dig into yer wallets and read what's on everyone's mind: some quality EC Comics and books from the comic strip master himself, Charles Schulz.

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

"…here we’re dazzled by romanticized sci-fi heroics and delicate line-work of the ilk of FLASH GORDON’S original artist Alex Raymond, Williamson’s main inspiration. Dinosaurs, spaceships, and outlandish otherworldly creatures populate the flora of faraway worlds, accompanied by buxom, exotically garbed beauties." –Rick Trembles, Fangoria

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

Of course, around the office everyone is guffawing that we got the word 'taint' on the list. Close up shop, everyone, our job is done here.

"Even though he wasn't a perfectionist, Jack Davis's laziness is better than most people's best work. When Davis does invest himself in a drawing it's just a mind bender. This is a must have for anyone who loves horror, EC, Jack Davis, any of that stuff." –Nick Gazin, VICE

The Complete Peanuts: 1987-88 (Volume 19)
by Charles Schulz

Flirting and a hockey mishap send Charlie Brown and Snoopy (respectively) to the doctor. Plus Spike, Sally, Rerun and the whole gang, and the epochal change from 4 uniform panels to a variable format. Introduction by Garry Trudeau.

Covers Uncovered: Child of Tomorrow! and Fall Guy for Murder (The EC Comics Library)

mike

Our next two books in The EC Comics Library series are queued up for the printer and they are both solo volumes:

Child of Tomorrow! and Other Stories collects science fiction stories written and drawn by Al Feldstein, who also scripted stories for numerous other EC artists. Feldstein's own crisp, thick-lined drawing style will definitely be of interest to Charles Burns and Dan Clowes fans. And of course it's packed with all the UFOs, BEMs, robots, rockets, and Cold War-fueled apocalyptic scenarios you could hope for. (And wait until you see the eye-popping day-glo orange on the cover in person!)

Johnny Craig was responsible for some of EC's most infamous images (severed head, anyone?) and was the only EC artist to habitually write his own stories. Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories collects crime and horror work by Craig — 23 grim, gorgeous, graphic tales featuring murderous spouses, executioners, thieving surgeons, vengeful sword-swallowers, time bombs, private dicks, vampires, werewolves, and ghouls.

Both of these must-have volumes (aren't they all?) will be arriving in late July/early August — more sneak peeks are on the way, and you can pre-order them (separately, or together for a discount) right now.

Fantagraphics February-March 2013 New Arrivals Recap

mike

Here's our latest batch of newly-minted books and it's a heavy-hitting group! They're all in stock and shipping now.

For fans of the classics we have the third and fourth books in our EC Comics Library series, featuring artwork by Jack Davis and Al Williamson, plus our astounding career-spanning book of B. Krigstein's comic work. If you like Pop Art graphics, sexy satire and absurd adventure you'll love our new definitive edition of Guy Peellaert's long out of print classic. The new graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez is a major work by a comics genius. We've got the 19th (!) volume of The Complete Peanuts, still hilarious after all these years! Plus reprints of books collecting work by Charles Burns & Robert Crumb -- you might've heard of those guys.

Remember, our New Releases page always lists the 20 most recent arrivals, and our Upcoming Arrivals page has dozens of future releases available for pre-order.

(Want these updates in your inbox every month? Subscribe!)

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

264-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-577-8

See Previews / Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order one of our EC Comics Library volumes and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid to reckon with — as he proved again and again in the stories he created for EC's legendary "New Trend" comics, in particular Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.

As a result of Williamson's focus, it's possible to compile all of Williamson's "New Trend" EC work into one book — which Fantagraphics is finally doing here. Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50 features three of EC's legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including "I, Rocket" and "A Sound of Thunder" — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from a short story submitted by a teen-aged Harlan Ellison.

Williamson ran with a gang of like-minded young Turks dubbed the "Fleagle Gang," who would help one another out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story ("Food for Thought") where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta's Shock SuspenStories short "Squeeze Play"; Krenkel's meticulous "Time to Leave"; and Angelo Torres's "An Eye for an Eye," an EC story that famously fell prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 also includes extensive story notes by EC experts.

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

224-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-578-5

See Previews / Order Now

With its pitch-perfect blend of laughs, terror, and gore, as delineated by some of the finest cartoonists to ever draw a rotting, reanimated corpse, Tales from the Crypt (1950-1955, R.I.P.) remains the quintessential horror comic of all time.

And no cartoonist better encapsulated the grand-guignol spirit of Tales from the Crypt than Jack Davis, who, even at the earliest stage of what would become a six-decade career, possessed a level of skill that would elude most other cartoonists during their lifetimes. His maniacs were more homicidal, his victims more terrified, his dismemberments bloodier, and his werewolves more feral than anyone else's.

'Tain’t the Meat... It's the Humanity and Other Stories collects all of Davis's Tales from the Crypt classics, from EC's wicked revenge fantasies ("The Trophy!" and "Well Cooked Hams!") through the outright supernatural (the voodoo yarn "Drawn and Quartered!" and "Concerto for Violin and Werewolf") to the origin of the Crypt-Keeper ("Lower Berth") — and the legendary splatter gross-out of the title story.

This volume also includes biographical notes and essays, and an ultra-rare EC bonus: Davis's completely redrawn 3-D version of "The Trophy!" — back in print for the first time since its original appearance 60 years ago (and for the first time in regular, easy-on-the-eyes 2-D).

"...I have a spot in my heart for Jack Davis. I mean, that guy just makes me laugh. Even when he's drawing a gross-out, he just makes me laugh. I love his shoes, the way he draws shoes, and knuckles... there's just something about Jack Davis' stuff that blows me away." – George A. Romero

The Adventures of Jodelle
by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier

164-page full-color 10.25" x 13.25" hardcover • $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-530-3

See Previews / Order Now

Ensconced in the avant-garde of the extraordinary social and cultural upheavals that were drawing 1960s Europe into the building wave of postmodernism, a Belgian advertising dropout, fed up with the corporate world, conceived the first "adult comic book" virtually off the top of his head.

By creating The Adventures of Jodelle, a deluxe comics album that wore its revolutionary Pop sensibility on its sleeve, Guy Peellaert obliterated the conventions of what had up to that point been a minor, childish medium. Ironically appropriating the face and body of the teen idol Sylvie Vartan, he fashioned a new kind of heroine, a sensual, parodically beautiful spy. For his setting he chose a defiantly anachronistic Roman Empire, into which irrupted the most flamboyant symbols of a conquering America, the originator of all fantasies.

Every page of this fascinating saga features a flood of topical references and in-jokes, operating playfully on the border that separated so-called "high" and "low" cultures. Peellaert drew from the most exciting stimuli of his time, subjecting them to his powerful formal innovations: Pop Art, extreme fashions, strident advertising, shock graphics, and cinematic techniques all collided in virtuoso compositions of extreme sophistication, whose inspirations ranged from classical paintings to Gottlieb pinball machines.

Published to thunderous acclaim in France in 1966 and then throughout Europe and in the U.S., Jodelle was an instant classic, whose influence would spread far beyond the confines of comics. It also triggered Guy Peellaert's "Pop Period," a creative whirlwind marked by his 1967 creation of PRAVDA, an unforgettable character that has since been acknowledged as a major component of the European Pop movement.

Completely remastered and featuring a new translation, this long-awaited reprinting of The Adventures of Jodelle is accompanied by an 80-page, lushly-illustrated textual supplement created in partnership with the artist's estate which traces the creative path travelled by this maverick artist, who multiplied his chosen means of expression, skipping from comics to cinema and moving through fashion, periodicals, and television, including collaborations with many of the great figures of mythical 1960s-era Paris, from Serge Gainsbourg to Yves Saint Laurent.

Big Baby (New Printing)
by Charles Burns

96-page black & white 9" x 12" softcover • $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-56097-800-8

See Previews / Order Now

From the creator of the 2005 hit graphic novel Black Hole and the recent trilogy X'ed Out, The Hive and Sugar Skull comes this new softcover edition of his other masterpiece of modern horror. Big Baby is a particularly impressionable young boy named Tony Delmonte, who lives in a seemingly typical American suburb until he sneaks out of his room one night and becomes entangled in a horrific plot involving summer camp murders and backyard burials. Burns' clinical precision as an artist adds a sinister chill to his droll sense of humor, and his affection for 20th-century pulp fiction permeates throughout, creating a brilliant narrative that perfectly captures the unease and fear of adolescence.

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 2: Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle (New Softcover Ed.)
by Robert Crumb

144-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-93019-362-1

See Previews / Order Now

Another fascinating collection of early work from one of America's most original, trenchant, and uncompromising artists. "Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle" features several key stories from Crumb’s pre-underground, homemade comics of the early 1960s (such as Farb and Arcade), with stories featuring early Crumb characters Fritz the Cat, Jim, Mabel, and Little Billy Bean. It also includes "Roberta Smith, Office Girl," Crumb's charming 4-panel strip for the American Greetings employee newsletter; a full-color section of cover illustrations; copious reproductions from Crumb's sketchbooks; and more of the biographical introduction by Crumb confidant Marty Pahls.

1989 Harvey Award Winner, Best Domestic Reprint Project

The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988 (Vol. 19)
by Charles M. Schulz

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-634-8

See Previews / Order Now

So what do we have for Peanuts fans this time around?

An ill-considered attempt at flirting sends Charlie Brown to the school doctor... Linus's ongoing romance with the too-young "Lydia" of the many names continues... Snoopy is joined in the trenches by his brother Spike... Sally engages in a career as a playwright by penning the school Christmas play but mixes up Gabriel and Geronimo... A hockey mishap sends Snoopy to the doctor for knee surgery, in a (clearly autobiographical) sequence that lasts only until everyone figures out that dogs don’t have knees... Linus and Lucy’s kid brother Rerun begins to take on the greater role that will lead to him being one of the dominant characters in the 1990s... and Snoopy, inevitably, writes a "kiss and tell" book.

As we reach the 19th (!) book in this epochal, best-selling series collecting arguably the greatest comic strip of all time and head toward the end of the 1980s, Charles Schulz is still as inventive, hilarious, and touching as ever... and this volume even features a surprise format change, as the daily strip switches from its trademark four-square-panels format to a more flexible one-to-four-variable-panels format which, along with Schulz's increased use of gray tones, give this volume a striking, distinctive look.

This volume's introduction is by a fellow comic strip legend, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.

PEANUTS ® & © Peanuts Worldwide

Julio's Day
by Gilbert Hernandez

104-page black & white 7.5" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-606-5

See Previews / Order Now

It begins in the year 1900, with the scream of a newborn. It ends, 100 pages later, in the year 2000, with the death rattle of a 100-year-old man. The infant and the old man are both Julio, and Gilbert Hernandez’s Julio’s Day (originally serialized in Love and Rockets Vol. II but never completed until now) is his latest graphic novel, a masterpiece of elliptical, emotional storytelling that traces one life — indeed, one century in a human life — through a series of carefully crafted, consistently surprising and enthralling vignettes.

There is hope and joy, there is bullying and grief, there is war (so much war — this is after all the 20th century), there is love, there is heartbreak. While Julio’s Day has some settings and elements in common with Hernandez’s Palomar cycle (the Central American protagonists and milieu, the vivid characters, the strong familial and social ties), this is a very much a singular, standalone story that will help cement his position as one of the strongest and most original cartoonists of this, or any other, century.

Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein
edited by Greg Sadowski

272-page full-color 8" x 10.5" softcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-580-8

See Previews / Order Now

Working in comic books for just over a decade in the 1940s and '50s, Bernard Krigstein applied all the craft, intelligence, and ambition of a burgeoning "serious" artist, achieving results that remain stunning to this day. While his legend rests mostly on his landmark narratives created for EC Comics, dozens of stories for lesser publishers equally showcase his singular draftsmanship and radical reinterpretation of the comics page.

Harvey and Eisner Award-winning Krigstein biographer Greg Sadowski has assembled the very best of the artist’s work, starting with his earliest creative rumblings, through his glory days at EC, to his final daring experiments for Stan Lee’s Atlas Comics — running through nearly every genre popular at the time, be it horror, science fiction, war, western, or romance.

This edition reprints the out-of-print 2004 hardcover B. Krigstein Comics, with a number of stories re-tooled and improved in terms of reproduction, and several new stories added. Legendary EC colorist Marie Severin, in her last major assignment before her retirement, recolored 20 stories for this edition. The remainder has been taken from printed comics, digitally restored with subtlety and restraint. Original art pages, photostats from Krigstein's personal archives, and an extensive set of historical and editorial notes by Sadowski round out this compelling volume.

'Tain't the Meat� It's the Humanity! and Other Stories by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein - Now ...

mike

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

224-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-578-5

See Previews / Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) by Al Williamson et al. - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

264-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-577-8

See Previews / Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

'Tain't the Meat� It's the Humanity! and Other Stories by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein - ...

mike

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

224-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-578-5

Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

26-page excerpt (download 3.5 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) by Al Williamson et al. - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

264-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-577-8

Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

22-page excerpt (download 3.3 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

The EC Comics Library gets Ghastly in October

mike

(final cover may vary)

Following some hints and speculation here and there we're pleased to announce the upcoming 7th book in our EC Comics Library series. In October, just in time for Halloween, Fantagraphics will be casting off Sucker Bait and Other Stories illustrated by Graham "Ghastly" Ingels and written by Al Feldstein et al., a collection of 25 of Ingels's infamous horror stories from Tales from the Crypt, Shock SuspenStories, Vault of Horror and his showcase title Haunt of Fear.

Reached for comment, noted horror afficionado and editorial kibbitzer Kim Thompson had this to say: "Until I re-read all these stories, I'd forgotten how inventively disgusting Al Feldstein and Graham Ingels could be when they put their minds to it. I can't imagine any fan of grisly horror passing this up. (The murderous revived rotting elephant alone is worth the price of admission as far as I'm concerned.)"

This hardcover volume will clock in at approximately 208 pages and, like the other volumes in the series, be presented in glorious black and white.

First Look: 50 Girls 50 and 'Tain't the Meat...

mike

Why looky what we have here, it's advance copies of the next two books in our EC Comics Library series!

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories collects Al Williamson's complete Weird Science & Weird Fantasy science fiction tales, with 3 written by Ray Bradbury, plus work by Frazetta, Krenkel, Torres, and more, backed up by expert EC essayists. Chock full of rocketships, weird aliens, time travel, bizarre planets, dinosaurs, and trademark EC twist endings, it's the classic, fan-fave stuff! Check out the table of contents and read 3 complete stories in our 22-page excerpt available here, where you can also pre-order your copy.

Good Lord! Choke! 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories collects the complete Jack Davis-illustrated, Al Feldstein-written Tales from the Crypt stories in one convenient, gore-drenched package bursting with your favorite monsters, grisly comeuppance, and severed body parts! The quintessential American horror comic drawn by its quintessential artist, backed by our usual scholarly bonus features. Sink your teeth into a 26-page excerpt with the table of contents and 3 complete stories, and pre-order your copy, right here.

And hey, we've arranged it so that you can save over 11 bucks when you order both volumes together! Isn't that nice?

MAD Day in NYC

TheJenVaughn

It was a mad, Mad afternoon when Robin McConnell, MK Reed and I dropped into the Mad Office. Assistant Art Director and comics consumer Ryan Flanders reluctantly fell for my charms and agreed to a tour even though their deadline loomed large a few days later (hey, we don't want to impede a dying medium, right?). Even the guards had a cute shtick that took 5 minutes of my life and a humorless person would have left. Luckily, that's not me.

Ryan started off the tour by showing us his first office at MAD, it's near the door, pretty cold but looks a bit similar to mine at Fantagraphics.

The MADtropolitan Museum of Art showed off some of the best and brightest of recent hilarious paintings, complete in their gold gilded plastic frames melted down from the plastic noses and vintage glasses frames of the cancelled shows The Real Housewives of Jersey and Williamsburg.

The props display case was amazing from Gutrot which I've definitely drank and Spy vs Spy toilet paper. Photoshop ain't got nothing on printed, folded and glued cardboard.

Everyone else in the office was just as charming, waiting for the day their piles of tchotchkies bury them. Art Director (and a cartoonist himself) Sam Viviano showed off some amazing original artwork and Sculpey sculptures created for photo-shoots. Check out that DREW FRIEDMAN drawing over Ryan's shoulder.

The Wall of Artists is tagged anytime a Mad-contributing creator stops by the office. Nate Neal (who created Sanctuary) was on the board. Many of our creators worked at or for MAD like Al Feldstein, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman and Noah Van Sciver to name a few.

One of my favorite props was an actual headstone used as a support structure in the office created for a back cover thanks to a Feldstein/Gaines joke.

Ryan's new office turned out to be a nightmare, so well organized I made a mental note to courier him a spring-loaded box of trash upon my return home.

Like any good office the mail room is actually where all the good stuff is located (at Fantagraphics, our fridge is in there). Snuggled among packing materials and one hell of a cutting board are sexy flat files full of Al Jaffee, Tom Bunk � EVEN a Tom Fowler, internet friend.

LOOK at this Al Jaffee fold-in drawing. My dream is to have one printed SOMEDAY, SOMEHOW instead of lamely attaching my fold-in to the magazine and tricking my friends into thinking it was actually printed in the magazine.

Jewish Batman, you slay me. That utility belt must have some tasty kosher deserts near the back. (by Al Jaffee)

One beautiful Jack Davis drawing that was REJECTED from the magazine (or Davis decided to redraw) blew me away. The best part was the tattoo "My Mom Loves Me" is infinitely better than Mother tattoos of the world.

In gorgeous ink and the now-illegal duoshade/duotone. Please place your drinks down, Fantagraphics and MAD magazine are not responsible for your spittle shorting out your keyboard.

Despite the slow decline of the magazine industry, MAD magazine has lived on, able to pay cartoonists for their work (wow-za!) and maintain a staff. By raising prices and creating a Mad reading app, they stay current and accessible. MAD's first audience may be a bit gray in the face now as they celebrate their 60th anniversary but continue to wow audiences. As a kid, I didn't have much access to the magazines but my grandmother would buy any books at any yard, church or library sale. Three rooms in their house were lined with built-in-books shelves and in the ‘humor' or comic sections lay the trade paperback editions of MAD (often with the cover ripped off). Ryan was kind enough to explain that most of those were unused comics and many have not been reprinted to this day due to copyright ambiguity. Sounds like something for a legal intern to help them figure out.

As long as parents send kids care packages at camp, people stay overnight in the hospital and Hollywood makes bottom-feeder television and convoluted movies, MAD will reign supreme. Thanks again to Ryan Flanders for the tour, Robin McConnell for some of the photos (there are MILLIONS more here) and MK Reed for the company.

Happy Birthday, Al Feldstein!

mike

(final cover art may vary)

The great Al Feldstein celebrates his 87th birthday today, so what better day to reveal the first all-Feldstein volume in our EC Comics Library series? It gives us great pleasure to be presenting Child of Tomorrow! and Other Stories, coming in Summer 2013, collecting sci-fi stories written and drawn by Feldstein from the pages of Weird Science and Weird Fantasy. Of course, you can experience Feldstein's prolific EC writing in the Wallace Wood-illustrated Came the Dawn and Other Stories and many forthcoming volumes in the EC Comics Library series!

Oh, and in Spring of next year, look for Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories, collecting Johnny Craig's Crime SuspenStories tales!

(final cover art may vary)

Came the Dawn and Other Stories by Wallace Wood - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

Came the Dawn and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
Illustrated by Wallace Wood; written by Al Feldstein et al.; edited by Gary Groth

208-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-546-4

See Previews / Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: Corpse on the Imjin! + Came the Dawn (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

The 20th century had hit its exact midpoint. Social upheaval — sexual, social, racial, cultural — was in the air; and the fledgling EC comics line was about to become a vital part of it.

Working within the horror, war, crime, and science fiction genres, publisher William Gaines and editor/writer Al Feldstein combined a deliciously disreputable, envelope-pushing sensibility with moments of genuine, outraged social consciousness, which shone a hard light onto such hot-button topics as racism, anti-Semitism, mob justice, and misogyny and sexism.

The 1950s were also a launching pad for some of the greatest comic book artists in history, many of whom worked for EC — including Wallace Wood, whose hypnotically detailed, lushly expressive brushwork brought to life menacing thugs, ominous cityscapes, and small-town America, as well as Everymen grappling with profound moral issues — not to mention some of the most heart-stoppingly beautiful women ever to sashay across a comic book page.

Came the Dawn collects all 26 Wood-drawn horror and crime stories — including the full baker’s dozen of EC’s most courageous and politically charged dramas.

Taking its title from one of Wood’s all-time classics, the evil little paranoid thriller “Came the Dawn,” this collection features page after page after page of Wood’s sleek and meticulously crafted artwork put in the service of cunning twist-ending stories, most often from the typewriter of EC editor Al Feldstein. These tales range from supernatural shockers from the pages of Tales From the Crypt and The Haunt of Fear (“The Living Corpse,” “Terror Ride,” “Man From the Grave,” “Horror in the Freak Tent”) to often pointedly contemporary crime thrillers from Crime SuspenStories (“The Assault,” “The Whipping,” and “Confession,” which was singled out for specific excoriation in the anti-comics screed Seduction of the Innocent, thus giving it a special cachet), but the breathtaking art and whiplash-inducing shock endings are constants throughout.

Like every book in the Fantagraphics EC line, Came the Dawn features extensive essays and notes on these classic stories by EC experts — but the real “meat” of the matter (sometimes literally, in the grislier stories) is supplied by these ofted lurid, sometimes downright over-the-top, but always compelling and superbly crafted, classic comic-book masterpieces.

Came the Dawn and Other Stories by Wallace Wood - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

Came the Dawn and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
Illustrated by Wallace Wood; written by Al Feldstein et al.; edited by Gary Groth

208-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-546-4

Ships in: October 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: Corpse on the Imjin! + Came the Dawn (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38 Add to Cart

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

The 20th century had hit its exact midpoint. Social upheaval — sexual, social, racial, cultural — was in the air; and the fledgling EC comics line was about to become a vital part of it.

Came the Dawn collects all 26 Wood-drawn horror and crime stories — including the full baker’s dozen of EC’s most courageous and politically charged dramas.

23-page excerpt (download 2.4 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):