Judgment Day and Other Stories, reprinting 23 classic EC tales drawn by Joe Orlando, has just been published by Fantagraphics Books. The volume contains many science fiction classics, including “Judgment Day,” an anti-racism allegory that ended up being the last story in EC’s last comic book, plus many adaptations of Earl and Otto Binder’s Adam Link robot stories.

Which seems like a perfect reason to post yet another of the drawings I got when I was an annoying kid with a sketchpad who wandered conventions pestering artists. Here’s one Orlando did for me of Adam Link, years before he became my editor on such comics as Welcome Back, Kotter.

I’m not sure exactly when he drew this for me, but my best guess is that it was at the 1972 EC Fan Addict convention, where I also got sketches from Al Williamson, George Evans, and many others.

It was a much different world back then, one in which artists would happily (well … willingly, anyway) draw for fans for free. These days, all those annoying kids with sketchpads are paying for their art … which, I imagine, makes them a heck of a lot less annoying.

Back in 1972, I attended the first (and as far as I know only) EC Fan Addict Convention. Almost every former staffer or freelancer then alive was there, and publisher Bill Gaines, who’d retained all of the company’s original artwork, put on one of the greatest art shows I’ve ever seen at a comic book convention.

The program book was filled with Marie Severin’s caricatures of her coworkers, as well as the creators’ reminiscences of each other. Because Al Feldstein passed away the other day, I scanned the pages that pertained to him so you could all learn why he was a “reluctant dragon.”

You can find the spread about Will Elder from that program book here.

I learned a short while ago that the great EC Comics writer, artist, and editor Al Feldstein passed away yesterday in Livingston, Montana. I don’t think I have anything more to say about his influence other than what I already said when I presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association in 2011.

But since a picture is worth … well, you know … I thought I’d share thirteen of my favorite Feldstein comic book covers. Actually, I’d only planned to share ten of them, but there were so many which had impressed themselves on my memory that I ended up not being able to limit myself.

I feel privileged to have spent some time with him in 2008 at the San Diego Comic-Con and also to have had a story of mine appear in an issue of PostScripts which featured a recreation of one of his most famous covers as its cover.

Which happens to be the first one below …

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I don’t know what comes to mind when you read the headline, Parkinson’s disease sufferer, 54, held by police at Olympic cycling road race ‘because he would not smile’, but what popped into my head was … well, let’s read a bit of the newspaper report first, shall we?

A father with Parkinson’s disease was arrested as he watched the Olympic cycling road race because he ‘failed to smile or look like he was enjoying himself’.

Mark Worsfold, a martial arts trainer and former soldier, claims that he was thrown to the floor and handcuffed just as cyclists passed by.

If you’re a certain generation of comic book fan, you’ll certainly think of the classic EC Comics story “The Patriots,” written by Al Feldstein and drawn by Jack Davis, which first appeared in Shock SuspenStories #2 (April-May 1952). “The Patriots” tells of another former soldier who was punished for his insufficient exuberance … though in a far more tragic manner.

Wally Wood’s powerful cover to that issue drew its scenario from that tale. (more…)

A few weeks ago, I was bemoaning the fact that the world seemed to have forgotten EC Comics artist Bernard Krigstein, a thought brought about by two (then ongoing) Heritage original art auctions of complete comics adaptations of Ray Bradbury short stories.

“Mars is Heaven!” illustrated by Wally Wood was expected to bring in between $30,000 and $50,000, while “The Flying Machine” by Krigstein was estimated to go for anywhere from $7,000 to $9,000. This imbalance seemed odd to me, not only because Krigstein was once held in such high regard, but also because Bradbury considered “The Flying Machine” to be “the single finest piece of art-drawing I’ve seen in years.” Not that I have anything against Wally Wood, you understand, it’s just that until I saw those predictions, I’d assumed the two artists were held in equal regard.

Now that the auctions are over, though, I’m feeling a little better about it all.

So how’d those auctions turn out?

“Mars is Heaven!” sold for $54,687.50, and “The Flying Machine” went for $27,500. Which means that while Heritage, at least based on its initial estimates, predicted that the world would value Wood over Krigstein by a ratio of approximately 5-1, the actual ratio turned out to be 2-1.

Because of that, and taking into account that Bradbury’s “Mars is Heaven!” is a far more beloved story (even though I always preferred “The Flying Machine”), I’m much less miffed on behalf of Krigstein.

(And if all this now piques your interest in his unique style, and you’d like to see more, check out this post-EC tale “The Desert Rat,” which manages to cram 73 panels into a single 4 page Stan Lee-scripted story!)

I’m on the mailing list for Heritage Auctions due to the fact that I’d hired them to sell a few items for me back in 2010, sales which paid for my trip to that year’s Melbourne Worldcon. I love getting those emails from them, because it’s always fun to see what others are selling that I could never possibly afford. And what makes me salivate the most is always the original art rather than the comics.

This week I was alerted to a couple of auctions, still ongoing, of the complete originals to two EC Comics stories which, in a sad coincidence, may be more interesting to some than they would have been a couple of weeks ago—because they’re both based on stories written by the late Ray Bradbury.

The first, ““Mars is Heaven!” was drawn by Wally Wood. It currently has a bid of $19,000 and is expected to bring in between $30,000 and $50,000.

The other Bradbury-inspired story is “The Flying Machine,” drawn by Bernard Krigstein, which has a current bid of $9,500 and an expected final price of from $7,000 to $9,000. (more…)

Do you remember where you were over the 1972 Memorial Day weekend? I do!

I spent every hour I could at Manhattan’s McAlpin Hotel attending the 1972 EC Fan Addict convention. I paid my $7.50 entry fee and got to hang out with the madmen (and one crazy lady) behind one of the most amazing comic-book companies ever.

And I have the button to prove it!

Those of you who couldn’t make it to New York back then are able to catch up with a report in the pages of the September 1972 issue of Graphic Story World magazine, one of the high-end fanzines of the day. (And if that cover boy below puts you in mind of Watchmen‘s Nite Owl, well, that’s not him. It’s just … The Owl, a character created by Jerry De Fuccio and Mart Bailey for a potential newspaper strip in the mid-’60s.) (more…)

Happy birthday, Jack!

Thanks for a lifetime of amazing art, and also for illustrating the most grotesque, over-the-top ending to a horror comic ever!

Check out these unforgettable panels from “Foul Play,” which originally appeared in The Haunt of Fear #19 back in 1953, based on a story idea by William Gaines and a script by Al Feldstein.

And thanks, too, for your quick caricature back at the EC Comics Convention in 1972!

It’s the day before Denvention begins, and I’m close, but I haven’t quite made it there yet. I’ve gotten to Colorado, but instead of heading straight to Denver, I’ve stopped in Westminster to visit an old friend. Before tomorrow’s chaos begins, we’ll be heading to the top of Pikes Peak, which should provide the opposite experience of what waits for me tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d finally share the drawing I’d promised back at Comic-Con, the one by an artist that I felt didn’t really capture my likeness.

George Evans was a brilliant comic-book artist, who was most renowned for the WWI aviation stories he did for the EC Comics military title Aces High. In fact, he once did me a very nice sketch of an aviator in a biplane. But I think I startled him a bit at the 1972 EC Comics Convention when I asked him for a caricature, as I had done earlier the same day with Jack Davis. (As I’ve said before, I was one of those creepy kids carrying a sketchbook back then, but I eventually got over it. At least I think I got over it.) Evans quickly penciled the drawing above.

While you could look at many of the other caricatures I’ve shared with you and probably think, yep, that’s Scott, I’m not sure what you’d make of this one.

Maybe I’m being overly harsh. Not about Evans—who definitely acted like a gentleman in the face of an overbearing teenager, and was probably thinking, “How do I get rid of this scary kid?” (and believe me, I feel for him now)—but about the likeness. Maybe my spirit is really in there after all.

You tell me.