And finally we come to the last of the box of eight classic EC reprints issues by the short-lived East Coast Comix organization that I purchased from the Superhero Merchandise catalog. Reading through this lot was somewhat transformative for me, in that it expanded my tastes just a little bit. I was still primarily interested … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #10
When the title was launched by EC in the 1950s, SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES was intended to be something of a sampler series for the line's variety of offerings. So each issue would present an assortment of tales in the horror, science fiction and crime genres. But the stories that gave the series its identity inevitably ran … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #8
It was the horror comics that made EC's reputation, both for good and for ill, and they remained the firm's best-sellers all the way up until the nascent Comics Code put them out of business. Readers were attracted to EC's style in general, but it was in the horror comics, where the bounds of good … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #7
To a very great degree, most of the assorted EC anthology titles resembled one another. The only difference between them was genre. So WEIRD FANTASY ran the same sorts of shock ending stories that SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES did, however theirs were played out against a science fiction background. The same was true of THE HAUNT OF … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #6
EC's science fiction titles were the weak link in the publishing line at least from a sales point of view. They never performed at much beyond a break-even level. But publisher Bill Gaines liked them, and so he kept them running regardless, using capital from his more profitable titles to underwrite them. Gaines was rightly … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #5
By far the best-selling titles in the well-regarded EC Comics line of the early 1950s were the company's horror books. Horror was a big genre during this time, and nobody in the field did it better than EC. As with their other offerings, their horror comics were story-driven and literate, with high-quality artwork throughout. These … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #4
So it was around this time that I ordered a set of EC Classic Reprints from the Superhero Merchandise catalog. I wasn't in any way a fan of the mystery/horror series that were then coming out, mostly from DC. But I had read about the heyday of EC in the pages of THE COMIC-BOOK BOOK … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #3
There is always one firm whose comic book output during the era we think of today as the Golden age of Comics stands head and shoulders above all others and which is held in teh utmost regard by those readers who encountered it in their formative years--not that there are many of those still around … Continue reading The First Crypt of Terror Story
YELLOW CLAW was one of the strangest series published by Marvel, then Atlas, in the 1950s. it feels like a throwback to an earlier time, an era when "yellow peril" adventure stories about Dr. Fu Manchu and his many knock-offs were big business in the pulp magazines of the day. Having done a little bit … Continue reading The First Marvel Mutants
You know the drill by this point, right? It's old pictures of comic book creators from back in the day! Bob Layton at a convention, 1980s. Me, Tom Brevoort, and Jack Kirby at a New York convention, 1990. I had only been at Marvel for six months. A trio of photos of Joe Sinnott from … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 6
The Tom Brevoort Experience 