Potrzebie
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Last installment of my EC Archives notes.
Vault Lines
Vault
23
The
Vault of Horror
23 (February-March 1952) is unique because it features two stories by the same
artist (Jack Davis), a scheduling rarity for EC. (Craig also had two stories in
Tales from the Crypt 19.)
One
might assume that Johnny Craig had the 1911 Triangle Factory fire in mind when
he drew “A Stitch in Time!”, especially since it was the subject of an
Oscar-nominated film, With These Hands (1950), directed by Jack Arnold with
Sam Levene, Arlene Francis, Alexander Scourby and Rolly Bester (wife of science
fiction, radio and comics writer Alfred Bester). The fire resulted in the
deaths of 146 garment workers who were trapped in the building or jumped to
their deaths during the deadliest New York City disaster until 9/11. However,
Craig stated that he only learned about the Triangle fire years later when he
saw a different film, probably The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal (1979) with Tom
Bosley and Stephanie Zimbalist. To see the American Experience documentary on the
Triangle fire, go to PBS.
Craig
was unfamiliar with the Triangle fire, but even so,
“A
Stitch in Time!” displays several conspicuous parallels with the 1911 tragedy,
suggesting that it was scripted by someone who knew New York
history. The Triangle fire reportedly began in a scrap bin, the focus of the
final pages in the story. The sweatshop owner is named Lasch, and the Triangle
fire took place in the ten-story Asch Building place at the corner of Greene
Street and Washington Place. In the last panel, the Vault-Keeper’s concluding
pun is a direct reference: “…don’t asch Lasch.” Although polished in both
script and art, the story has an obvious flaw, since the fire begins for no
apparent reason other than to heighten the finale with flames. What started
this fire? We are never told.
“Dead
Wait” and “Staired in Horror” and “99 44/100% Pure Horror!” were all adapted
for HBO’s Tales from the Crypt series. During the third season, “Dead
Wait” was telecast 3 July 1991 with a cast of James
Remar, Whoopi Goldberg, and John Rhys-Davies. In the sixth season of the HBO
series, “Staired in Horror” was telecast 14 December 1994 with a cast of Rachel
Ticotin, D.B. Sweeney and R. Lee Ermey. Also in the sixth season, “99
44/100% Pure Horror!” was telecast 18 January 1995
with a cast of Bruce Davison, Cristi Conaway and Darin Heames.
¶ 10:43 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Topps #21: Evolution of a Wacky
Here's a step-by-step series showing how this Wacky Package was created. After I wrote this gag, I assembled a folder of reference images.
Windy’s (Frosty container has logo; girl has pigtails flying and she is ¾ upside down in logo circle) Added image outside logo shows tornado ripping roof off fast-food joint with Windy’s sign. Girl is also in swirling debris with balloon, “Beef!? Where’s the roof?” Top of cup crops off tornado. Bottom of cup crops off Clara Peller, who is holding a burger bun and has balloon, “Beef!? Where’s the roof?” Windy girl at top could be upside down and cropped at chest. Logo design in center could be tilted as if it is also in tornado debris. This format will allow characters to be seen fairly large.
On phone we discussed the crowded layout. Jim did another rough, repositioning items.
I used Photoshop to color Jim's rough.
I prefer our layout which shows the entire front wall, making it more identifiable. ¶ 9:13 PM 1 comments
Windy’s (Frosty container has logo; girl has pigtails flying and she is ¾ upside down in logo circle) Added image outside logo shows tornado ripping roof off fast-food joint with Windy’s sign. Girl is also in swirling debris with balloon, “Beef!? Where’s the roof?” Top of cup crops off tornado. Bottom of cup crops off Clara Peller, who is holding a burger bun and has balloon, “Beef!? Where’s the roof?” Windy girl at top could be upside down and cropped at chest. Logo design in center could be tilted as if it is also in tornado debris. This format will allow characters to be seen fairly large.
I emailed the gag and reference to ace cartoonist Jim McDermott, who did this rough.
Before the Wacky series was published, Dan Piraro used a similar gag in Bizarro.
John Zeleznik did the final painting.
I prefer our layout which shows the entire front wall, making it more identifiable. ¶ 9:13 PM 1 comments
Friday, May 10, 2013
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Vault
Lines
Vault
22
The
Vault of Horror
22 (December 1951-January 1952) featured an Al Feldstein story with a plot
borrowed from Ray Bradbury and another in which Feldstein developed a tale from
his own premise. Interviewed by John Benson, Feldstein explained the origin of
“Gone…Fishing!”: “I got the idea for that while I was surfcasting. Living on
Long Island, one of my hobbies on the weekends was going out to Jones Beach or
Fire Island and surfcasting, early mornings, late evenings. And I got this idea
while I was surfcasting, and I came to Bill with it, and I said, ‘You always
bring springboards. I’ve got a springboard.’ And he said, ‘Go write it.’ And I
wrote it, and much later it was adapted into that short movie, which they did a
pretty good job on.”
The
film Feldstein mentioned is a French-produced short, The Fisherman, which he happened
to see at a Manhattan art theater in 1966. He called Bill Gaines and said,
“Hey, Bill, we’ve been ripped off.” Gaines contacted the producers and secured
both an on-screen credit (“adapted from EC Comics”) and copies of the film for
both himself and Feldstein. In 1972, this film was shown during the EC Comics
convention at New York’s Hotel McAlpin.
Bradbury’s
Dark Carnival
(Arkham House, 1947) exerted a powerful influence on Feldstein, who commented,
“Our plots came from a conglomeration of sources, movies we’d seen, books we’d
read. I wasn’t doing very much reading in those days. I was letting Bill give
us the springboards, so I would be free in my mind to enter into the more
original areas, if possible, because we weren’t really intending on stealing
stuff. We were looking just for inspiration to give us ideas to come up with
something original. My function was to kind of take the springboards with Bill
out into a new area… Not only borrowings in terms of plot, but borrowings in
terms of writing style. I was very impressed with Ray Bradbury. I read Dark
Carnival and
The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man and whatever else I
could get of Bradbury’s at the time. I was very impressed with his writing
style, and I tried to emulate it, I think, in the comic style. We didn’t
consciously steal from him, you know, but again, we might have been pretty
close.”
With a print run of 3,112 copies, Dark
Carnival
was Bradbury's first published book. It contained 27 stories, and 21 of those
were reprinted from Dime Mystery Magazine, Harper’s, Mademoiselle and Weird Tales. The six non-reprints
were “The Maiden”, “The Emissary”, “Jack-in-the-Box”, “Uncle Einar”, “The Night
Sets” and “The Next in Line”. Weird Tales was the major source, with 16 of the
stories from the pages of that magazine as published between 1943 and 1948.
Thus, the influence of Weird Tales on EC was considerable.
The
life of Bill Delaney (1892-1986), publisher of Weird Tales, Short Stories and World
Astrology,
parallels the history of popular fiction during the 20th Century. During the
years Delaney published Weird Tales (1938-54), with Farnsworth Wright and Dorothy
McIlwraith as his editors, the magazine printed six Bradbury stories which
later became memorable EC adaptations, illustrated by Jack Davis, George Evans,
Graham Ingels, Jack Kamen and Joe Orlando: "There Was an Old Woman" (Tales
from the Crypt
34 from the July 1944 issue of Weird Tales); "The Lake" (Vault of
Horror
31 from the May 1944 Weird Tales); "Let's Play Poison" (Vault 29 from Weird
Tales,
November 1946); "The Handler" (Crypt 36 from Weird
Tales,
January 1947); "The October Game" (Shock SuspenStories 9 from Weird
Tales,
March 1948); "The Black Ferris" (Haunt of Fear 18 from Weird
Tales,
May 1948).
During
the early 1950s, when the 279-issue continuous run of Weird Tales was winding down, a
glance at a newsstand revealed the magazine's strong influence on comic books.
In a 1980 paperback revival of Weird Tales, Lin Carter wrote, "I can think
of no other magazine in history which exerted quite the same sort of influence
which Weird Tales exerted
over the genre it shaped and perfected, and the authors who contributed to it
so devotedly over the years... And there can have been very few fiction
magazines in the history of publishing which have had as many of their stories
dramatized on radio, television and in the movies."
Fifteen of the 27 Dark Carnival stories were later
reprinted in The October Country (1955), some with revisions. Bradbury did
an extensive rewrite of "The Emissary" for The October Country. When Feldstein
wrote “What the Dog Dragged In!” he borrowed the premise of the Dark
Carnival
version, changing the central character of a boy to a young woman.
“The
Jellyfish!” in The Vault of Horror 19 was suggested by Bradbury’s
“Skeleton”. The idea for
“Skeleton” came to Bradbury when a “strangely sore larynx” prompted him to
visit his family doctor, who said, “That’s all perfectly normal. You’ve just
never bothered to feel the tissues, muscles, or tendons in your neck or, for
that matter, your body. Consider the medulla oblongata.” Recalling the incident,
Bradbury wrote, “Consider the medulla oblongata! Migawd, I could hardly
pronounce it! I went home feeling my bones—my kneecaps, my floating ribs, my
elbows, all those hidden Gothic symbols of darkness—and wrote “Skeleton”.” It
was published in the September1945 issue of Weird Tales and reprinted in Dark
Carnival.
--Bhob Stewart
Above: Joe Mugnaini illustration for "Skeleton".
¶ 4:34 PM 0 comments
Above: Joe Mugnaini illustration for "Skeleton".
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
After Seduction of the Innocent was printed, these pages were razored out due to fears. Thus, surviving copies are rare collectibles.
For many scans from the book, go to My Comic Art.
For many scans from the book, go to My Comic Art.
Labels: wertham
¶ 11:32 AM 0 comments
Monday, February 18, 2013
W. Watts Biggers died 2/10, as noted in this AP obit.
ART of "The Man Inside" by W. Watts Biggers from One Brick Films on Vimeo.
Bamberger Books did a reprint in 1999: "Fiction. THE MAN INSIDE was first published in 1968, and has long been unavailable. Bamberger Books and SPD are proud to make this thought-provoking, emotionally rich novel available once again. Caro, as the hero comes to be called, is found to be living in a state of 'continuing amnesia' -- not only has he no memory of the past, he also forgets each moment as soon as it passes. While trying to read his way through a world full of possible signs (as well as an entire library), in search of his elusive purpose, Caro is ensnared by the machinations of those insidious characters who surround him."
ART of "The Man Inside" by W. Watts Biggers from One Brick Films on Vimeo.
Bamberger Books did a reprint in 1999: "Fiction. THE MAN INSIDE was first published in 1968, and has long been unavailable. Bamberger Books and SPD are proud to make this thought-provoking, emotionally rich novel available once again. Caro, as the hero comes to be called, is found to be living in a state of 'continuing amnesia' -- not only has he no memory of the past, he also forgets each moment as soon as it passes. While trying to read his way through a world full of possible signs (as well as an entire library), in search of his elusive purpose, Caro is ensnared by the machinations of those insidious characters who surround him."
Labels: bamberger, biggers, burk, man inside
¶ 10:03 AM 0 comments
