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ode horror comics of the early 1950s for reasons clear to anyone with any access to the real pre code horror comics ec comics has long dominated any and all books about the genre and the 1951 1954 boom years in particular but there was plenty of other outstanding outrageous exciting and just plain bizarre material published in that fleeting but jam packed three year period and it s high time we saw some of that work disintered and shared while collectors have rescued and savored much of this work it s been nigh on impossible for non collectors including scholars and serious researchers to access the non ec pre code horrors there are forty count em 40 vintage horror comics stories showcased in this glorious collection they are all reproduced from their original four color printings preserving the instrinsic flavor and trash aesthetic of the era and form along with a handsome cover gallery insert printed on slick paper and abundant informative heavily illustrated notes on all the stories and what is known of their creators this section of annotations also offers more delicious cover art along with much previously unavailable information on the who what when and how of the comics and creators themselves there are some real revelations here and i can tell you that this hardcore horror comics scholar collector creator is eternally grateful for all that sadowski and benson have added herein to a richer knowledge of these unique comics and this grossly misrepresented and misunderstood period in comics history with an eye toward entertaining fully as well as curating sadowski s greatest accomplishment here is making four color fear such a fun and engaging read cover to cover stories and their order have been chosen and orchestrated for optimum effect for casual reading in the order presented let me tell you from hard experience my years editing new horror comics stories in taboo 1988 93 that this is far easier said than done in a genre grounded in provoking negative emotions for its primary effects i e fear dread disgust horror it s a real tightwire act to determine which stories belong where and what effects are created by where an editor places a particular story idea or image a misstep can either make or break a story ending or key moment and careful orchestration of humor horror and variety is essential to making this sort of thing sing in this sadowsky brings far more care to his anthology than any of the original editors of these comics seemed to the cumulative effect at times is intoxicating and the ways in which both the individual art styles and the narrative content are woven into a satisfying tapestry are often witty sly and insidious there s a lot of smart work here and as a result it s a super read for everyone whether you ve never before sampled this era s strange fruit or are like me a long time fan and collector it s gratifying to find a few of my all time favorite stories and artists here like basil wolverton s swamp monster from weird mysteries 5 june 1953 pictured above left and reed crandall s the corpse that came to dinner from out of the shadows 9 july 1953 above right it s even more gratifying to find so many surprises and in the fresh context of four color fear stories i d long ago read and shrugged off so revitalized by what sadowski places them between and or alongside here a notorious bernard bailey cover for weird mysteries 5 june 1953 that i ve always included in my own lectures on the pre code horror comics and that is featured in both four color fear and the horror the horror a small taste of how extreme the pre code horrors could be and often were ___ caveats aside from quibbling with some of sadowski s selections which i won t do here see addendum full disclosure note at the end of this post i have plenty of my own personal favorite pre code horrors and if anyone s interested i d be happy to talk to an agent editor or published about putting together such a volume a fuller working knowledge of the horror genre in all media would have lent even more weight and insight to this collection while it may seem like hair splitting to criticize such an incredibly generous tome genre studies and horror genre academia in particular has been thriving and the ways in which pre code horror comics in particular both borrowed often blatantly ripped off from all that came before and anticipated much of what was to follow is an aspect of the genre s evolution in all media that has been lazily cited for decades but rarely almost never really brought to light this was a stellar opportunity to do so but sadowsky and benson keep their focus on the context of comic book history alone which is occasionally a frustration for this reader the ways in which particular comics stories appearing here stole from their precursors in gothic pulp and radio genre fiction as well as popular writers of their era is mentioned but rarely specifically cited in other cases a knowledge of past and future genre landmarks would have lent some heft to the legacy under scrutiny for instance a sample of how matt fox s pre code comics covers reworked his venerable weird tales pulp covers would have been welcome mentioning the uncanny parallel between the iger studio experiment in terror from haunted thrills 13 january 1954 and the final episode theory in josé mojica marins s notorious horror portmanteau film o estranho mundo de zé do caixão strange world of coffin joe the strange world of ze do caixao 1968 would have added resonance to the whole in fact marins s theory is almost identical to experiment in terror in many particulars right down to the philosophical intent of the madman staging the grueling ordeal that marins also spawned his own brazilian horror comics only intensifies the associative links begging to be drawn here instead we re treated to another jerry iger anecdote that has nothing to do with the story itself though it s neat to see the connection made in a caption between the story and its apparently intended cover art which instead was published eight months later on another title fantastic fears 9 sadly it must be noted that the cover is the book s greatest liability any one of the actual pre code covers in the gallery would have done a better job of properly promoting and packaging the contents i see what the designer was trying to do conceptually a clever fusion of images from the reed crandall splash for the corpse that came to dinner and page 4 of howard nostrand s art for i vampire from chamber of chills 24 july 1954 reprinted on pp 209 213 but graphically it s a failure and easily lost on both the book store shelves and online venues the book s title is lost too and the addition of a fancy varnish printed blood splatter design front and back only further complicates the design again i get the intention and concept but sigh as with the otherwise definitive fantagraphics book on the late great underground horror cartoonist greg irons you call this art a greg irons retrospective by patrick rosenkranz 2006 what should have been an easy sell given the incredible imagery associated with the chosen subject has been compromised by a cover that simply confuses and or repels the eye and not in the way horror comics intend to repel here s hoping either future editions or future collections from fantagraphics better serve the genre and their own product in all other departments this is a terrific book and highly recommended this is a marvelous companion to sadowski s earlier fantagraphics collection supermen the first wave of comic book heroes 1936 1941 2009 in which sadowski similarly shed light on too long forgotten gems curios and entertainments from comics creators and publishers that have been essentially ignored and or disposed of by the forces that shape comics history as in supermen sadowski s appetites and reach prove satisfyingly diverse all encompassing and yet quite selective without catering to traditional constrictive standards of taste sadowski knows that some of the most outrageous insane and appalling vintage comics stories and imagery are also among the most fascinating and nowhere is this truer than in the horror comics of the pre code boom years four color fear also whets this reader s appetite further for sadowski s forthcoming setting the standard alex toth announced for spring 2011 publication while much work that was hacked out by impoverished creators working for opportunistic packagers and publishers paying chicken scratch rates has justifiably been neglected both sadowski and benson make a strong case for preserving and reprinting the cream of such publishing backwash and four color fears is a welcome remedy and companion to the handsome ec comics reprint volumes many of which benson contributed to or packaged himself that have been available since nostalgia press s historic horror comics of the 1950s 1971 edited by ron barlow and bhob stewart enshrined ec comics as the peak product of the pre code horror publishers ever since ec s horror comics have almost exclusively dominated any published reprint editions of the genre s fertile pre code explosion given the high quality of the ec line that s been completely understandable but now that the entire ec line has been repeatedly and beautifully reprinted republished repackaged and immortalized ad infinitum it s high time the other horror comics of the 1950s were allowed to rise from the dead that classic 1971 book was a beautiful start four decades later sadowski and benson have at last graced us with a worthy followup s r bissette mountains of madness vt __________________ addendum full disclosure having been one of the active creative collaborators i was the penciler on dc comics s saga of the swamp thing when that title was rejected by the comics code authority with sotst 29 cover dated october 1984 which was the wellspring for the entire vertigo comics line i ve had first hand experience with a the comics code s policies and b horror comics bucking the cca fyi we did not change anything in the issue it was sold without the cca seal sales went up after two more issues we no longer had to submit to the restrictions of the cca though i repeatedly asked for a copy of the extant cca code itself during that brief debacle none was provided and it seemed despite the fact that dc honcho and my former kubert school instructor dick giordano was dc s rep on the cca nobody at dc comics actually had a copy of the then extant cca code to send me finding this perverse process fascinating and loving horror comics anyway i spent much of the next five years researching and collecting pre code horror comics the fruits of that research and collection became my traveling slide lecture journeys into fear which i debuted as a one hour talk at necon an annual july gathering of horror writers that i attended faithfully from the late 1980s until 1999 and which i sorely miss being part of in the summer of 1988 or 89 i expanded the lecture into a two hour plus illustrated presentation that was eventually presented in over 60 venues throughout the 1990s in the u s and abroad often as fund raising events for the comic book legal defense fund along with presenting the lecture at my own expense as a cbldf fundraiser during the mid 1990s spirit of independence tours these venues included the copenhagen comic art library in copenhagen denmark the university of connecticut storrs connecticut utica college utica new york duquesne university pittsburgh pennsylvania the 2nd and 3rd annual world horror conventions the san diego comics convention marlboro college marlboro vt bennington college bennington vt henderson state university arkadelphia arkansas fantasia film festival montreal quebec canada and many others in 1999 journeys into fear was expanded into a one week seminar for smith college in northampton ma though i pitched journeys into fear as a book proposal numerous times over the decade there was no interest from publishers i m glad the times have changed srb 3 comments posted in new book tagged fantagraphics books four color fear forgotten horror comics of the 1950s greg sadowski horror comics john benson pre code horror comics survey 1 comic strip essays melanie gillman on polly and her pals posted on 11 17 2010 by srbissette 7 comments note this is the sixth in a series of essays written and in this case drawn by the current class of 2012 for survey of the drawn story i ccs s comics history class they are posted here in approximate chronological order of when their chosen subjects comic strips were either first published or in their heyday these were class assignments and should be enjoyed in that context these are not necessarily indicative of the work the individual artists writers would do in paid professional venues this is work assigned in class with a tight deadline completed while juggling many other class assignments that said it is all of high caliber or we would not be sharing it with you here enjoy students have the option to either write an essay or to draw their essay in comics form this is the first of the comics format essays we re presenting enjoy there are more to come survey i instructor stephen bissette has added the author info and further reading notes after this comics format essay note to enlarge these comics pages for easier reading just click on the image itself to open larger scans in another window ________________________________________________ the above is 2010 melanie gillman all rights reserved it is posted with permission ________________________________________ about the author student melanie gillman s blog website contriveathon is here and it s full of art writing comics links and more explore and enjoy melanie also has shared her comics online at sub scribe here s the link and at coloredchalk com here s that link among others ps you can also visit melanie on facebook if she chooses to friend you natch _______ further reading resources cliff sterrett s the complete color polly and her pals vol 1 1991 and the complete color polly and her pals vol 2 1991 though long out of print can still be found on amazon com and via other online venues you can presently pre order the forthcoming polly and her pals complete sunday comics 1925 1927 at amazon com too here s that link we also recommend you check out barnacle press s gallery of cliff sterrett s polly and her pals comic strips various from 1914 1936 incomplete which are free and visible online right now via this link enjoy a number of polly and her pals collections are in the schulz library s permanent collection 7 comments posted in historic tagged cliff sterrett in search of a queer reading for cliff sterrett s polly and her pals melanie gillman polly and her pals survey of the drawn story i essay survey 1 comic strip essays sean knickerbocker on mutt and jeff posted on 11 17 2010 by srbissette leave a comment note this is the fifth in a series of essays written by the current class of 2...
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