Tuesday, October 28, 2008

13 for Halloween: 'Funny? Seems to be ... ALIVE!'

The GCP Halloween train rolls on, and today it's making a stop to pick up a classic-style horror story from EC Comics. Interplanetary travel! Strange creatures from space! Insatiable blobs and nuclear bombs you can safely watch explode from mere miles away!

(A blob, I might mention, that appeared a full seven years before this one.)

As you might know, EC is the granddaddy of horror and suspense comics, and were at the forefront of popularizing the medium in the '40s and '50s until some shrill voices from the public — backed up by harrumphing from a Congressional hearing — brought the censorship hammer down. Caving under the pressure, the comic book industry ended up creating its own form of self-censorship in the Comics Code Authority. Thanks a lot, Dr. Wertham.

Luckily, the folks at EC were able to churn out the pulp at an incredible rate, giving us wonderfully warped stories like ...


SPAWN OF VENUS!

Panels from EC Sampler #1 (Free Comic Book Day edition)
Originally published in Weird Science #6 (1951)

Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein, writers; Al Feldstein, artist

Click here to see more 13 for Halloween!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love EC Comics, and for some reason Halloween makes me think of them. Even though I also think of EC comics pretty much every other day of the year.

Maxo said...

Man, there must be at least three awesome things on every page of this story — I've always dug how unapologetically over the top EC comics are, and I think that's a big part of their charm.

I really like your site, by the way — now I'm going to be looking at EC covers all day!