MY LEAST FAVOURITE CURRENT COMIC ARTIST

[Raven]

I don't think (personally) that there were any alterior "motivations and justifications " in the people that published horror comics 50s style - I think EC just wanted to do something different and they had the talent to carry it off . Part of the problem may have been other less worthy publishers with less talanted artists jumped on the bandwagon of the then current hit craze and focused on the horror/gore side rather that the overall story and produced some really awful horror comics (similar to the many wannabe VIZ comic clones that produced osme really foul so called humour comics) .

That's certainly what happened (and I don't think the motivations of the rival publishers were necessarily always artistic!) - and then EC consequently upped its own bad taste quotient to keep up and top them in return.

You have to also keep in view that US comics were, in general pretty violent in the 30s - 50s (they were far more gentle in the 60s) Batman used have a gun and shot people , the Spectre burned them alive/turned them to skeletons or dust etc etc. However, I think it needs to be pointed out just how cutting edge EC were, apart from horror/gore they produced very mature comics; the Sci Fi and Shock Horror titles had some good anti semitic, anti racist etc strips (the famous strip "Judgemet Day" is a perfect example of a cutting edge strip that probably upset white middle class america more that the horror titles).

They did indeed. Of course, they did do a fair amount of sheer let's-see-how-tasteless-we-can-get material, too, and much more extreme than the Batman/Spectre examples. And, of course, that was a major part of the appeal of the horror titles.

The science fiction titles tended to avoid that kind of material.

Re the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications Act) 1955 which forbids "horror comics" to be sold in UK newsagents - was this UK wide as inthe 60s 70y in Scotland you could pick up Pchyco, Witches Tales (one of the better 50s style , bit not as good EC rip offs) Scream (Skywald), Nightmare and of course the Marvel and Atlas etc black and white horror magazines no problem.

Probably because they were magazines, not comics and could be seen as aimed at mature readers. In the mags of this nature though, like the Warren output and Psycho type mags, none have seemed nearly as extreme as the 50s horror comics. The early Warrens I've read seem positively tame; very formulaic, too.

[Lew Stringer]

No, but I don't think the presentation of the comic would appeal to very young children. Besides, shouldn't parents be monitoring what young kids read?

I always imagined that in the '50s, when comics were cheap and plentiful, kids bought them off the over-stuffed newsstands themselves and swopped them amongst themselves. It's hard to imagine parents actually buying their children some of the really lurid 50s American horror offerings!

I still can't see very young children reading them, and I think older ones would just enjoy the suspense and horror for the excitement intended. Ok, perhaps a young child might have seen his brother's copy but again that's down to the family to monitor it.

It's obvious from those particular covers (though even they aren't Crime's most lurid.) Other covers did give much less of a clue of how extreme it got inside,though.

I was talking about the presentation; design etc. Compared to other 1950s comics (DC, Dell, etc) the EC line looked comparatively grown up. A young child is more likely to have been attracted by a bright, happy, Disney comic or Superman title than by the dark somber looking EC covers. Kids around 11 or 12 would probably move onto EC but if they're getting scared or disturbed by fiction at that age then there's obviously other factors involved.

As I said before, I expect there were quite a few kids were disturbed and upset by them - I've read the odd account of that - but no, I'm sure nobody was 'corrupted' by them.

You're entitled to your opinion of course but where is the evidence? The only accounts I've ever heard of that were part of the propaganda of the time and were fabricated. (LIke the crazed-looking kid picking up a rock after reading a comic in an old 1950s anti-comics film, - basically an actor told what to do.) I've yet to hear of any reader come forward to say they were disturbed or upset by those comics as a child.

The EC Comics did have their own limits. They never showed actual mutilations. We never saw the knife penetrate, or the werewolf tear the flesh for instance. They were extreme in some cases but quite tame in other respects. The horror was often in the reader's imaginations, - what had happened between panels for example.

Interesting You Tube vid on those comics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZrRHqZ8cnY

Anyway as this is and not even about UK comics I'll say no more on the matter.

Lew

[STARBOY]

Raven, thanks for clarification on the UK horror code, I never thought of that being applied just to "comics" as opposed to Magazines. I really liked (and still collect)Warren mags - great artists in them- although I was never a fan of Skywalds Pshyco etc titles which used to get a really bad press as well for their violence .

Just to clarify one point I wasn't suggesting that ECs rivals had any artistic motive quite the opposite ( I do feel EC did have though, at the start at any rate) the rivals were simply producing an item piggybacking on ECs success in order to make money (as all publishers do to an extent).

Getting back to UK comics did Skywald actually produce UK versions of their US comics (Scream etc) ?

[philcom55]

Re the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications Act) 1955 which forbids "horror comics" to be sold in UK newsagents - was this UK wide as inthe 60s 70y in Scotland you could pick up Pchyco, Witches Tales (one of the better 50s style , bit not as good EC rip offs) Scream (Skywald), Nightmare and of course the Marvel and Atlas etc black and white horror magazines no problem.

Oddly I do remember an early issue of Marvel's black & white Savage Sword of Conan magazine that was impounded by Customs in the 1970s, in spite of the fact that it's been reprinted several times since then without any problems at all.

On the subject of children being disturbed by horror comics there certainly were a number of British reprints of US pre-code comics that gave me serious nightmares in the very early 1960s - though strangely enough the one that traumatised me most was a Classics Illustrated adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein!

- Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

Hey, Freddys, don't start an argument now. Since you're brothers, if you must argue, do it face to face, not on the forum.(

It'll be a bit freaky if they're arguing on the same computer.

And two brothers with the same name too!

Lew

[Lew Stringer]

On the subject of children being disturbed by horror comics there certainly were a number of British reprints of US pre-code comics that gave me serious nightmares in the very early 1960s - though strangely enough the one that traumatised me most was a Classics Illustrated adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein!

- Phil Rushton

Interesting, although presumably you wouldn't have wished to see them banned?

Regarding the horror comics law, I think it applies more to comics published in the UK rather than imports, although imports have their own laws of course.

Lew

[Raven]

Raven, thanks for clarification on the UK horror code, I never thought of that being applied just to "comics" as opposed to Magazines.

I'm presuming it was applied to products aimed at children.

I really liked (and still collect)Warren mags - great artists in them- although I was never a fan of Skywalds Pshyco etc titles which used to get a really bad press as well for their violence .

I was too young for the Warrens at the time but read the odd thing reprinted later on, like in Pacific Comics' Berni Wrightson title, I think. I bought the first volume of the Creepy Archives and thought good artwork (lots of the EC faves) but very formulaic and contrived storytelling. Nearly all scripts seemed to be by Archie Goodwin.

I bought the Skywald Horror-Mood book out of interest, but haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Just to clarify, rather than advocating censorship I was more pondering the issue of whether you apply self-censorship (which hopefully makes state censorship unnecessary) if you know your stuff is mostly going to be read by children.

[Lew Stringer]

Just to clarify, rather than advocating censorship I was more pondering the issue of whether you apply self-censorship (which hopefully makes state censorship unnecessary) if you know your stuff is mostly going to be read by children.

Yes I think we automatically know the lines not to cross. I'd go further with a Viz strip than a Beano page obviously.

It's not anything that takes a great deal of will power or restraint. It's just common sense. You just know the line. Just as one would if one was having a conversation in earshot or with children.

Lew