EC Sampler -- Free Comic Book Day -- I hope those books are bagged and boarded. You really shouldn't keep your comics in such a moist, humid environment.
I. "Spawn Of Venus" -- A team of two-fisted scientists rocket to Venus, only for half of them to fall victim to the deadly flora and a giant ameoba. One returns to Earth with a beautiful flower, only for it to produce another ameoba. The army blows it up with an atom bomb, which of course does little except produce hundreds of the little suckers.
II. "Dying City" -- A blinded North Korean officer is informed of all the death and carnage his choice to join the revolution has brought upon his village and his family by his grandfather.
III. "Curse Of The Full Moon!" -- An American travelling in Europe is pricked by wolfsbane, and believes himself to be a werewolf when reports of a feral beast pop up wherever he and his partner travel. Back in the states, he confesses this to his friend, who promptly reveals himself to be the killer, having used the werewolf bit as cover.
IV. "Under Cover!" -- The Black Vigilante Society (a barely-disguised Klan allegory) flogs a woman to death in view of an intrepid reporter. Escaping the Hoods in the forst, the reporter makes it back to his hotel, only for the Society to catch up with him and lay a beating on him. He awakes in the hospital to find the FBI wanting his information. When he tells that he saw the Grandmaster's face, the FBI "agents" pull their pieces and silence the witness to the Society's evil.
Overall Weird Rating: 3.5 (out of 5).
These stories (from Weird Science, Two-Fisted Tales, The Crypt Of Terror (forerunner of Tales From The Crypt), and Shock SuspenStories) offer a very good sampling of EC's output from the 50s, and are an excellent commercial for the hardcover Archive editions. The overall weirdness is negatively impacted by the second story, one of Two-Fisted classicly harsh anti-war features, which is excellent but in no way "weird." The first feature kinda makes up for this. Definitely pick this one up if your retailer has any sitting around after FCBD.
1 comment:
I really enjoyed this, even though I'd read most of the stories elsewhere. "Curse of the Full Moon" has always been one of my favorites.
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