William M. GainesCritiques

SIN PRECIOS

The third in a series of Mad magazine reprints continues. The period from October 1953- March 1954 is covered, with lampoons of Sherlock Homes, Treasure Island, Smilin' Jack, Frankenstein, The Lone Ranger (again), Batman, Little Orphan Annie, The Raven, and High Noon. Artwork is supplied by Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Elder, Wally Wood, John Severin, and Jack Davis. And as always, the quality of the drawings is top-notch.

Fans new and old will delight to these classics from Mad Magazine's early days. Covering issues from April-September of 1953, we're treated to spoofs of Superman, Robin Hood, The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, Terry and the Pirates, Tarzan, and King Kong, among others. The artwork is astounding: Bill Elder, Wallace Wood, Jack Davis, and John Severin (though Severin's work would never hold up, in comparison to Wood or Elder).
My only complaint is about the page quality. Like the original issues, these pages are printed on newsprint-quality paper- and being that these special issues are over 25 years old, the pages are starting to deteriorate, and have taken on that "old paper" smell. Oh well, I'll enjoy them while I can...

My favorite stories were Bill Elder's, so good!

A collection of scary, sometimes gory, stories that date from 1970 10 2017. In "Die-Vestment", a very old and incredibly wealthy man finds poor people who will sell him their internal organs to help their families, but the old man doesn't honor the contracts.
In "Zombie Bank", the only two human employees at the bank are a mistreated gopher and the beautiful, flirty secretary. And then there's just one human employee. In "Undertow", we meet a grieving young mother, but this is a horror story, so it isn't as it seems.½

Graham Ingels, George Evans, Jack Kamen, Jack Davis, Reed Crandall

This is my first plunge into one of the wellsprings of modern horror, the EC Comics that so shocked the 1950s that Dr. Fredric Wertham and Senator Estes Kefauver led a crusade to drive them out of business, lest they poison the minds of American youth. Their efforts were successful only in the short run. Publisher Bill Gaines shifted to MAD magazine, which would have great fun making fun of the prudes and politicians who drove the mags out of business. Meanwhile, the already corrupted readers grew up to regurgitate the filth they had seen into the fiction, movies, and TV series that horror fans after the 50s loved, including me.
As for the comics themselves, I liked them much better than the other vintage horror comics I’ve read. Their superiority is in the writing. The plots are standard revenge thrillers but they are placed in unusual locations and/or feature people that everyday people despise and/or are filled with dark, ironic humor. I will of course regret enjoying them someday.½

A good read, but almost nothing to do with voodoo.

Mad was a long-time voice of humor and satire; its heyday was in the 1960s. Any effort which churns out topical satire on a deadline imposed by monthly publication schedules must inevitably falter occassionally. Mad is not uniformly funny or on target. But over the long haul, its average has been remarkable and its insights have been illuminating. I still recall 40+ years later in most cases, many specific pieces I enjoyed back in the 60s and they still retain much of their punch. It's not their fault the topicality and immediacy have abandoned them. In other cases, the points of the articles have become chillingly accurate prophecies.

A collection of horror comic book stories from the 1950's comic by the same name, which led to the creation of the Comics Code. The reproduction is fine, the stories are well-chosen, but the art and the stories are not quite the equal of the contemporary science-fictionish "Shock Suspenstories".½

Reprints Valor Comics, no. 1-5, as part of the Complete EC library