July 31.
Wallace Wood applied his preternaturally lush brushwork to over two
dozen stories in the thematically overlapping (“dreadful things happen
to people, both innocent and guilty”) horror, crime, and suspense
genres. This work is the subject of one of the two premiere releases in
Fantagraphics’ highly-anticipated new EC reprint line.
Taking its
title from one of Wood’s all-time classics, the evil little paranoid
thriller “Came the Dawn,” this collection features page after page after
page of Wood’s sleek and meticulously crafted artwork put in the
service of cunning twist-ending stories, most often from the typewriter
of EC editor Al Feldstein.
These tales range from supernatural shockers from the pages of Tales From the Crypt and The Haunt of Fear
(“The Living Corpse,” “Terror Ride,” “Man From the Grave,” “Horror in
the Freak Tent”) to often pointedly contemporary crime thrillers from Crime SuspenStories (“The Assault,” “The Whipping,” and “Confession,” which was singled out for specific excoriation in the anti-comics screed Seduction of the Innocent, thus giving it a special cachet), but the breathtaking art and whiplash-inducing shock endings are constants throughout.
Like
every book in the Fantagraphics EC line, “Came the Dawn!” will feature
extensive essays and notes on these classic stories by EC experts — but
the real “meat” of the matter (sometimes literally, in the grislier
stories) will be supplied by these ofted lurid, sometimes downright
over-the-top, but always compelling and superbly crafted, classic
comic-book masterpieces.
No comments:
Post a Comment