To answer you question at minute 57:28, that is, in fact, a white screen of zip-a-tone. So you would draw and ink the art then cut this transparent sheet of white dot zipatone and burnish it over the finished art. This creates that muted, glass look. I'd watch artists in the Marvel Bullpen whenever they were in the office to see what trick I could learn from them and saw a lot of techniques utilizing zip, razors, sponges, tooth brushes, etc. They had all types of white Zip back in the day. Straight lines, dots, herringbone, etc. Great way to get extra texture. Lord. Now I really feel old.
WOW gorgeous book! 25:20 - Those Krigstein trees and mid-century furniture & architecture remind me of Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoons. I wonder if Jones and Krigstein knew of each other’s work?
A question for everyone... Around 47:08 there is a splash title page for a story called THE CHAMPION... I'm seeing blue wash on the top panel, but on the smaller panels there is grey ink wash... Anybody knows why they had both techniques on the same page? I often hear people say the blue wash was to indicate where the printer was supposed to add grey tones, but if that was the case, why did the artist use grey ink wash on the same page?
I pulled put my trusty full-color reprint copy of Valor issue #2, the corresponding volume from the hardcover B&W Russ Cochran library, and also consulted an online copy of the page as it appears in original comic, which has almost the same coloration as the reprint. In the first panel as we see it here in the video, the blue wash was used to indicate the need for color. In that panel, the blue areas were colored in the finished comic as follows -- the tapestry behind the standing gladiator is green and yellow, the belt around the waist of the fallen gladiator is brown, and the dirt surrounding the fallen gladiator is tan. Of course, other aspects of the artwork in that panel were colored before the comic was printed (e.g., the hair, the loincloths, the sandals), and so it's not clear to me why the blue wash was needed -- there are outlines ("holding lines") around the areas that were colored with blue wash, so it wasn't really necessary to point out to Marie Severin, "make sure to color this area." If I had to guess, I'd say that perhaps Williamson initially didn't use any outlines around the blue wash area, and then they were added later. One piece of evidence for this argument is the cover art of the same issue, which is also by Williamson and depicts a scene from "The Champion." As printed, the cover does not use outlines for some of the details, such as the plume of flying sand. Regarding the second panel of the splash page, Al used ink washes to achieve multiple gray tones for the panel, in order to achieve a totally black-and-white tonal palette for the foreground image -- something EC almost never did in their color comics. These tones were reproduced as grays in the original comic and the reprint, though the reproduction in the original comic doesn't do it justice. Finally, the third panel on the splash page was rendered strictly in black ink, with coloration added later. By the way, Valor issue 2 is a terrific comic art-wise, containing not only "The Champion" but also a non-gory Graham Ingels story ("The Colonel's Son,"), a Krigstein foray into Asian-flavored art ("Poetic Justice") and a Wally Wood knight story, "The King's Service." Matter of fact, "Valor" was a pretty bitchin' comic all through its five-issue existence, and you can pick up all of 'em in one inexpensive reprint volume, the EC "Valor" annual, which can be found on eBay for around $15, shipping included.
It's quite possible that the ink was better, in those days. Kelly Freas complained that he could no longer do water colored ink drawings, because the ink would lift, when he went over it.
Keep up the great work, guys. Some day consider doing an episode or two on Frazetta, Foster, or Raymond. I realize there are a lot of greats from that era and only so much time.
The names are "Squa Tront" and "Spa Fon," both of which are phrases that appear in numerous EC science fiction stories, typically spoken by aliens as expressions of surprise or displeasure. Here's a link where you can learn more about the fonts -- www.fontspace.com/squa-tront-font-f3313
RE: The Leroy lettering, there is an interview with Mary Wronker (one of the EC letterers) somewhere, where she goes into the process and how much more work it was to do the EC books because the pages were 30-40% text or something like that. It might have been in one of the Cochran collections, but I can't find it now. It might make a great compliment piece for your Leroy demo video!
Wow my dad had that lettering set when I was kid, I never made the connection with EC comics, he did technical drawing. I wish I still had that. Thanks for showing that, brings back all sorts of memories. And wow what a great book!
This is amazing. I pumped my fist in the air when I saw this was the subject of this morning's video. Love those Craig pieces....he may be becoming my favorite EC artist.
The level of background detail and realism in this 'morgue file' era is so impressive. Nowadays you have every reference imaginable at your fingertips yet you rarely see this kind of attention to detail.
Great piece, fellas. One correction (not for you but for IDW) up around the 21:45 mark -- the Table of Contents regarding the Krigstein material indicates that "Slave Ship" was originally rendered by Graham Ingels for Piracy issue 3. That's inaccurate. While it's true that Ingels did indeed do a story by that name, the 3-D story by Krigstein is a re-imagining of "The Slave Ship" from Weird Fantasy issue 8, which was illustrated by George Roussos. Yes, THAT George Roussos, aka "George Bell," who inked Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four circa 1963. The Krig version was first publicly available in Squa Tront issue 4. I'm pretty surprised that IDW made this goof, and if y'all can collect a "no-prize" from the company for providing this info, be my guest(s).
Hey this is Bob in Connecticut well I had mostly every EC science-fiction and horror I got rid of most of my comics. They were definitely the best books ever published no question about it they had the best artists and the best writers. I still have my weird science fantasy annual 19.0 there are only two copies of those and there are 3 9.2 there is nothing higher. I also still kept my EC file copy war against crime 10 9.8 the first appearance of the vault keeper .🤗🤗🤗
At the EC Con, Marie Severin was asked why she never drew any stories . She said, simply, "I wasn't good enough." I don't agree, looking at the piece in this vid, but, sometimes a lack of confidence alone can hold back an artist. It certainly dogged RGK, God bless him.
Hi George -- I think you might be recalling Krigstein's 3-D story, "The Monster from the Fourth Dimension," which was reprinted in the Fantagraphics hardcover book, "B. Krigstein Comics" in its fully inked and lettered form, which was published in the first issue of short-lived "Three-Dimensional EC Classics" title in 1954. I've got three Fantagraphics Krig books and none of them reprint "Slave Ship." However, way back in 1970 the fourth issue of the EC fanzine Squa Tront published an inked, lettered version of "Slave Ship." (I had expected this version to be contained in the IDW book reviewed in this video, rather than the pencils-only version.)
Tom Nordlie Slave Ship was reprinted in “Master Race and other stories”, part of Fanta’s EC reprints. The original art for the story was lost, but they did their best to recreate it based off the pencils and the (relatively) shit quality printing of the story in Squa Tront. I also definitely remembered reading a finished version and had to look it up just now. The reason the finished piece wasn’t included here is because as I mentioned the actual original inked version was lost
Graham Ingels is my personal favorite EC artist. He's one of the greatest horror comic artists of all time, with sort of a tragic life story, and he deserves to be much better known. He'd easily be at the top of my horror comic artist rankings, along with Junji Ito. He's not in volume 1 here, but he'd better be in volume 2. LOL
There's a whole volume dedicated to Ingels. I was fortunate enough to page through one a couple of years ago. It increased my appreciation of Ingels immensely. I'm not sure where to get the best price, but here's an IDW web page for it -- www.idwpublishing.com/product/graham-ingels-ec-stories-artists-edition-hc/
Always interesting to see what the closed captions will give you. Sienkiewicz becomes 'sink cabbage' on the screen. Also, that screen tone thing you guys are talking about on the Williamson stuff is white zip-a-tone I'm pretty sure. The ink was so much blacker because they could use chemicals in the inks that the EPA won't let you use anymore. Only thing close is Pelikan drawing ink A... Not for your pen, BTW.
Toth did 3 stories for EC, all printed in "Corpse on the Imjin", the first Kurtzman-EC-collection by Fanta. "F-86 Sabre Jet" is probably the most interesting, from a storytelling and design point. It gets almost completely abstract at times. The coloring is crazy, too. The page with the pilot totally disoriented... Kurtzman inked him on one story, which is kinda interesting, though I prefer them both solo. It's funny to compare the various comments they made about their collaborations later. Toth gave him a lot of props and said that Kurtzman spotted blacks in his inking that even he hadn't figured out, while Kurtzman complained about all the damn blackspotting Toth did... I guess they talked about different stories. I think "Sabre Jet" was the last of the three stories and I kind of get why this level of abstraction was a bit much for Kurtzman. Toth and Kriegstein were really trying to push things forward at this time. I also think Toth changed something about the ending of the story printed in this artist edition, or made the guy look too heroic or something. Kurtzman wasn't into that.
Jim was right about Burns being inspired by Craig, just a simple search showed me a swipe file by Burns with panels lifted from Johnny Craig among others
To answer you question at minute 57:28, that is, in fact, a white screen of zip-a-tone. So you would draw and ink the art then cut this transparent sheet of white dot zipatone and burnish it over the finished art. This creates that muted, glass look. I'd watch artists in the Marvel Bullpen whenever they were in the office to see what trick I could learn from them and saw a lot of techniques utilizing zip, razors, sponges, tooth brushes, etc. They had all types of white Zip back in the day. Straight lines, dots, herringbone, etc. Great way to get extra texture. Lord. Now I really feel old.
WOW gorgeous book!
25:20 - Those Krigstein trees and mid-century furniture & architecture remind me of Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoons. I wonder if Jones and Krigstein knew of each other’s work?
7:48 -LOL, that Blade Runner quote out of nowhere. Like Tyrell was a real life person.
A question for everyone... Around 47:08 there is a splash title page for a story called THE CHAMPION... I'm seeing blue wash on the top panel, but on the smaller panels there is grey ink wash... Anybody knows why they had both techniques on the same page? I often hear people say the blue wash was to indicate where the printer was supposed to add grey tones, but if that was the case, why did the artist use grey ink wash on the same page?
I pulled put my trusty full-color reprint copy of Valor issue #2, the corresponding volume from the hardcover B&W Russ Cochran library, and also consulted an online copy of the page as it appears in original comic, which has almost the same coloration as the reprint.
In the first panel as we see it here in the video, the blue wash was used to indicate the need for color. In that panel, the blue areas were colored in the finished comic as follows -- the tapestry behind the standing gladiator is green and yellow, the belt around the waist of the fallen gladiator is brown, and the dirt surrounding the fallen gladiator is tan. Of course, other aspects of the artwork in that panel were colored before the comic was printed (e.g., the hair, the loincloths, the sandals), and so it's not clear to me why the blue wash was needed -- there are outlines ("holding lines") around the areas that were colored with blue wash, so it wasn't really necessary to point out to Marie Severin, "make sure to color this area." If I had to guess, I'd say that perhaps Williamson initially didn't use any outlines around the blue wash area, and then they were added later. One piece of evidence for this argument is the cover art of the same issue, which is also by Williamson and depicts a scene from "The Champion." As printed, the cover does not use outlines for some of the details, such as the plume of flying sand.
Regarding the second panel of the splash page, Al used ink washes to achieve multiple gray tones for the panel, in order to achieve a totally black-and-white tonal palette for the foreground image -- something EC almost never did in their color comics. These tones were reproduced as grays in the original comic and the reprint, though the reproduction in the original comic doesn't do it justice.
Finally, the third panel on the splash page was rendered strictly in black ink, with coloration added later.
By the way, Valor issue 2 is a terrific comic art-wise, containing not only "The Champion" but also a non-gory Graham Ingels story ("The Colonel's Son,"), a Krigstein foray into Asian-flavored art ("Poetic Justice") and a Wally Wood knight story, "The King's Service." Matter of fact, "Valor" was a pretty bitchin' comic all through its five-issue existence, and you can pick up all of 'em in one inexpensive reprint volume, the EC "Valor" annual, which can be found on eBay for around $15, shipping included.
Great!!! The Wally Wood edition is the crown jewel of my collection.
It's quite possible that the ink was better, in those days. Kelly Freas complained that he could no longer do water colored ink drawings, because the ink would lift, when he went over it.
Keep up the great work, guys. Some day consider doing an episode or two on Frazetta, Foster, or Raymond. I realize there are a lot of greats from that era and only so much time.
11:39 what are the names of the fonts you mention? Amazing videos you guys. This channel is a Masters Degree in comics.
The names are "Squa Tront" and "Spa Fon," both of which are phrases that appear in numerous EC science fiction stories, typically spoken by aliens as expressions of surprise or displeasure. Here's a link where you can learn more about the fonts -- www.fontspace.com/squa-tront-font-f3313
RE: The Leroy lettering, there is an interview with Mary Wronker (one of the EC letterers) somewhere, where she goes into the process and how much more work it was to do the EC books because the pages were 30-40% text or something like that. It might have been in one of the Cochran collections, but I can't find it now. It might make a great compliment piece for your Leroy demo video!
Wow my dad had that lettering set when I was kid, I never made the connection with EC comics, he did technical drawing. I wish I still had that. Thanks for showing that, brings back all sorts of memories. And wow what a great book!
Aw man this is awesome. Hello fellas and Happy New Year. Thanks for making the YEAR WE WON'T MENTION inspiring.
This is amazing. I pumped my fist in the air when I saw this was the subject of this morning's video. Love those Craig pieces....he may be becoming my favorite EC artist.
Just found this channel and I love this review of great EC art. Thanks. Subscribed!
The level of background detail and realism in this 'morgue file' era is so impressive. Nowadays you have every reference imaginable at your fingertips yet you rarely see this kind of attention to detail.
Great piece, fellas. One correction (not for you but for IDW) up around the 21:45 mark -- the Table of Contents regarding the Krigstein material indicates that "Slave Ship" was originally rendered by Graham Ingels for Piracy issue 3. That's inaccurate.
While it's true that Ingels did indeed do a story by that name, the 3-D story by Krigstein is a re-imagining of "The Slave Ship" from Weird Fantasy issue 8, which was illustrated by George Roussos. Yes, THAT George Roussos, aka "George Bell," who inked Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four circa 1963. The Krig version was first publicly available in Squa Tront issue 4.
I'm pretty surprised that IDW made this goof, and if y'all can collect a "no-prize" from the company for providing this info, be my guest(s).
Hey this is Bob in Connecticut well I had mostly every EC science-fiction and horror I got rid of most of my comics. They were definitely the best books ever published no question about it they had the best artists and the best writers. I still have my weird science fantasy annual 19.0 there are only two copies of those and there are 3 9.2 there is nothing higher. I also still kept my EC file copy war against crime 10 9.8 the first appearance of the vault keeper .🤗🤗🤗
At the EC Con, Marie Severin was asked why she never drew any stories . She said, simply, "I wasn't good enough." I don't agree, looking at the piece in this vid, but, sometimes a lack of confidence alone can hold back an artist. It certainly dogged RGK, God bless him.
just an amazing video... thanks you,,, and, yes, i have seen veil duo tone... i think thats what al williamson was using on those pages...
this is interesting. i totally seen the slave ship story fully inked and lettered in one of the fantagraphics collections of krigsteins work
Hi George -- I think you might be recalling Krigstein's 3-D story, "The Monster from the Fourth Dimension," which was reprinted in the Fantagraphics hardcover book, "B. Krigstein Comics" in its fully inked and lettered form, which was published in the first issue of short-lived "Three-Dimensional EC Classics" title in 1954.
I've got three Fantagraphics Krig books and none of them reprint "Slave Ship." However, way back in 1970 the fourth issue of the EC fanzine Squa Tront published an inked, lettered version of "Slave Ship." (I had expected this version to be contained in the IDW book reviewed in this video, rather than the pencils-only version.)
Tom Nordlie Slave Ship was reprinted in “Master Race and other stories”, part of Fanta’s EC reprints. The original art for the story was lost, but they did their best to recreate it based off the pencils and the (relatively) shit quality printing of the story in Squa Tront.
I also definitely remembered reading a finished version and had to look it up just now. The reason the finished piece wasn’t included here is because as I mentioned the actual original inked version was lost
@@bayls_1712 Ah, thanks. As must be obvious, I don't own the Fantagraphics "Master Race" book.
gave this video a thumbs up before it even started. great stuff. love it.
Simonson's line kinda resemble's Krigstein. I think its the slight angularity to them, as well as the way they handle thick thin variations.
I absolutely adore your videos guys :D Good Job!
Amazing book! My only complaint is there’s no Graham Ingels and maybe a few pages each of Jack Davis and Wallace Wood
Graham Ingels is my personal favorite EC artist. He's one of the greatest horror comic artists of all time, with sort of a tragic life story, and he deserves to be much better known. He'd easily be at the top of my horror comic artist rankings, along with Junji Ito. He's not in volume 1 here, but he'd better be in volume 2. LOL
There's a whole volume dedicated to Ingels. I was fortunate enough to page through one a couple of years ago. It increased my appreciation of Ingels immensely. I'm not sure where to get the best price, but here's an IDW web page for it -- www.idwpublishing.com/product/graham-ingels-ec-stories-artists-edition-hc/
What a treasure! thanks guys!
Man, these Artist Edition books are expensive!
Can you guys do an analysis of the Spirit Artist Edition books this year? Thx.
the greatest comics ever.
The ec artist’s editions weren’t blown up what you are seeing is reprinted in the size what they were originally drawn in
Always interesting to see what the closed captions will give you. Sienkiewicz becomes 'sink cabbage' on the screen. Also, that screen tone thing you guys are talking about on the Williamson stuff is white zip-a-tone I'm pretty sure. The ink was so much blacker because they could use chemicals in the inks that the EPA won't let you use anymore. Only thing close is Pelikan drawing ink A... Not for your pen, BTW.
Wow love this video! New sub!
Toth did 3 stories for EC, all printed in "Corpse on the Imjin", the first Kurtzman-EC-collection by Fanta. "F-86 Sabre Jet" is probably the most interesting, from a storytelling and design point. It gets almost completely abstract at times. The coloring is crazy, too. The page with the pilot totally disoriented...
Kurtzman inked him on one story, which is kinda interesting, though I prefer them both solo.
It's funny to compare the various comments they made about their collaborations later. Toth gave him a lot of props and said that Kurtzman spotted blacks in his inking that even he hadn't figured out, while Kurtzman complained about all the damn blackspotting Toth did... I guess they talked about different stories. I think "Sabre Jet" was the last of the three stories and I kind of get why this level of abstraction was a bit much for Kurtzman. Toth and Kriegstein were really trying to push things forward at this time.
I also think Toth changed something about the ending of the story printed in this artist edition, or made the guy look too heroic or something. Kurtzman wasn't into that.
"I'm marveling at Wood--" - Ed Piskor
Ben Oda did all that great Warren lettering.
Jim was right about Burns being inspired by Craig, just a simple search showed me a swipe file by Burns with panels lifted from Johnny Craig among others
We got a middle finger pointer on our hands.
They talk about Marie Severin during an episode of Marvel's 616.
You guys should do a Sergio Toppi video. It'd be amazing.
Good eyes
All my heroes are dead. EC Comics 4 life
I adore EC comics, but they're soo wordy.. Would love to see them "remixed" by a modern artist.