Home To Stay!

I was late to the Ray Bradbury experience. I got hold of a copy of The Martian Chronicles when I was young, but it seemed just okay. In later years I got hold of more of his work and have come to appreciate him better. But truth told, I like Bradbury's stories best when they were adapted to comics form, and no one did it better than the guys at E.C. Comics, though they did it surreptitiously at first. Home to Stay! is an oversized collection from Fantagraphics of all the stories of Bradbury's adapted by William Gaines, Al Feldstein, and an amazing array of artists. 

In the early 50's comics were coming under fire, but the heat was not such that a writer of Bradbury's status considered it a problem to be associated with the format. In fact, he was a lover of comics and so after he was tipped off that some of his stories might have been lifted and altered ever so slightly, he  wrote a letter to the offices of Entertaining Comics and reminded them that they had "forgotten" to send him a check for fifty bucks for the secondary rights of the stories involved. (His letter is reproduced in this collection.) He then went on to suggest that EC and he enter a formal arrangement to bring his stories into comics form. And soon he had his fifty bucks and a new outlet to attract readers. 

EC lost no time in celebrating the new arrangement and the badge above soon began appearing on various issues of their comics when a Bradbury story was within. But after a few years, the war on comics became a bit too hot and Bradbury ask that his name no longer be used on the covers, though they continued to adapt his stories. It strikes me odd now that the writer of Fahrenheit 451 would wilt in the face of such a tirade, but as we see even today, it's hard to stand up for what's right, even when you know it to be true. Eventually EC folded and the adaptations stopped. But now we can enjoy them all over again. 

Here are the covers of the comics in which Bradbury's stories appeared. Few of the covers actually related to his particular contribution and I've noted when that's the case. 

(for the story "He Walked Among Us" based on "The Man")

(for the story "A Sound of Thunder")

(for the story "I, Rocket")

(for the story "The Screaming Woman", the only cover which features a Bradbury story with the badge)

(1965 Ballantine Books collection with Frank Frazetta cover)

(1966 Ballantine Books collection with a Frank Frazetta cover)

It was wise in the long run for Bradbury to allow EC to adapt his stories. It saved him the cost of lengthy and uncertain legal proceedings, and it proclaimed his name to comics fans for all time and spread his fame and influence. I enjoyed reading these stories, especially those rendered by Wally Wood and Joe Orlando. But other artists such as Johnny Craig, Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Will Elder, George Evans, Graham Engels, Jack Kamen, Bernie Krigstein, John Severin, and Al Williamson are well represented. Whether you get to these stories in this collection or in any of the other EC reprints from across the decades, I wish you well. 

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Strangers On A Train!

"Times call for measures" goes the proverb. I rarely reprint a complete story here at the Dojo and when I have done so it's either in public domain or from some impossible-to-find fanzine. I'm putting forth one of comicdom's most famous stories today, one from EC Comics. Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein co-wrote and Bernard Krigstein drew it. The time was 1955 and the menace of Adolph Hitler was barely a decade in the past, nearly as long as America has been contending shamefully with its most recent "leader". I'd imagine most who visit this blog have read "Master Race", one of the most powerful and well-crafted stories ever published in the format. Krigstein asked for more time and more space to tell this story and that ended up delaying its publication for a year. If you have read it, I'd recommend it's not a bad time to revisit it, and if by chance you've never encountered the story, then by all means don't let my meanderings stop you for another second. 

See you on the other side. 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.  

Under the dynamic Jack Davis cover is a story which elegantly and (no pun intended) masterfully guides the reader through a frightening tale of an evil man who meets a justice of a sort at long last. Krigtstein's storytelling, his control of time and space and his fidelity to keeping the reader's eyes exactly where he wants them, makes "Master Race" a compelling eight-page read. Apparently, it began as a typical six-page EC yarn, but Krigstein wanted a few more pages to tell this important tale properly and adding those two pages caused a deadline to be missed and a delay of a year before the public was able to encounter this response to the Nazi menace which defined the 20th century. 

I own this story scuds of times. It gets included in nearly any EC anthology because of its quality. And as we've learned to our chagrin, it's terrible message never seems to go out of date. Below are just some of the tomes in which "Master Race" appears. These are just the ones I own. 

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