Collectors' Talk: The Art of EC Comics

EC collectors Glenn Bray, Grant Geissman, Roger Hill, and Robert L Reiner in a roundtable discussion moderated by Ben Saunders.
Aliens, Monsters, and Madmen: The Art of EC Comics
May 14, 2016 to July 10, 2016
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
Aliens, Monsters, and Madmen celebrates the achievements of the most artistically and politically adventurous American comic-book company of the twentieth century: Bill Gaines’s Entertaining Comics, better known to fans all over the world as EC. Specializing in comic-book versions of popular fiction genres-particularly Crime, Horror, War, and Science Fiction-the company did far more than merely adapt the conventions of those genres to the comics medium. In the case of the now legendary Science Fiction and Horror titles, Weird Science and Tales from the Crypt, the creators at EC actively extended those genre conventions, while simultaneously shaping the imaginations of a subsequent generation of writers and filmmakers, such as Stephen King, George Lucas, John Landis, George Romero, and Steven Spielberg.
EC also broke new ground in the realm of satire as the publisher of MAD, an experimental humor comic that parodied the very stories that were elsewhere its stock in trade. EC Comics offered a controversial mix of sensationalism and social provocation, mixing titillating storylines and imagery with more overtly politically progressive material. Alongside comics about beautiful alien insect-women who dine on unsuspecting human astronauts, for example, they also tackled subjects that other popular media of the era avoided, including racism, corruption, and police brutality. As a result, the company attracted the disapproval of parents, politicians, and moralists everywhere, and was ultimately driven out of business as the result of a conservative “anti-comics” backlash in 1954. (Only MAD survived, by becoming a magazine in the mid-1950s; it remains in print today.)
The exhibition is curated by Ben Saunders, professor, Department of English. Saunders curated the JSMA’s previous comics exhibitions, Faster Than A Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero (2009) and Good-Grief!: A Selection of 50 Years of Original Art from Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts (2012).
“EC comics and its artwork now constitute highly valued collectibles,” says Saunders. “This show will be built around key examples of the original production art - unique and rarely seen objects of extraordinarily detailed craftsmanship by some of the most influential comics artists of the 20th century.”
Aliens, Monsters, and Madmen: The Art of EC Comics is sponsored by the Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Endowment, The Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, Imagination International, Inc., Office of Academic Affairs, Oregon Humanities Center’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities, Philip and Sandra Piele, UO Comics and Cartoon Studies Minor, UO College Scholars Program, and JSMA members.

[@RSEFX]

Why did they leave the lights on while projecting images onto a screen?
Interesting conversation.
I'd like to have heard some discussion of themes, specific social satire and the relationship of style to content.

[@RSEFX]

What is the story they are referring to that satirizes Howdy Doody? Was that something in MAD magazine (or comic) or an EC horror comic (or one of their other titles)? I'd like to rack that down.

[@StratBurst92]

Its ironic that William Gaines was crucified for his line of horror and crime comics but came out on top for Mad Magazine, which is still published, in fact I saw one today on the checkout magazine rack at the grocery store that we shop at.

[@Jimvanhise]

"The Precious Years" is a story stolen outright from Eric Frank Russell and the original story appears in his BEST OF collection. What they don't say about that Haunt of Fear cover Russ Cochran got from Bill Gaines is that Cochran put it up for sale two weeks after Bill Gaines died. But by then Cochran had a lot of E.C. original art as he'd been the agent for selling it for more than ten years.

[@timedwards6765]

I’d love to have that haunt of fear 18 and haunt of fear 15

[@TheOneTrueKaliban]

In one of the Harry Turtledove novels, there's a Polish-American sailor. After a while, his shipmates give up trying to pronounce his name and start calling him, "Eyechart!
"

[@jeffsingh8582]

Great talk. Wish I had seen the exhibition.

[@sha11235]

I am familiar with Grant Geissman.