Least Favorite EC artists? 0

[Sarg]

I've been reading ECs a lot recently. There's something I want to get off my chest. I'd like to get the experts' opinion here, to see if I'm way off base.

 

A problem I find with EC is that, because they were so great and epoch-making, that people tend to withhold any criticism of them, and act like everything they did is equally spectacular. It isn't.

 

Everybody has their favorite regular EC artists, and mine are Wood, Ingels, Davis, Craig, Kurtzman, and (for humor only) Elder.

 

Least favorite (from the regulars)?

 

Feldstein - great for covers, but poor for interiors. Hopelessly stuck in teenage headlights comics of the pre-EC era.

 

Orlando - seems like a crude Wood imitator to me. I don't like his art at all.

 

Kamen - great for Fox jungle girls and romance, but not for horror or crime. Yet he was assigned tons of horror and crime stories.

 

Severin - good for pre-20th Century war/adventure stuff only.

 

 

 

[rjpb]

I can't recall the names but there was some lackluster art in the early horror books before EC fully put together their roster of top notch illustrators. While Feldstein, Orlando and Kamen aren't my favorite EC artists, I still enjoy their work. Kamen's crime and horror stuff was solid in my book, and I while Feldstein had an "old school" look to his illustration as compared to some of his contemporaries, it was always interesting. I think Orlando's EC material was some of his best, and it's unfair to consider him a Wood imitator. I would agree that Severin's forte was western and civil war stories, and I like the humor stuff he did later. I don't recall him doing much for EC outside the war/adventure genre.

 

While I'm a fan of Graham Ingles when he drew gothic period horror, I'm not as crazy about his more modern stories.

[mrmyst]

I like all those dissed artists.

[Darth Corgi]

Ghastly Ingels was the best!

 

The only crime EC committed was cramming in too much text and not giving the artists more room to draw. You can read most EC stories and disregard the top text box. Over explaining if you ask me. Then again I am a big fan of wordless comics.

[rjpb]

Ghastly Ingels was the best!

 

The only crime EC committed was cramming in too much text and not giving the artists more room to draw. You can read most EC stories and disregard the top text box. Over explaining if you ask me. Then again I am a big fan of wordless comics.

 

I agree. when the EC reprints came out in the 90s I started out faithfully reading every word in the text blocks, but after a while I stopped completely.

[sacentaur]

Feldstein is a favorite of mine, as is Williamson.

 

Ingels, Kamen, and Davis - amongst the regulars - would be my "least favorites', though I still find most of their work OK.

 

EC's are the best.

[Larryw7]

I like most of the regular EC artist's fine. Jack Kamen seems to be the least favorite of most, but I think the stories he illustrated almost always suited him. The only EC story I remember really disliking the art for was illustrated by Howard Larsen in an early Vault of Horror(don't remember the exact number).

[Forbush-Man]

EC's are the bomb! No one else produced books like theirs in the 50's. simply the best there was.

[sacentaur]

Should also mention Craig who is rarely mentioned as a favorite, but he was a workhorse who performed admirably.

[sacentaur]

Harrison was a guy who didn't stick, though when Wood collaborated the work was OK.

 

I seem to recall not being impressed by Check, but cannot recall specifics (and he being another guy who didn't stick).

[Speedy-D]

Should also mention Craig who is rarely mentioned as a favorite, but he was a workhorse who performed admirably.

Wha??? Craig's gotta be at the top of everyone's list!!

[buttock]

Feldstein is a favorite of mine, as is Williamson.

 

Ingels, Kamen, and Davis - amongst the regulars - would be my "least favorites', though I still find most of their work OK.

 

EC's are the best.

 

You take that back!

[sacentaur]

Feldstein is a favorite of mine, as is Williamson.

 

Ingels, Kamen, and Davis - amongst the regulars - would be my "least favorites', though I still find most of their work OK.

 

EC's are the best.

 

You take that back!

 

I'm telling my mommy on you!

 

(oops, Speedy is right - the OP did mention Craig, my bad)

[rjpb]

Should also mention Craig who is rarely mentioned as a favorite, but he was a workhorse who performed admirably.

 

Craig and Kurtzman are my favorites. Kurtzman because his art complimented his haunting war stories beautifully, and his style was unlike anyone else's, Craig because he was ECs premier crime artist, and that is my favorite EC genre, and besides he was responsible for the single greatest EC cover ever.

[gojira]

I think that all of the regular EC artists did great work back then. Each genre had it´s 2 or 3 top artists and they're best work was imo always confined to one genre, except for Wood who did his best stuff for the SF titles and Shock.

 

I can understand that Kamen is not a favorite, but I have always liked his art a lot. He was quite an expert in drawing faces, especially those of women, showing all the different moods his female characters would go through in a story really well. Another expert at this was Schaffenberger on Lois Lane a few years later.

 

Severin was imo one of the best EC War artists. I'm a huge fan of the WW 2 and Korean war stories he did with Elder. Nobody, except Davis was able to make those stories seem so real. They really managed to show what those soldiers went through when they were in the field, not having washed for days, some full of fear, advancing in the dirt towards their next battle...

 

But all the artists were great at EC, I just think that Kamen and Severin deserved a special mention.

[Ken Aldred]

 

Feldstein - great for covers, but poor for interiors. Hopelessly stuck in teenage headlights comics of the pre-EC era.

 

 

I like Feldstein's stiff-figure interior art in the science-fiction books because it makes the characters look rigid with extreme fear, and a lot of these stories are about alien paranoia of one form or another. While very flawed, his art could look quite appropriate for the subject matter.

[Ken Aldred]

George Roussos, now better known as an inker, did the art on a few stories at EC. Didn't like them much.

[DamageInc-migration]

Kurtzman because his art complimented his haunting war stories beautifully, and his style was unlike anyone else's

 

Huh, Kurtzman is my least favorite, followed by Krigstein.

 

 

[jimbo_707]

Should also mention Craig who is rarely mentioned as a favorite, but he was a workhorse who performed admirably.

Wha??? Craig's gotta be at the top of everyone's list!!

 

Overall, I prefer Graham I's "drippy" look for interior horror art to Craig's style, which was a little too Madison-Avenue-neat-and-tidy for me at times. Feldstein and Davis had some of the best horror covers.

 

For sci-fi, I like Wood best out of the regular EC artists.

[originalisbest]

I agree on the Roussos take -- would have to be the least favorite for me among the EC stuff. But with EC, even the bad is somewhat passable. The rest of the artists I like just fine, each I can appreciate for their particular take. I like good 'ol stiff-figures Al Feldstein, and who doesn't like sweater girls???

 

I remember reading through and liking TFTC #28 the least of all the Crypt run, yet still there was at least one story I found good. They can't all be winners!