WHAT is going on with Ajax/Farrell & Superior horror comics? 0

[MrBedrock]

30 minutes ago, Black Bat said:

When it comes to horror, I like the art to be just as strange dirty confounding unpredictable and brutal as the genre. If the artwork makes the artists seem insane, all the better- I think Matt Fox, Hollingsworth and LB Cole and many of the Eiger folks qualify.  If it’s too well drawn I’m not interested- which is why I don’t collect EC, the art is absolutely great, but the artists are obviously technically trained and at the top of their game (I also don’t care for books with “hosts” on the cover, it diminishes the books immediate impact, too much info, and just kinda corny imo). I could write a whole chapter on this stuff. I’d like to hear other collectors opinions. 

Graham Ingels is the craziest, brutalist, most insane horror artist...and his EC work is the very pinnacle of the Horror genre.

I understand what you are trying to say...the primitiveness of some of the art in books by the smaller publishers lends to their spookieness. But to not include Ingels in your Horror collecting is like saying " I love baseball for the home runs, but I don't like Henry Aaron because he hit too many home runs."

Edited March 5, 2019 by MrBedrock

[Black Bat]

10 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

Graham Ingels is the craziest, brutalist, most insane horror artist...and his EC work is the very pinnacle of the Horror genre.

I understand what you are trying to say...the primitiveness of some of the art in books by the smaller publishers lends to their spookieness. But to not include Ingels in your Horror collecting is like saying " I love baseball for the home runs, but I don't like Henry Aaron because he hit too many home runs."

Ha ha- ok I’m excited to take another look. 

[DavidTheDavid]

I like the hosts, but's because of the DC horror comics I was pulling from my cousin's closet and the shows I was seeing on television back then. 

[adamstrange]

2 hours ago, DavidTheDavid said:

imho so many of these have just god awful cover and interior art.

Superior used the worst printers of any comic book company ever.  The stories are bizarre.  The art is often inept.  I fully understand why someone wouldn't even go near them.

And yet their horror output is my favorite of all the precode horror publishers.  Somehow the interplay between all these elements works in creating compelling stories.

I would liken them to the comic equivalent of Louis Armstrong, a man with very limited vocal abilities but who performed compelling on so many classic songs.

[MrBedrock]

15 minutes ago, adamstrange said:

Superior used the worst printers of any comic book company ever.  The stories are bizarre.  The art is often inept.  I fully understand why someone wouldn't even go near them.

And yet their horror output is my favorite of all the precode horror publishers.  Somehow the interplay between all these elements works in creating compelling stories.

I would liken them to the comic equivalent of Louis Armstrong, a man with very limited vocal abilities but who performed compelling on so many classic songs.

I would liken them to the films of Russ Meyer. He pumped out prurient schlock with unknown actors but somehow managed to knock it out of the park with films like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

[Jayman]

52 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

I would liken them to the films of Russ Meyer. He pumped out prurient schlock with unknown actors but somehow managed to knock it out of the park with films like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Maybe more like the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis! 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Jayman
Two L’s in Herschell...

[MrBedrock]

20 minutes ago, Jayman said:

Maybe more like the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis! 

That's a good one. I was also going to say Stuart Gordon with Reanimator and From Beyond.

[telerites]

32 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

That's a good one. I was also going to say Stuart Gordon with Reanimator and From Beyond.

Re-Animator is classic.  I was a senior in college when it came out and I remember seeing it with some buddies - laugh fest throughout, of course some brewskies were flowing too so that didn't hurt.  Look at these movie scores for it, not too bad for a schlocker.

7.2/10IMDb95%Rotten Tomatoes3/4Roger Ebert

92% liked this movie

Google users

[jpepx78]

22 hours ago, PeterPark said:

I wish this police thrills had been published. A quick google search said it was reworked for another issue.

I found the ad below in the 1995 Price Guide. I wonder if the above comic ad was a reason for NE Comics to offer 5 times guide price for a copy of Police Thrills?

It was listed in the guide as GD/FN/NM 6.70/20/40 and noted with an unknown existence. 5X guide was a lot to offer back then for the other books too.

[MusterMark]

The deliberately unpolished quirky art style of the Superior and Ajax-Farrell book covers just screams Horror.

[fett]

12 hours ago, adamstrange said:

Superior used the worst printers of any comic book company ever.  The stories are bizarre.  The art is often inept.  I fully understand why someone wouldn't even go near them.

And yet their horror output is my favorite of all the precode horror publishers.  Somehow the interplay between all these elements works in creating compelling stories.

I would liken them to the comic equivalent of Louis Armstrong, a man with very limited vocal abilities but who performed compelling on so many classic songs.

I never thought anyone would give Charlton printing quality a run for the money until I started picking up a few Ajax/Farrel and Superiors, especially the war comics. 

Edited March 6, 2019 by fett

[ThothAmon]

Here are my low grade contributions. 

 

[jimbo_7071]

On 3/5/2019 at 1:23 PM, DavidTheDavid said:

imho so many of these have just god awful cover and interior art.

I'm with you; I don't see the appeal of many of them. They're vastly inferior to most of the ECs and Atlases. None of the Ajax/Farrell or Superior cover artists can touch Everett, Ingels, Feldstein, etc. There are a handful of good covers, but even the mediocre ones seem to be hot. Why?

[jimbo_7071]

On 3/5/2019 at 2:24 PM, Black Bat said:

When it comes to horror, I like the art to be just as strange dirty confounding unpredictable and brutal as the genre. If the artwork makes the artists seem insane, all the better- I think Matt Fox, Hollingsworth and LB Cole and many of the Eiger folks qualify.  If it’s too well drawn I’m not interested- which is why I don’t collect EC, the art is absolutely great, but the artists are obviously technically trained and at the top of their game (I also don’t care for books with “hosts” on the cover, it diminishes the books immediate impact, too much info, and just kinda corny imo). I could write a whole chapter on this stuff. I’d like to hear other collectors opinions. 

Your post gives me some food for thought. Johnny Craig's artwork seems a little sterile to me--a little too clean or refined--but many of the other EC artists produced art that was well-drawn yet visceral and creepy. I can't say I've ever been drawn to ineptitude in an artist. To me, the Ajax/Farrell and Superior artists don't seem insane, just unskilled.

Edited March 13, 2019 by jimbo_7071

[Jayman]

Some of the covers are so bizarre! 

Like this one: I guess the photographer was dying to take a pic of a vampire? 

[jimbo_7071]

Just now, Jayman said:

Some of the covers are so bizarre! 

Like this one: I guess the photographer was dying to take a pic of a vampire? 

That's one of the best ones; I wouldn't mind owning a copy. I only own one Superior; I wanted one example for my collection. The cover art is creepy but doesn't really show a deft touch.

[Jayman]

21 minutes ago, jimbo_7071 said:

That's one of the best ones; I wouldn't mind owning a copy. I only own one Superior; I wanted one example for my collection. The cover art is creepy but doesn't really show a deft touch.

Great one, and a Church copy to boot! 

[Jayman]

As for Farrell, this may be my favorite cover!

[fifties]

On 3/5/2019 at 10:23 AM, DavidTheDavid said:

imho so many of these have just god awful cover and interior art.

Funny thing is, some of the best (lurid) cover art has the absolute worst interior art.  Books by Stanley Morse fall into this category, such as Weird Mysteries. 

AFA Ajax/Farrell/Superior, the printing quality is hands down the worst, but the books were unique in many ways.  They were constantly doing "margin violation", by having a character's body extend into lower panels.  And as often as not, everyone in a story dies in the end.

[Black Bat]

I totally admire the work of the EC artists, Engles was recently pointed out to me,  also Wolverton etc, but I'm also a big fan of art by "insane" people, children, and folk artists.  So yeah I guess I appreciate untrained artists with something to say.  Maybe it's more of a style thing than a skill thing.  Matt Fox, LB Cole, Fletcher Hanks.  When you couple that style approach with the fantastic (not fantasy) and horror, then for me the "best" of the Farrell/Ajax/Superior type books have it all.  

I mean what's cooler than this???  The creator may not be a "good" artist, but I think this is good art!