EC comics Legend Al Feldstein

Al Feldstein Legendary EC Comics, writer/artist, and Mad Magazine editor died yesterday at 88...

http://boingboing.net/2014/04/30/rip-al-feldstein-ec-comics-a.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/30/showbiz/mad-magazine-editor-dies/

I had only discovered EC later in my comics reading life. Like discovering jazz or classical music as you get older, when people begin looking for something more the juvenile mainstream they've outgrown.

For the last decades or so, I've been on the lookout for those cheap EC reprints. Some were comics size, some almost treasury size, others were bound together under new covers. I spent many a happy Saturday over the years cleaning out more than a few bargain bins, until the LCS owner at the time noticed and started to separate them and marked them up.

Now that I'm a little older I tried collecting the various hard cover editions. I got more than a few of the Gemstone editions. But, the one I like best is the one by Fantagraphics, each featuring a particular artist/writer. I have the books featuring Al Williams, and Johnny Craig. But most recently I picked up the volume featuring Al Feldstein, (Child of Tomorrow and other stories by Al Feldstein). I had just seen an illustration by Al Feldstein, in a trade collection of classic western stories done by contemporary artists, (Western Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 20). It was just a single page illustration but it reminded me to pick up the EC collection. So, happily I just finished reading it a week or so ago, so Mr. Feldstein's work is still quite fresh in my mind.

One of the best features of these editions other than that they feature one artist/writer, is that they are reprinted in B&W. Some people don't get it or prefer to replicate the original reading experience, but I think you can better appreciate the art without the color. The line work, the compositions are clear and crisp, without being muted by the color inks over the blacks or in some editions you see the bleed through from the page art on the other side, as the pages have been improperly scanned. And I've really enjoyed reading this volume, studying every page, Al Feldstein's art and writing were what comics should aspire to.

Al Feldstein, was a wonderfully talented story teller.

Very talented man. Some of the first comics I ever read were a bunch of old ECs in box of old comics my brother gave me. I remember Feldstein and Gaines in the documentary Comic Book Confidential, talking about how they would work. Wasn't there some footage of Feldstein shaking his head, talking about how he and Gaines would work from "these springboards he would bring in" or was it Gaines talking about Feldstein, I can't remember. There was some good footage of both gentlemen.