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Weird Science
Includes eight stories (in colour) from the original Weird Science comic from the 1950s.
Story contents:
Down to Earth (Wallace Wood), from #16, 1952
Chewed Out! (Joe Orlando), from #12, 1951
The Long Years! (Joe Orlando), from #17, 1952
Given the Heir! (Jack Kamen), from #16, 1952
Plucked! (Wallace Wood), from #17,1952
Space-Borne! (Al Williamson), from #16, 1952
Bum Steer! (Joe Orlando), from #15, 1952
He Walked Among Us (Wallace Wood), from #13, 1952
Story contents:
Down to Earth (Wallace Wood), from #16, 1952
Chewed Out! (Joe Orlando), from #12, 1951
The Long Years! (Joe Orlando), from #17, 1952
Given the Heir! (Jack Kamen), from #16, 1952
Plucked! (Wallace Wood), from #17,1952
Space-Borne! (Al Williamson), from #16, 1952
Bum Steer! (Joe Orlando), from #15, 1952
He Walked Among Us (Wallace Wood), from #13, 1952
56 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 6, 2021
I'm not a very big fan of science fiction, when it comes right down to it, but as I had just finished up reading my box set of The Complete Shock Suspenstories, I figured I would do quick reads of my set of these EC Classics collections (Russ Cochran's next attempt to get the EC material back in front of the public, this time in color - which turns out to be problematic on brighter paper and with highly detailed artwork like Wood's or the feathery touch of Al Williamson, although it works a treat with Jack Kamen's style).
Seemingly, EC's sci-fi titles were the perennial sales losers, kept afloat simply because Gaines and Feldstein loved doing them. This offers a nice selection of story types - some being the typical EC ironic or twist ending ("Space Borne" in which a man finally returns to rescue his wife who's stranded on an asteroid, to find her being menaced by a monster, which he kills, , "Bum Steer" - which basically slightly rewrites Damon Knight's famous - thanks to the TWILIGHT ZONE - story "To Serve Man," giving us a rather brutal and shocking final panel). Sometimes, the ending may be a "twist" but yet is more effective for illustrating the point of some science fiction trope ("Given The Heir" is that old saw about how you don't want to go meddling in the past for your future profit - kind of fun! "Chewed Out" - which was also ripped off in inverted form in SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES as "The Big Stand Up" - derives from Katherine MacLeane's "Pictures Don't Lie!" as Earthmen anxiously await approaching aliens they are in radio contact with, only for the concept of "scale" to provide a surprise). But sometimes the mixture of 50s sci-fi paranoia and imagery works well together ("Down To Earth" has an escalating series of airplane crashes in 1953 - a set of them involving my old stomping grounds of Elizabeth, NJ, no less! - leading a professor to posit an awful theory. It's a very straight-ahead piece with a kind of non-ending ending, but I still liked it. Much more eerie is "Plucked" in which another scientist, attending a holiday dinner with friends, posits his theory as to why there are periodic population drops in human history that have no explanation. In a weird way it feels almost like proto-Philip K. Dick doing EC comics!). The more adult, less sensationalistic sf approach also pays off with the "twist ending but still kinda thoughtful" "He Walked Among Us" (which has a lone planetary explorer come into conflict with the religious ruling elite of a planet he's investigating) and the heartfelt, sad "The Long Years" (adapted from a Ray Bradbury MARTIAN CHRONICLES story, and somewhat akin to the TWILIGHT ZONE episode "The Lonely"). All in all, not a bad sampler of where 1950s sf comics were at when they were treated as more than kid's stuff!
Seemingly, EC's sci-fi titles were the perennial sales losers, kept afloat simply because Gaines and Feldstein loved doing them. This offers a nice selection of story types - some being the typical EC ironic or twist ending ("Space Borne" in which a man finally returns to rescue his wife who's stranded on an asteroid, to find her being menaced by a monster, which he kills, , "Bum Steer" - which basically slightly rewrites Damon Knight's famous - thanks to the TWILIGHT ZONE - story "To Serve Man," giving us a rather brutal and shocking final panel). Sometimes, the ending may be a "twist" but yet is more effective for illustrating the point of some science fiction trope ("Given The Heir" is that old saw about how you don't want to go meddling in the past for your future profit - kind of fun! "Chewed Out" - which was also ripped off in inverted form in SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES as "The Big Stand Up" - derives from Katherine MacLeane's "Pictures Don't Lie!" as Earthmen anxiously await approaching aliens they are in radio contact with, only for the concept of "scale" to provide a surprise). But sometimes the mixture of 50s sci-fi paranoia and imagery works well together ("Down To Earth" has an escalating series of airplane crashes in 1953 - a set of them involving my old stomping grounds of Elizabeth, NJ, no less! - leading a professor to posit an awful theory. It's a very straight-ahead piece with a kind of non-ending ending, but I still liked it. Much more eerie is "Plucked" in which another scientist, attending a holiday dinner with friends, posits his theory as to why there are periodic population drops in human history that have no explanation. In a weird way it feels almost like proto-Philip K. Dick doing EC comics!). The more adult, less sensationalistic sf approach also pays off with the "twist ending but still kinda thoughtful" "He Walked Among Us" (which has a lone planetary explorer come into conflict with the religious ruling elite of a planet he's investigating) and the heartfelt, sad "The Long Years" (adapted from a Ray Bradbury MARTIAN CHRONICLES story, and somewhat akin to the TWILIGHT ZONE episode "The Lonely"). All in all, not a bad sampler of where 1950s sf comics were at when they were treated as more than kid's stuff!
Displaying 1 of 1 review