Foul Play!

Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics!
Written by Grant Geissman
$29.95, Harper Design (an imprint of Harper Collins)

There are very few "essential" books on comics, and few people who agree on which books should be labeled essential reading. With Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious E.C. Comics!, Grant Geissman presents, at the very least, an essential overview of the artists who made E.C. Comics into one of the most fondly remembered publishers of American comic books in the middle of the 20th century.

By focusing on the creators rather than the comics themselves, Geissman gets across the atmosphere and the vibe of the E.C. office and creative process better than he would have had he focused on a more linear, book-focused look at the company. The focus also helps to personalize artists many readers might know only through their work. The personalities of the people behind these comics comes through not only through Geissman's writing and through quotes, but through the reproduced Christmas cards and party art.

Geissman's writing is breezy and accessible, which helps shape the overall tone of the book. It's not a critique of the company, nor is it making the case for the historical significance of Gaines's stable of books--it's a book for E.C. fans by an E.C. fan. However, Geissman doesn't present a polka dots and moonbeams version of the company or its artists--the artists faults, fears and afflictions are presented in a matter-of-fact way.

Foul Play! also reprints classic E.C. horror and science fiction stories, and there isn't a poor choice in the bunch. The selections aren't all horror, either, but certain genres such as romance and western are omitted (although one could argue that "The Precious Years" by Wood, Gaines and Feldstein is more romance than science fiction). For as celebrated as the E.C. comics from the period are in some comics circles, it's possible to forget why they are lauded until one reads (or rereads) them. Some, like "50 Girls 50," still inspire chills. Some of the less successful stories, like "Kamen's Kalamity," work in the context of the book, as they represent the wink to the reader that E.C. comics popularized before the silver age Marvel books and DC's "Flash of Two Worlds" stories. The inclusion of Will Elder's "The Night Before Christmas" is surprising, but welcome--by choosing the story from Panic rather than one from Mad, Geissman reinforces the bit in Elder's section on the book being banned in Boston because of the tale, but also provides a reprint from a comic less well-known than its more famed sister publication. For the reprints alone, Foul Play! is worth the thirty dollar price tag--fourteen E.C. stories and one previously unpublished Picto-Fiction story (although that story, "Wanted for Murder," loses some detail in the art with the smaller scale of the scans in relation to the others presented in the book).

It shouldn't be a surprise that Foul Play! is a gorgeous book, considering it's published by Harper Collins's design imprint. The text and art samples are balanced, and neither side overshadows the other. It feels like a better-designed (and better written) version of the publisher-centric books Les Daniels used to write. A particularly nice touch is the use of the artist's signature as chapter headers for his or her section, which further personalizes and connects the artist to the art and looks great on the page.

Not that it's a perfect book, by any means. The introduction is the weakest part of the book. Others have already noted Geissman makes the manga-as-a-style faux paux that many writers unfamiliar with the form tend to do. Also, while he doesn't outright say that E.C. was the first horror publisher in the following passage, it certainly seems implied:

Almost overnight, E.C.'s horror titles, [...] had become the flagships of the line. This time, however, it was E.C.'s turn to be imitated, and other companies flooded the newsstands with competing horror titles.

However, as Steve Duin and Mike Richardson point out in Comics: Between the Panels, Eerie Comics #1 predated the first E.C. horror story by a year, and other publishers (including Marvel) had published horror comics in the interim between Eerie Comics and the first Crypt of Terror. One can't fault Geissman entirely--there isn't as much material to reference when writing about comics history as there is for other media--but it would have been nice to see the myth of Gaines-as-initiator supplanted by the more accurate Gaines-as-innovator.

Foul Play! has enough content in terms of biographical information and comics reprints to appeal to E.C. fans, or to comic book fans interested in the history of the medium. While it isn't necessarily an "important" book, it's an enjoyable one. Geissman's book is possibly the best E.C. comics primer and a potential resource for converting E.C. neophytes into full-fledged Fan-Addicts.