Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writers: Otto Binder, Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein, Carl Wessler
Artists: Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Bill Elder, George Evans, Frank Frazetta, Jack Kamen, Bernie Krigstein, Joe Orlando, Wally Wood
Colourist: Marie Severin & Carlos Badilla
Release date: May 6, 2015
Price: $49.99
Any time a publisher issues a high-quality, hardcover, reprint of classic EC Comics it’s a real cause for celebration. To its credit Dark Horse EC Archive’s treats the source material with respect and affection it obviously deserves. And for good reason: where else can you find some of the greatest graphic artists in history, Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Bill Elder, George Evans, Frank Frazetta, Jack Kamen, Bernie Krigstein, Joe Orlando and Wally Wood, all in one supreme, carefully crafted tome.
Writers Otto Binder, Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein and Carl Wessler put meat on the bones of the stories. Each tale is a mini-masterpiece of greed, betrayal, murder, femme fatales, racism, crooked cops, alcoholism, rape and insanity which still resonate with contemporary social problems still in play in the far-flung days of the twenty-first century. And, just like reality, sometimes the good guys win, and sometimes they simply don’t. Unlike EC Comics equally famous/infamous horror comics there is nothing supernatural going on here: the monsters are always going to be us.
Dark Horse Comics Shock SuspenStories Volume 3 reprints 26 stories from issues ♯13-18 (1954-1955), which of the last pre-Comics Code issues the company published. Dark Horse Comics attention to authenticity means the original ads and text fillers included too.
The 1950s Shock SuspenStories were colored by the great Marie Severin (later a renowned and extremely underrated Marvel artist and inker), and have been recolored digitally by Carlos Badilla, following Servin’s style. The result stays true to the original artwork while adding more depth.
Notable standouts are Feldstein and Frazetta’s classic story Squeeze Play detailing a murder gone terribly wrong; and A Kind of Justice, by Wessler and Crandall, which sees a mob kill an innocent man over a rape allegation. But that is like picking diamonds out of a bowl of rubies; everything in Dark Horse Comics Shock SuspenStories Volume 3 will tempt the eye and alarm the mind.
Any comic book fan unfamiliar with EC owes it to themselves to find out what all the fuss is about. And why the Comic Book Code’s strangled the life out of EC Comics. But not just yet, as far as EC Archives Shock SuspenStories Volume 3 is concerned. Sort of one last gasp, one last burst of comic book brilliance.
Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker