Number 2144: Two by Feldstein

In the early days of EC Comics’ New Trend Al Feldstein was the edtior/writer/artist who led them to success with a small bunch of titles. His figure drawing may have been stiff, as Feldstein admits, but the graphic design and the covers he drew caught the eye of comic book buyers.

These two stories are early work for two issues of Weird Science, and despite Feldstein’s tendency to use too much text, his pictures have impact. The scans are taken from Heritage Auctions, without permission, but with love in my heart for them, posting enough original art for what is for me an online museum of comic book artwork.

Feldstein gave what was probably his last interview to Comics Journal publisher Gary Groth in 2013. I have excerpted some things I think are pertinent.

GROTH: Now I’ve heard you say that you were dissatisfied with your drawing; is that true? Do I remember that correctly?

FELDSTEIN I always felt that my drawing was stiff. Although there were periods where I improved, when I started doing the romance stuff with Bill. And my drawing was better. I always felt that a guy like Johnny Craig was so much more talented than me. I have since learned that my particular style of drawing was very unique. And though I felt it was static and stiff, it had a kind of personality.

GROTH: Absolutely, absolutely. I can see where you would notice that Johnny Craig had a kind of fluidity to his work that I suppose yours lacked. But yours had a kind of baroque inking style that gave it this marvelous finish.

FELDSTEIN: I don’t know how it developed over the years. I started with Iger, I sat next to Matt Baker and learned to draw headlight comics. Jack Kamen and the rest, all the rest of those wonderful artists in Iger’s shop.

From Weird Science #13 (Actual issue #2, 1950):

“Made of the Future” is a concept I don’t think is that far off. When AI can be successfully adapted there will be guys lining up like they are for the latest iPhone. I disagree with Gary Groth’s assessment that it is “not a realistic possibility.” The idea of a robot used for sexual purposes is already here. Not like the Feldstein story. Not quite yet, anyway. (Disclaimer if my wife is reading this: Not for me, of course. Heh, heh.) (See this article from Rolling Stone magazine.)

On February 14, 2013, Gary Groth interviewed Al Feldstein for Child of Tomorrow (a collection of EC comics drawn by Feldstein).

On “Made of the Future”:

GROTH: One of the stories you did that was not a realistic possibility was “Made of the Future.”

FELDSTEIN: I tried to step further into the future of science and technology in terms of being able to create your own robot human.

GROTH: The perfect wife.

FELDSTEIN: In that case, yes.

GROTH: [Laughs.] Which was such a crazy premise, but it worked.

FELDSTEIN: I think it fulfilled a kind of an idealistic fantasy. To be able to have a realistic enough robot to be able to relate to sexually and otherwise.

GROTH: And as crazy as it was, you believed it while reading the story.

FELDSTEIN: All the stories were tacked on a realistic level, because that’s the only way I could convince the reader that this was what could happen.

From Weird Science #5 (corrected numbering, after four issues using numbering continued from Saddle Romances, 1951)

Number 7

It Rhymes With Lust


The Comics Journal did a gutsy thing by using 63 pages to reprint the 1950 Picture Novel, It Rhymes With Lust, in their latest issue, #277.

There are a couple of articles by Michael T. Gilbert and Ken Quattro giving the history of It Rhymes With Lust, a novel written by "Drake Waller," (pseudonyms of Leslie Waller and Arnold Drake). Reading about an old experiment in comics is different than seeing it. So it was great that TCJ decided to print the whole thing, and let the readers decide whether it qualifies as the first graphic novel.

It Rhymes With Lust was originally printed in black and white with color covers, in a format halfway between a paperback book and comic book. It reminded me of common black-and-white comics printed in Europe, of which I have a few. I'm not sure which came first, the Euro comics, or It Rhymes With Lust, but like any idea, it probably had several incarnations in different places, some more successful than others.

In his TCJ article about the book, Michael T. Gilbert describes the plot as akin to a "B-movie potboiler," which it was. That was probably one of the problems with it; it stuck too close to what was already being seen, both in movies and paperback books. Matt Baker, the artist, was closely associated with romance comics, so it had something of a romance comic feel. That was OK for luring in females to buy it. I just wonder if it worked. Obviously not enough people bought it, since the format was killed after one more experiment (a mystery called Case Of The Winking Buddha, with art by Charles Raab).

I'm including examples of a couple of panels from It Rhymes With Lust, which show that some of the dialogue was strictly from an author's imagination, and nothing anyone would say in real life, or even in a movie. Only in a comic book could you get a line that says, "By the god that made me!" instead of something like, "Goddam it!"

I'm not advocating the use of swearing, but probably throwing in a couple of hells and damns might have made the novel seem more adult, more apart from the movies and color newsstand comic books it was inspired by.

A couple of years ago, Fantagraphics, publisher of The Comics Journal, published a graphic novel version of Nightmare Alley, drawn by Spain Rodriguez, an interpretation of the popular noir novel and movie of the late 1940s. This is more of what I think the book It Rhymes With Lust could have and should have been: an earthier, sexier, tougher book by far than the half-wimpy but prettily illustrated black-and-white comic book it was.


Michael Gilbert found his copy of It Rhymes With Lust on the top shelf in a Powell's bookstore. My fantasy would be to be digging around Powell's and find a 1950 graphics novel version of Nightmare Alley, drawn by EC Comics great Graham Ingels, who would have been the perfect artist for that book. I'm allowed to dream about it, anyway.