Number 2148: Ray Bradbury, Albert Feldstein and Wallace Wood...Comics is Heaven!

“Mars is Heaven” by Ray Bradbury was originally published in the Fall, 1948 issue of Planet Stories. It was adapted by Al Feldstein for the EC version, published in Weird Science #18 (1953). Wallace Wood did the artwork.

These are scans of the original artwork, and once again, a big thank you to Heritage Auctions for posting this on their website. While his drawing is top notch, I think Wood got a bit fancy with technique. It is a minor complaint, though. He was going for visual interest in his panels. You will see where there are pasteovers; some of them were drawn on coquille board, which is pebbled, and useful for making shading effects with dots by using a pencil or Conté Crayon. Another technique, used in a couple of panels (including the last panel on page 8), is done on scratchboard, which the artist does in black ink, then uses a knife or similar tool to scratch away ink.

The story is more fantasy than science fiction, but the trip to Mars gave Wood the opportunity to draw his incredible spaceship interiors. Once on Mars the astronauts find their own nostalgic pasts. One reviewer said the original story was too much a nostalgia piece from Bradbury’s upbringing in the 1920s, but that is his opinion. In the Weird Science adaptation Wood did a fine job setting the time and place.

In those days no one expected anyone to be putting comic art on their walls or in galleries, Wood could paste-up all he wanted. Later in his career Wood was more careful about keeping a clean page.

PAPPY TAKING LEAVE OF ABSENCE

This will be the last Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine posting for an indefinite period. I will be taking at least a couple of months, and maybe more, away from this blog. I will be working on some other projects unrelated to Pappy’s.

I have stuck to a regular schedule for this blog for over a decade, and that makes me proud. But there comes a time when fatigue takes over mind and body. It’s time to do something else. While preparing the blog posts has been work, it was always a labor of love. It had to be love because I never asked for money. Even during times of frustration and struggles with recalcitrant computer equipment, if I had not enjoyed it I would not have been able to do it that long.

Naturally, I will leave my archives available for anyone to access.

I very much appreciate the support I have received over the past 11 1/2 years. Best wishes to you all. Until we meet again, I remain your friend, Pappy

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 1909: The Spawn of the Spawn of the Spawn of Venus

“The Spawn of Venus” by Wallace Wood is a famous unpublished EC Comics story. It was originally drawn by Al Feldstein (who also wrote it) in 1950 for Weird Science #6. A few years later the story was re-drawn by Wallace Wood for a 3-D comic that was never published. The market fell out from under the 3-D comics, and the artwork went on the shelf.

Feldstein’s art is very crude and stiff compared to Wood’s, like a layout for the latter version. I scanned it from the reprint of Weird Science #6, published in 1993.

Wood’s art for the 3-D version was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2011 for $38,837.50. I am using the HA scans here, which show the layers of depth. I also love its patina after many years, adding to its charm. This job wasn’t easy for Wood, because of the amount of opaquing (white paint) on the back of each figure on each overlay to prevent show-through.

The story was first published was in 1969 in Wood’s own magazine, Witzend. I took my scans from the photocopies I made before I (sob, sniff...) sold it on eBay. I hated letting it go when I sold it, and regret it to this day. But that is how a lot of things I wish I still had went missing from my collection. At least I had the presence of mind to make copies. I am sure that whatever money I made in selling it went to something frivolous like groceries or a mortgage payment.