The EC Archives: Weird Fantasy Volume 2

The EC Archives

by Al Feldstein, William M. Gaines, Wallace Wood

The fantasies just get weirder at Dark Horse! This wonderful and bizarre volume collects issues #7-12 of the groundbreaking comics anthology--remastered in glorious digital color! Featuring twenty-four breathtaking tales from iconic writers and artists including Al Feldstein, Jack Kamen, George Roussos, Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, and Mac Elkin, with a foreword by rock-and-roll legend Gene Simmons!

Genres: Comics, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Horror

216 pages, Hardcover

Published October 11, 2016

About the author

Albert Bernard Feldstein was an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. After retiring from Mad, Feldstein concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another great reprint collection of the hard to find EC comics. No matter what your taste in a comic story EC has you covered. They provided great art and writing in Fantasy, SiFi, Romance, Western, Crime, Horror and Supernatural comics. They are just a great enjoyable read.
Recommended

[Canavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭✭

[Ruz El · Rating 4 out of 5]

EC Comics were cooking when these issues came out. As a result - text stories aside - there isn't a bad story in this volume. Some are woefully dated, but in a comedic way then so they go down okay now. Art is just as solid. I'll never be big on the digital colouring on these, but dem's the breaks to get these issues close to how they were meant to be read. I loved it.

[Al Capwned · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most interesting part of reading the EC Comics is that you get to see the influnce they had in latter works. I see, for example, that they influenced The Twilight Zone (1959), a show that influenced tons of latter films, TV shows, comics and other media and that's really something by itself.

[EC Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wallace Wood's sunset as an 'action' Sci-Fi artist. Volume one saw his maturing and shedding of former partner Harrison, and ended with two of his classic self written stories, "Deadlock" and "Rescued". Here, he cranks out "Spawn of Mars", "The Secret of Saturns Ring", and "Enemies of the Colony", all of them classic, the last one written himself. He turns the corner into serious stories, doing double duty with two stories per issue for the last three. Stories work like "The Mutants", "Two Century Journey", and "Project Survival" look great and have ideas, but are comparatively dreary and undramatic.
For contrast, Joe Orlando turns in some nice gross outs: "Mistake In Multiplication" has aliens taking over (again!), and "A Man's Job" ends the book with a good laugh. Kamen's work looks even better, and stories like "Come Into My Parlor", "A Timely Shock" and "Shrinking From Abuse" rank among his best and most subversive work.
The book kicks off with two of Feldstein's final sci fi stories, and they are both fun if not among his most memorable. There's a few contributions by short timers like Roussous that aren't terrible. Weird Fantasy, for my money, was consistently the stronger of the two titles, most definitely so in volumes 2 and 3 of these archives. The front cover is also classic, one of Feldstein's most iconic. Very nice.

[Sylvester · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second volume of Werid Fantasy, some of the stories stood out, particularly the ones with combination of science fiction, the ones with horror elements were rather contriving. Good for a speed run but can get disparaging if done in fragments.