The Thing From The Grave and Other Stories

The EC Artists' Library #19

by Joe Orlando (Illustrator), Al Fedstein, Ray Bradbury

Joe Orlando and Al Feldstein adapt Bradbury, preach about drug addiction in “The Monkey,” and more in our latest EC Artist volume, which also includes a 3-D story that has never been reprinted (in 2-D). This special collection features more than 30 EC classics from the pages of Tales From the Crypt , The Haunt of Fear , The Vault of Horror , Shock SuspenStories , Impact , and Crime SuspenStories . Of special note is all of Orlando’s Panic stories, including parodies of Mother Goose, TV commercials, and soap operas. Black & white illustrations throughout.

Genres: Horror, Comics, Short Stories, Graphic Novels, Crime, Anthologies

240 pages, Hardcover

Published August 15, 2017

About the author

Joseph Orlando was an Italian American illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades.
(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Thing From The Grave & Other Stories collects 33 EC tales illustrated by Joe Orlando.

When I think of Joe Orlando, I normally think of him in his capacity as editor of House of Mystery and Swamp Thing at DC. It turns out Joe knew his way around a drawing board as well, both late in his career as an artist on Daredevil, and in his heyday at EC.

While Joe wasn't as prolific as other EC artists, some of his horror and humor work from EC is collected here. Once I forgave him for not being Jack Davis or Wally Wood, I enjoyed this volume quite a bit.

The tales inside are penned by Al Feldstein, Carl Wessler, Jack Mendolsohn, Jack Oleck, Nick Meglin, Ray Bradbury, and Gardner Fox. They range from great to passable. I found the parodies from Panic tolerable but they are woefully dated. The standard EC surprise ending is in full effect in the others.

Like I said before, Joe Orlando is no Wally Wood but the guy could draw. He's great at setting the mood with his use of blacks and he's also great at drawing rotting corpses, a must for EC artists back in the day. The parodies from Panic! show Orlando's versatility.

While he's no Wally Wood, Joe Orlando could hang with the big dogs any day of the week. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[Williwaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these new Fantagraphics reprints of the old E.C. comics. They distinguish themselves from other reprints by organizing each volume by artist. Furthermore, the stories seem to be presented in more or less chronological order (based on which ones were published first). This gives the reader an opportunity to see how the artist's work developed over time.

This volume contains comics drawn by Joe Orlando. What strikes me is his versatility. Other E.C. artists had an immediately recognizable style: good examples of such artists include Wallace Wood, Jack Davis, or Al Williamson. When I see their work, it's so distinctive that I can almost always identify the artist with ease.

Not so with Orlando. It seems like he's experimenting with different styles from one story to the next, and that he never got too comfortable with any of them. Nevertheless, he was a fine artist who might have developed more distinctively if he had chosen to do so.

Ultimately, he became an editor at D.C., and we can thank him for titles like House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and Weird War Tales, which continued the E.C. tradition, albeit under the constraints of the Comics Code.

[Erick Mertz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read/look. I love the vintage feeling of these stories and the art work. This book brought me back to the days and era when I used to sit around on my friend's bedroom floor, reading well-pawed comic books, spreading urban myths.

Looking back on this now though, I feel these stories are a little rudimentary. They're like one-liner jokes, cliches, horror tropes I've seen rendered a hundred times.

My main attraction to this book was the inclusion of the Ray Bradbury story, which was fantastically rendered and worth it on its own. Still, that luminary tale felt like it stood out too much as the rest was rather juvenile.

www.erickmertzauthor.com

[Nihal Vrana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that Wally Wood was a more talented artist with a keen eye for details, but Orlando is a good storyteller also. It made me sad again that EC had to stop because towards the end they hit their stride, the stories were more mature, better designed, and then it all fell apart on them. At least Orlando has a nice, impactful career in comics. I cared less about his parody work at the end of the book as it felt too cynical and nasty. Again, this EC collection is the best out there, I'm glad that they did this. I will read them slowly one by one.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

The First half of this book was great. It was creepy and entertaining. The second half was dull and boring. I would have loved to have read more stories like the ones in the beginning. This could have been really awesome, but unfortunately, it was ruined for me by the second half.