Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: EC

Graham Ingels — Trapped… In The Crypt*

Original Art and The Artists

Tales From the Crypt #23, April-May, 1951

Graham (“Ghastly”) Ingels creates a fabulous story page for the classic (and unsurprisingly, horrific) EC tale, “Last Respects.” (Tales of the Crypt #23.)

I likely first ran into this specific story from the Vault of Horror reprint paperback (1965) which I grabbed at a flea market sometime the early 70s. Oddly, the Crypt cover from this story was reused as the jacket art for the amazing Nostalgia Press EC reprint collection (1971) (which hooked me into EC Comics to begin with) — but did not include the story inside!

As for Ingels himself? — He was the most prolific of the EC horror artists and in many ways, he was the most intriguing personality of the EC gang. Later in his life, he was certainly the most elusive, seemingly horrified (pun intended) by his contribution to these classic comics.

*Yes, I know it’s a mausoleum, but crypt was more fun, and appropriate.

See you next week for another taste of Halloween horror; it is October after all!

Screenshot

Jack Davis — Knockout

Original Art and The Artists

Playboy Magazine, November 1960

Can you think of another artist whose work appeared in Mad, Time, TV Guide and Playboy at the height of their circulation in the 60s and 70s? Not to mention seminal work as a visual storyteller at EC Comics?

Nope, me either.

“Jack Davis was quite possibly the most ubiquitous American humor illustrator of all time. Davis was a master cartoonist, caricaturist, and illustrator, and his funny, fast-paced, manic, beautifully rendered work has graced the covers of countless comic books, magazines, and record albums and has also appeared on movie posters, bubble gum cards, and advertisements. A virtual mind-boggling one-man industry, Davis has been called “the fastest cartoonist alive” and “the master of the crowd scene.” It’s astonishing to realize that this quiet Southern gentleman was usually finished with assignments for the day and out on the golf course by 2:30 p.m.”

– Drew Friedman from his Fantagraphics book, Heroes of the Comics.