Comic Collection Additions.

I haven't had much time to devote to my comic collecting hobby lately. In fact, I've had quite a dry period for that because of my workload. I've been way too busy to work on the collection very much.

But I have picked up a couple of comics recently.

Adding to my early Marvel collection I grabbed a copy of STRANGE TALES #112. Jack Kirby cover. One of my pals has made the pitch that if the cover for these early superhero stories was by Kirby, then he likely did the plot also. He'd hand in the art for the cover along with the plot. Of course the plot would later be credited to a certain asshole editor who wrote nothing and created nothing and who slapped his name on everything to pad his paycheck and to ensure that the company retained copyright.

This issue has a story illustrated by Dick Ayers. When I was a kid I never liked any of the Human Torch stories that Ayers illustrated. There was something in those days that I found crude about his art style and I always found it an effort to read any story that he illustrated. Of course now I have a greater appreciation for him, but there's always that nagging memory of my childhood feelings coloring my opinion of his work.

The story dialog is credited to someone named "Joe Carter". I didn't know who this was, so I asked around on the Internet about him, and was informed that Mr. Carter was, in fact, Jerry Siegel, one half of the creative team who gave us Superman. In the early 60s he was still writing for the industry and he did the dialog on a number of these Human Torch yarns.

There's also a good Steve Ditko science-fiction story in the mix. All through the first few years of the superhero renaissance at Marvel there was a backlog of science-fiction and monster stories written and illustrated by the likes of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Paul Reinman, and the rest of the Marvel bullpen in those days. So Marvel would pad the issues out with these unpublished stories that had already been commissioned and paid for. It's actually for these monster stories mainly by Kirby and Ditko that I started collecting comics again.

STRANGE TALES #112.

Another book that I picked up was an EC. I don't focus on collecting Golden Age comics, but I do enjoy buying EC books now and again. I've bought a number of them this year, and this one was a real find. It's in decent shape and is currently the oldest EC comic that I own, published in 1950. It's #16, but is in reality #2 of the title. It used the numbering from a previous title and after #17 the numbering started with #4. So there are actually two "#15 through #17", which can be confusing.

Owning this book, I'm reminded why EC is considered as having the highest quality stories and artwork of any mainstream comic book publisher in the history of the format. I hope to keep buying ECs over the next few years.

HAUNT OF FEAR #16 (actually #2) with a great Johnny Craig cover.