Giant size book of EC comic book art: Weird Science, Tales from the Crypt, etc.

Cory and I have both raved about MAD: Artist’s Edition, a massive hardcover book of high-fidelity scans of original MAD comic book art pages from the 1950s, complete with pencil lines, rubber stamps, Zip-A-Tone, pasted-over panels, yellowing Wite Out, notes in margins, and other markings that add interest to the pages. The paper used in the book was selected to closely match the bristol board of the original pages. (Here’s Cory’s review, and here’s my discussion of the book on Gweek).

When I discovered that IDW, publisher of the MAD: Artist’s Edition released The Best of EC: Artist’s Edition, I immediately ordered it, too. EC is the same publisher that published MAD, and it used the same stable of virtuoso artists and writers in the 1950s to produce some of the best comic book titles in history, including Weird Science and Tales from the Crypt. This edition includes art by Frank Frazetta, Harvey Kurtzman, Johnny Craig, Roy Krenkel, Bernie Krigstein, Joe Orlando, Alex Toth, and Al Williamson. I haven’t received The Best of EC: Artist’s Edition yet, but to give you an idea of how big the book is and how nice the scans look in the Artist’s Series editions, I asked Jane and Anna to pose with my MAD book.

Here’s another photo of the book with the most recent issue of MAKE for size comparison.

The Best of EC: Artist’s Edition