The Planetoid and Other Stories (EC Comics Library)

Joe Orlando partnered early with Wallace Wood on a variety of science fiction comics, including several for EC Comics. But he quickly made a name for himself and struck out on his own, carving out a long and distinguished career in American comics.

Orlando became a mainstay at EC, especially on science fiction, and The Planetoid And Other Stories collects his first two dozen. All of them, scripted by editor/writer Al Feldstein, serve up classic O. Henry–style shock endings, including a mind-bending time-travel twister in which a man visits the past and (unknowingly) romances his own mother (think about it), a gender-switching look at a future where women are the breadwinners and men are the homemakers, another future where marriages are limited by law to three-year contracts, a good old-fashioned “planets collide” shocker, an animal rights parable, plus lots of rollicking space opera, aliens, and, of course, interplanetary monsters (some of them human).

This volume also includes a complete reproduction of EC’s special issue devoted to its own 32-page “illustrated, factual flying saucer report,” with art by Orlando, Wallace Wood, George Evans, and Reed Crandall. Plus, a heartfelt foreword by former DC publisher Paul Levitz, who began his career in comics when Orlando hired him as an assistant, an introduction by Thommy Burns, and featured essays and commentary by EC experts.

Albert B. Feldstein (1928–2014; Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2003) was a triple-threat writer, artist, and editor, renowned for his work on such titles as Weird Science, Tales From the Crypt, and MAD magazine. He received the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

Joe Orlando (1927–1998; Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2007) became one of EC’s top science fiction/fantasy illustrators in the early 1950s. He freelanced for Mad and Warren Publications in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he edited House of Mystery, Phantom Stranger, Swamp Thing, Plop! and other titles for DC Comics, where he later became a vice president.

Paul Levitz (b. 1956; Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2019), a 47-year veteran of DC Comics, seven of them as publisher, got his start in comics when Joe Orlando hired him as his assistant. Levitz is also a noted editor and writer (Legion of Super-Heroes) and has received both the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award and the Dick Giordano Hero Initiative Humanitarian of the Year Award.

Joe Orlando (1927–1998; Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2007) became one of EC’s top science fiction/fantasy illustrators in the early 1950s. He freelanced for Mad and Warren Publications in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he edited House of Mystery, Phantom Stranger, Swamp Thing, Plop! and other titles for DC Comics, where he later became a vice president.