Corpse on the Imjin And Other Stories (The EC Comics Library, 1) - Hardcover

Kurtzman, Harvey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1606995456 ISBN 13: 9781606995457

Publisher: Fantagraphics, 2012

Synopsis

Besides Mad, Harvey Kurtzman created the scrupulously researched and superbly crafted anthologies Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, war comics without heroic, cigar-chomping sergeants, wisecracking privates from Brooklyn, or cartoon Nazis and “Japs” to be mowed down by the Yank heroes. These comics are an unflinching look at the horror and madness of combat throughout history. Kurtzman employed some of the finest of the EC artists, including the legendary Jack Davis, John Severin, and Wallace Wood, but his vision came through clearest in the dozen or so stories he both wrote and drew himself, in his uniquely bold, slashing, cartoony-but-dead-serious style (“Stonewall Jackson,” “Iwo Jima,” “Rubble,” “Big ‘If ’,” and Kurtzman’s own favorite, “Air Burst”). “Corpse on the Imjin!” is rounded off with a dozen or so stories written and laid out by Kurtzman and drawn by a “short-timers,” i.e. cartoonists whose contributions to his war books only comprised a story or two.

About this title

About the Author:

In addition to his pioneering work on the “serious” EC war comics, Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993) created the all-time greatest satirical comic (with Mad), the most widely-read adult comic strip (with “Little Annie Fanny” in Playboy), and one of the earliest graphic novels (with the 1959 The Jungle Book).

Gary Groth is the co-founder of The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books. He lives in Seattle.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Before he created MAD, Harvey Kurtzman, who began as an artist with EC Comics, edited a couple of the publisher’s war comics. Compulsorily hands-on, he made editing include writing and drawing. When all those tasks overloaded him, he called in other artists but held them to fully developed pictorial layouts that he created. In separate contributions, R. C. Harvey and Jared Gardner recount very well Kurtzman’s early career and working procedures, including his research to assure that uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, settings, and slang accurately reflected the Korean War, in which most of the stories were set, and the occasional battle from another conflict. Kurtzman’s favorite hired hands became MAD stalwarts, but the others represented in this book include such established and future comic-book masters as Reed Crandall, Russ Heath, Joe Kubert, and though he didn’t truckle to Kurtzman, Alex Toth. Indeed, the two Toth aviation pieces here are artistically superior to everything else except, perhaps, the 11 Kurtzman-drawn entries, in which he practices a powerful expressionistic realism. Kurtzman’s scripts, though verbose and corny, represent war as all-but-unavoidable but brutally death-dealing, necessary but inglorious. Comics fans, connoisseurs, and historians all rave about EC’s war comics; this collection potently demonstrates that they ain’t just whistlin’ “Dixie.” --Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: Fantagraphics
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1606995456
• ISBN 13: 9781606995457
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240