Choke Gasp! The Best of 75 Years of EC Comics

‘Choke Gasp!’ is a gorgeous, top-shelf treasury of classic comics culled from the E.C. vaults. The book is printed on high quality paper with a sturdy binding. The lines are crisp and the colors are vividly reproduced. I have been collecting E.C. reprints since the early 90’s and I can honestly say that this is the most eye-pleasing arrangement of E.C. material you will find in a single volume- hands down!Conceived of as a kind of ‘Greatest Hits’ collection, featuring E.C.’s classic roster of talented artists and including some of their most iconic works, ‘Choke Gasp!’ is a love letter to fans, and a great introduction to some of the most notorious and brilliant comics ever released.So... why only four stars, you ask? Although I think nearly every story here merits inclusion, some favorites were left out (which, on some level is unavoidable, I suppose, in a single volume collection). I also think the order could have been arranged to have better overall flow, and I found myself craving more information about the individual artists and about E.C. itself- of which there is only a brief introduction. These are minor gripes though, because what you do get is exceptionally good!While I understand the complaints some have lodged against the digital re-coloring, I found the color choices (for the most part) to be tasteful and very appropriate to the original art. Anyone familiar with either the original E.C.’s or the later reprints will notice some differences here and there: some subtle, some not so subtle. The shading is more pronounced, especially on flesh tones- but I didn’t find it excessive or distracting. The originals E.C.’s were done quickly, and the early years, particularly, did leave some room for improvement in the color department. These new editions often give a sense of depth and realism that the originals did occasionally lack. Often, I find the new colors compliment the original art better than the colors used on the original releases. Not in every case, but in many.For those who want to enjoy these stories exactly as they were originally released, I would recommend the Russ Cochran reprints from the 90’s and early 2000’s. These reprints come about as close as possible to having a collection of E.C. originals. I have the entire Horror collection of the Cochran reprints and they are my go to versions for casual reading.Any way that you enjoy them, I think fans can all agree there is nothing like losing yourself in an E.C. comic. For me, they raise the bar on Horror and Science Fiction in pop art.A ‘desert island’ collection of E.C jewels. Enjoy!

This is a very generous (60+stories) anthology of the EC Comics line from the ‘50s, which probably needs no introduction at this point. Most of the best-known stories are here (see below), although the book is thin on stories from the Harvey Kurtzman war titles. There are no rarities, and no MAD or PANIC stories included. The color is good, and looks to be based on the original Marie Severin coloring—whether it matches, I don’t know.If you are new to EC, this book is a great way to poke around and see what you think. For those who know the line already, you will probably be more or less pleased depending on your taste. There’s a lot of Davis and Ingels horror stories (about 9 each), including “Horror We, How’s Bayou,” “Foul Play,” and others. The other most-represented artists are Jack Kamen (7 stories) and Johnny Craig (6); their styles may seem less than contemporary now, but they were part of the EC experience.The war and science fiction artists are less-represented, but there is still a lot of prime material here: 5 Wood stories, including “Came the Dawn,” and “Mars is Heaven,” and four Williamson/Fleagles, including “Sound of Thunder” and “50 Girls 50.” (Frazetta’s “Squeeze Play” is NOT included.) By my count there are 10 of the Kurtzman war stories: 3 illustrated by him, 4 by John Severin, and 3 others, including Toth’s “Thunderjet.” The book also includes some nice Reed Crandall and the two most famous Bernie Krigstein stories, “The Flying Machine” and “Master Race.”This is a good deal. I would guess someone new to this stuff after 60 years will probably find some of it visually pleasing and some of it kind of wooden. Likewise, the story content often revolves around gory shock endings; but some of the stories, like “Rommel” and “Judgment Day” have higher aspirations, and I think they hold up well. There’s also a nice noir-ish quality to the EC crime stories.*One caution for ipad readers:* As I write this, CHOKE GASP uses the old, bad comics format—where you can’t enlarge part of a page to your taste, but only click on any one panel to make it slightly bigger. Some of the EC ARCHIVES ebook series are like this; many others work like any other Kindle with pictures, where you can expand any part of the page as much as you want. (I’m on a 5th series ipad). The format used is vexing and I hope they fix it. It’s a pleasure to zoom in really close on the art (some of it is that good) and you can’t do that.With that caveat—nice job.

My uncle used to collect the original EC Comics, and I remember his love for them. Have since acquired a good 20 or 30 volumes of EC Comic collections from Dark Horse, and gave this anthology as a gift to my son. He did not read it. One year later, his sister and i have had a ball going through all but the war stories (which are less to her tastes). Since the "Weird Science" stories sometimes end sweetly, they provide a nice counterbalance to all the stories about kids electrocuting other kids, and that sort of thing. I doubt this will be as much of a collectors' item as many (most) other EC collections, but for pure reading pleasure, it's a favorite. Tons of Ray Bradbury stories too. And while I am hardly a science fiction fan, almost all his stories had plots that made you conclude, "This would make a great movie." Don't remember Borges ever writing about him, but imagine Borges would have loved him.

Although the EC comics of the early 1950s have been reprinted numerous times in numerous formats, there's always been a need for a big, one-stop "greatest hits". This book tries to plug that gap. Sadly, it doesn't quite do it.For those arriving late, EC was a small American comics publisher, active as such from 1945-1955 (this book's secondary title is somewhat misleading) who seriously punched above their weight once they hit their stride in 1950. Prior to that, they'd attempted to follow market trends, with largely uninteresting results. At that point, they (publisher Bill Gaines, writer/editors Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman and Johnny Craig, and a slew of some of the best artists in the field at the time) opted to produce the kind of comics they would like to read for themselves. The results were stunning: probably the most consistently high-quality range of comics ever produced by an American publishing house. They had their faults (they were frequently over-wordy, and the plots, especially in the horror mags, could be repetitive), but they were so far ahead of their competitors as to be coming from a different dimension. And they were genuinely innovative. EC may not have invented the horror, war, SF and crime comics genres, but they defined and perfected them to a level unrivalled by other publishers, and Kurtzman's MAD was a true breakthrough, the first satirical comic in the US and one which was hugely influential and widely copied. They also left their highly talented artists alone, and didn't impose a house style, resulting in a spread of visual delights ranging from Craig's elegant modernism through Bernard Krigstein's formal experimentation to the wonderful illustrative skills of Wallace Wood and Al Williamson. The house all fell down in 1955 - EC were basically thrown to the wolves by other publishers, becoming the sacrificial scapegoat to appease a moral panic about the alleged social problems caused by comics - but there was a hugely successful afterlife as MAD morphed into a magazine format which avoided the censorship and distribution problems that crippled EC's comic books. MAD, of course, became a huge success and lasted for over 60 further years.The quality and influence of EC's great years (1950-55) is enduring and there's much to celebrate. This book attempts to do so by offering a thorough overview of the period. To a considerable extent, it succeeds. 64 stories, by 15 artists, across over 500 pages of full-colour, high quality paper in a handsome hardback with rare caricatures of the EC staff (by the Severin siblings John and Marie, who were both key players in the team), at a modest price, is a package to be approached with respect and appreciation. It's a more than decent attempt to showcase the great work produced in the period. Many of the celebrated classic stories are here. And there's a good selection of the Ray Bradbury stories EC adapted for comics with considerable flair.But it could have been so much better. How so?First of all, there's a paucity of editorial material. The two-page introduction is fine as a (very) brief scene setter, but that's all you get. It would have been nice to have more information on the artists, giving biographical details, an introduction to their differing styles, and, particularly for the likes of Wood and Krigstein, an overview of their subsequent importance to the comics field. This would also benefit readers new to the likes of Craig and Kurtzman, whose strengths may not be immediately apparent to modern eyes.Then, there's the digital recolouring. It's not bad, as these things go - there have been some abominable attempts at recolouring old comics over the last few decades (not least Dark Horse's own editions of Barry Smith's Conan, back in the noughties, which were an insult to the artist) but this ain't one of 'em. You can certainly ignore the fatuous one-star review which rejects the whole book on the basis of the recolouring (though that review is an exemplar of the Hysterical Entitlement school of Amazon review). Nope, as digital recolouring goes, this is actually a pretty decent job, sympathetic to the original work by Marie Severin, and it certainly won't ruin your enjoyment. You might not even notice it. The trouble is, it's not necessary. Marie Severin was one of the great colour artists in US comics history and an absolutely integral part of the EC team. Her work on the originals was great, and it's both disrespectful of her memory and historically misleading not to use her own work. What's more, the original artists knew their work would appear with flat colour, from a relatively narrow palate, on the printed page, and drew their stories with that in mind. The subtle graded shades seen in some panels here don't look bad, but they're a touch over-gilded, and unnecessary. There's nothing bad in the colouring here, it's just the stories would actually look better with the original.The biggest problem, however, comes in the selection of stories. They're presented by artist, and the volume of stories per artist broadly reflects the productivity of the artists in questions. So we have more stories by EC's most prolific artists (Jack Davis, Graham Ingels and Jack Kamen) than anyone else. This may be historically accurate, but it's not aesthetically pleasing. Davis and Ingels are legends, but while Kamen was a charming artist he was definitely a tier-2 player within the EC team and for him to have 7 stories here compared to just 5 from Wallace Wood (credited here as Wally, which he'd have hated) is indefensible. There are only two stories by Krigstein. Artists like Russ Heath and Alex Toth, though great talents, are peripheral to EC's history, but they get a story each while Will Elder gets none (except as inker over John Severin's pencils). Let that sink in. Will Elder, the defining artist on MAD, EC's most successful, most influential and most enduring title, isn't included at all. In fact, there are no humour stories at all. Anything that claims to be the best of EC but doesn't include any humour is nothing of the sort.Then there's the selection of stories within each artist's chapter. Many stories cited as classics are missing. The Kamen chapter doesn't include, among others, "The Orphan", "The October Game" or "Kamen's Calamity". Joe Orlando's drug story, "The Monkey", is dated and naive, but it's so famous it needs to be here. None of the World War One air-ace stories for which George Evans is most celebrated are included. And among many others missing from the Wood section are "Gee Dad... It's A Daisy", "Superduperman" (the one single story credited with making MAD a commercial success) and, unforgivably, his most celebrated story, "My World". I could go on. Obviously, you can't include everything, because the EC titles and artists were so consistent, and there's always going to be some subjectivity in preferences, but some of the omissions are absolutely baffling.The book still merits four stars, just because it includes so much, of such quality, in a handsome package at a good price. All of that is admirable. But just think how good a package with more interstitial material, the original colouring, more thoughtful story selection and some humour material could have been. This book, good as it is, takes second place to a best of EC that remains to be published.

many great reviews, so I'll just fill in the visual part with photos:the book feels heafty, pretty large format (bigger than standard comic issue) measuring at 21.5 x 28 x 3.5cmnice binding. the most dissapointing parts tho - coloring is just terrible!!! I mean, if you're looking for an authenticity for your collection, this is not the best choice, as coloring was remade digitally and really low on quality/unprofessional. shadows are misplaced or done poorly sometimes, missing details like - painting a mustache same color as skin and etc. the dust cover (I hate those) only replicates original cover so it's not a big deal to get rid of it. I felt really sad finding multiple pages simply useless - a poor digital close-up cut copy-paste, as they were only doubles between stories (oh god why?!), while they could've been used for bios or other great info (ref to photo)... 3/5 at best. Would not recommend. I'd rather go for a couple great/authentic looking copies picked by my self instead of this poor revamped quality collection with only one page of intro, no bio of artists, little value.. just randomly picked stories from the series.

This is a truly beautiful and remarkable book. The art, the stories, the oversized pages in lurid colour, all remind me of a book i read years ago which introduced me to EC - simply called 'Horror Comics of the 50s' - and featured (like this) a compilation of some the company's early fifties output, but obviously (unlike this book) was horror centred.Tales here range from crime suspense, dark humoured horror, adventure, war and science fiction, including work from noted artists like John Severin, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Jack Kamen, Wally Wood, Reed Crandall, Bernie Krigstein, George evans, Al Williamson, Johnny Craig, Al Fieldstein, Graham Ingels, and a single story from Alex Toth.The book itself is sturdy and well produced, so kudos to Dark Horse for bringing this out, and for all of us who missed out on the individual volumes we'd like a few more of these massive editions, as well Pre-Trend and New Trend material and possibly some of the best Panic stuff, as sadly, DC hold the rights to Mad and they appear to be dragging their feet re-releasing early 'Mad' stuff - with their last effort, 'the usual Idiots' three volume paperback slipcase, being truly disappointing as the the format was even smaller than normal comic size, despite focusing on the great parodies of Will Elder, Jack Davis and Wally Wood.Dark Horse leads the way with classic reprints, and here you get incredible value for money, too. More of these giants, please, and certainly now that a lot of the early collected editions are slowly going out of print.Some have complained of the more modern colouring, but in reality it isn't bad and the art still impresses, and as for the stories, while some aren't classic status there are very few actually bad, and they improve with successive reads as even below par EC was way above its competition in every aspect. Definitely a worthwhile addition to the collection.

An omnibus like volume of EC comics. If you have most of the stories already then I doubt if you would buy it as it adds nothing new in terms of information etc but as I don't have all the tales, it is quite a decent addition to my bookshelf and is a decent selection of the classics. As always, I am certain many EC addicts will have their own personal favourites that are missing. For a very decent price, this book includes a huge number of classic tales ... over 500+ pages, if only all comic collections could be this good I would have loved a few Picto fiction as well as Saddle Justice and Modern Love (especially from issue 8) included in the volume as well as a bonus image gallery of all the covers ... now that would have been great.Totally recommended as a book of classic comics especially for non-EC fans who just want to get a taster of the horror / crime / SF etc

Loved this book