Zero Hour And Other Stories (The EC Comics Library, 10)

With his wholesome approach, Jack Kamen stood out amongst the grandguignol grunge, gritty realism, or futuristic dazzle of his fellow EC cartoonists âe" but his brilliant editor/writer Al Feldstein found a way to exploit the surface innocence of his style with seemingly nice stories of romance gone horribly wrong, or future fantasies with an unexpectedly brutal twist. And nowhere did Kamenâe(tm)s clean-but-lush graphics work better than in the stories he created for ECâe(tm)s science-fiction comics. The title story, âeoeZero Hourâe (one of three in this book adapted from works by Ray Bradbury), set in a Spielbergian suburban idyll, is particularly well served by Kamenâe(tm)s surface innocence; âeoeA Lesson in Anatomyâe works similar magic, with its Mayberry-esque setting veering into alien-invasion terror. If there was any devil in Kamen, it came out in his loving depiction of the female face and form, and you could see why his hapless heroes were often fatally entranced with them âe" as in âeoePunishment Without Crimeâe (Bradbury again), âeoeHe Who Waits!âe (a scientist finds an extreme way of rejoining his eight-inch-tall inamorata), and âeoeMiscalculation!âe (the lucky recipient of a package from the future literally brews his own harem); even the supercomputer in âeoeOnly Human!âe proves vulnerable to a beautiful womanâe(tm)s charms. Zero Hour And Other Stories contains 22 classic EC yarns âe" plus the usual all-new biographical, historical, and critical essays that have made Fantagraphicsâe(tm) EC Library series the ultimate version of these classics.… (more)