Monday, September 15, 2008

EC War Comics and George Washington



(click to enlarge)

Before there was a MAD magazine there was a MAD comic book. And before there was a MAD comic book EC Comics who published MAD published horror, crime, science fiction, and war comic books.

The below story in EC’s TWO-FISTED TALES no 29, Sept-Oct 1951, was written by Harvey Kurtzman who would go on to create MAD, and illustrated by future MAD artists Will Elder and John Severin.

This Revolutionary War incident happened in Manhattan 232 years ago. It was just about when the war was getting started. George Washington almost had a nervous breakdown – probably because he realized how overwhelming the odds were stacked against him. I scanned just enough of the strips of the story to give you an idea of EC war comics strived in being historically correct.



(click to enlarge)

3 comments:

Si's blog said...

Now there is my idea of a superhero.

When I was an impresionable kid, the only comics I could get were "Classic Comics". Wrote a few book reports based on them. This is sort of like that - except for the expletives which are probably correct.

Si's blog said...

Obviously waw not paying attention in spelin' clas, either.

Eddie said...

Si,
Strange that you should mention Classic Comics - Harvey Kurtzman, who wrote the Washington thing, his first job was with Classic Comics.

I gave more than a couple of book reports based on what I looked at and read in Classic Comics too.