Back in the 1950s public opinion and politicians doomed EC Comics main bread and butter line, the horror lines. EC was almost totally owned by Bill Gaines. Bill also had a new up and rising star, MAD comicbook. However, horror comics must go. Gaines tried to gracefully sidestep from horror comics to other adult-magnet comics. None worked. MAD was the only one that survived.
One of the new comics he started was ACES HIGH. It was mostly based on airplane dog fighting. After you read a few of the stories in ACES HIGH you read them all. Or, at least that is my opinion.
However, the visuals are sensational. Click on each picture to get the full appreciation of the sense of graceful aviation ballets and mechanical poetry in motion that the artists proved their worth.
Skip the stories, just look at the pictures. To help you ignore the story I skipped the pages that dealt mostly with the story-lines and included only the pages that had good flying scenes.
The cover was done by George Evans and each artist's name is above the story he illustrated. Note that the last two are MAD artists who also had their serious moments.
Also, the old ACES HIGH #4 that this was scanned from has seen better days. Please pardon the occasional wrinkle or shadow shade.
Enjoy.
George Evans
Barnard Krigstein
Wallace Wood
Jack Davis
