Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid to reckon with—as he proved again and again in the stories he created for EC’s legendary “New Trend” comics, in particular Weird Science and Weird Fantasy. As a result of Williamson’s focus, it’s possible to compile all of Williamson’s “New Trend” EC work into one book—which Fantagraphics is finally doing here. Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50 features three of EC’s legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including “I, Rocket” and “A Sound of Thunder” — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from a short story submitted by a teenage Harlan Ellison. Williamson ran with a gang of like-minded young Turks dubbed the “Fleagle Gang,” who would help one another out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story (“Food for Thought”) where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta’s Shock SuspenStories short “Squeeze Play”; Krenkel’s meticulous “Time to Leave”; and Angelo Torres’s “An Eye for an Eye,” an EC story that famously fell prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 will also include extensive story notes by EC experts.

Surrounded by the ornate, retro, proto-splatter horror graphics of Jack Davis and Graham Ingels and the slick, futuristic sci-fi stylings of Wally Wood and Al Williamson, EC Comics superstar Johnny Craig stood out in the 1950s with his elegant, crisp, contemporary graphic style. And nowhere did this style work more beautifully than in the dozens of superb crime and horror comics he wrote and drew for EC, mostly for the two comics he also edited, Crime SuspenStories and The Vault of Horror. (Craig was the only EC artist to habitually write his own material for the entire length of EC's run.) Featuring murderous husbands and wives, executioners, thieving surgeons, vengeful sword-swallowers, time bombs, private dicks, vampires, werewolves, and ghouls, the 23 stories in this book comprise a perfect encapsulation of the very best and darkest kind of noir and horror writing, stunningly executed (in more than one sense of the word) by one of the great cartoonists of his (or any) era. And all in seven or eight pages per story! Fall Guy For Murder And Other Stories is once again, as are the other EC Comic Library releases, supplemented with several fascinating essays and informative historical notes on the stories.

Al Feldstein is best known as the main writer/editor of the EC comics line during the first half of the 1950s—and then the editor of Mad Magazine for the first three decades of its existence. But what many don't know or remember is that Feldstein was also an accomplished and distinctive cartoonist, whose comics (which he both wrote and drew, a relative rarity in those days) adorned the pages of many of those self same EC comics. His powerfully composed, meticulously inked pages, often featuring grotesque creatures or scenes of ghastly destruction (and some of the greatest stiffly handsome/beautiful specimens of 1950s humanity ever put to paper), were a vital part of the allure of these classic comics. Feldstein's contributions to the first year and a half of EC's two SF titles, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy—comprising 16 classic O. Henry-style shock-ending stories with such evocative, vintage title as "'Things' From Outer Space." "The Flying Saucer Invasion," "Spawn of Venus," "Destruction of the Earth," and "Am I Man or Machine?"—will be collected in their integrity in this volume, which will also boast a new interview with Feldstein about his years at EC, focusing in particular in his work on these science fiction titles that were the company's pride and joy (and were killed a few years later by the Comics Code).

Joe Orlando was a mainstay at EC, especially on science fiction, and this collects 23 of his best sf stories. All of them, most scripted by Al Feldstein, serve up classic O. Henry-style endings, such as "I, Robot," and "Fallen Idol." The title story is one of EC's most famous, with its blunt anti-racism message. When it was printed during the era of the Comics Code, publisher Bill Gaines and Feldstein had to fight to keep the story's final panel "reveal" (and thus its whole point) intact. It was a Pyrrhic victory, however, as "Judgment Day" became the last story in the last comic book EC published. This volume also features two of Orlando's outstanding adaptations of classic Ray Bradbury science fiction stories: "The Long Year" and "Outcast of the Stars." Also included are all of EC's "Adam Link" adaptations, a series which was later also adapted for The Outer Limits TV show and featured Leonard Nimoy.

Harvey Kurtzman's taut, humanistic scripts and John Severin's gritty, detailed artwork (inked with preternatural precision, usually by Will Elder) combined to make some of the finest war stories ever told in any medium in the pages of EC Comics. Bomb Run and Other Stories collects all of this essential work in one hardcover volume for the first time.