EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 2 (v. 2) [Hardcover]

Al Feldstein (Author, Artist), Wally Wood (Author), Harvey Kurtzman (Author), Jack Kamen (Author), Joe Orlando (Author), George Roussos (Author)

Book Description

Series: EC Archives | Publication Date: May 8, 2007

The second volume of Weird Science features classic stories written by Al Feldstein, and illustrated by such master artists as Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, Jack Kamen, Harvey Kurtzman and Feldstein himself. This stunning collection reprints issues Weird Science #7-12, a total of 24 complete breathtaking EC science fiction stories, originally published in 1951 and 1952.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: William M. Gaines Agent, INC.; Reprint edition (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888472693
• ISBN-13: 978-1888472691
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flawed and Loving It!, May 23, 2007

By 

D.P. Merde (Gut-Bucket, South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

First of all, the book is not flawed in any physical way. The printing is great, the binding is great, and the color is great.

What's flawed are some of the stories. But the flaws are fascinating! For instance, in a story about going to the moon written the decade before it actually happened, we have a man, in a space suit, granted, falling back to earth through space and merely floating to the ground with a parachute. Nevermind the whole tendency to catch on fire when entering the earth's atmosphere at several hundred miles an hour.

Fabulous! I mean it. Far from being a negative thing, such a flaw really points up the refusal of writers like Feldstein to let ignorance get in the way of a good story. It's great to see him stretch a plot to make way for an effect, too. Like introducing a character called "peach pit" (because he likes to suck on peach pits of course) in order to allow for an alien seed to get into his body to be "born" in a way that anticipates Alien, once again, by decades. You would think the government would be pretty careful with such life-threatening cosmic nuts, wouldn't you? Well, I won't spoil the ending. Hilarious!

Even the flaws reveal Feldstein's wonderfully playful talent for either making up altogether or finding stories like these and adapting them to comics. He was so unafraid! For instance, what do you do with a multi-dimensional creature that appears only partially as a floating blob in the air? You theorize about it a bit before harpooning the thing and tying it to a couple of trees with some good, stout rope, that's what you do! And why? To destroy it of course. After all, it's already made the neighbor's cow go poof! That's humanity in a nutshell.

These comics are a monument to the power of the imagination to do the best it can with whatever it has to work with in order to have a little fun (or to defend the planet, presumably . . . without all the red tape). Even the flaws are fantastic!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it while you can, September 14, 2009

By 

Michael K. Harrison (Greensboro, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

I have absolutely loved all the titles in the EC Archives and am so disappointed that the publisher has evidently ceased publication. Missed release dates and no word on future releases tells me that this incredibly fabulous series of EC reprints is coming to a close. I also like the 8 1/2"x 11" size of them; they're bigger than the DC comics archival reprints. If you're a fan of these great '50s comics, you can't go wrong with any of the books in this series. The colors are bright, crisp, and the paper is extremely high-quality.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the best, April 24, 2008

By 

Jack key (germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

I really loved Volume 1 but Volume 2 is very disappointing. Simple and silly Ideas stretched out on 6 to 8 pages. It was very boring to read and I had to force myself to continue to read. Absolutely no twist endings and there is nothing new even for the fifties beside the on story in which a Man gets pregnant by eating a nut from space and undergoes an operation and gave birth to an octopus monster which will be killed by TNT.
I would recommend to buy Shock Suspenstories Volume 2. There are 6 science fiction stories out of 24 stories and each story contains more ideas and suspense than the whole Weird Science Volume 2. And the art is also much better in Shock Suspenstories.