[comavigilante]

I've been having some trouble finding information that specifically analyzes the overall "style" of comics produced around the late 40's to early-to-mid 50's. In particular, the horror and fantasy styles seen during that time, including EC artists like Al Feldstein, Jack Davis and Marie Severin. Many of the books and articles I've read on the subject usually only discuss the time period itself or include biographies on specific artists, but usually don't touch the actual artwork itself.

To be a bit more clear, I'm not necessarily looking for tutorials on how to imitate the style of any individual artist from this time. (However, such information would be greatly appreciated as well.) I'm mostly looking for specifics on the more technical aspects of the art creation. Such as this.

http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/comics_color.htm

What I'm looking for might be closer to trivia and history, but I'm very interested in understanding the limitations and standards set during this time period and how they ultimately impacted the artwork being created and published. Anything, no matter how seemingly insignificant, would be greatly appreciated.

[jimmm kelly]

It seems to me that some magazines like ALTER-EGO (and a few others that have ended their runs) would get into the nitty gritty details like this.

I only get ALTER-EGO every so often these days--when I happen to go in a comic shop and I see they have an issue that I don't got--although I used to buy it all the time, when I was buying new comics (have more than a hundred issues in my file cabinets). But I know that you can also get individual issues on line for a nominal fee. There was at least one issue on EC, but I don't remember how deep it got into the art styles. There was also the letter column--when Roy would find room to include it--where many guys who know all about this stuff would write in to point out something about an artist or writer.

Most of the artists in the early '50s show the influence of the pros from the syndicated newspaper strips. Probably because they all dreamed of getting work with a syndicate--where the real money was--so they studied the styles of Caniff, Raymond, Foster, Crane, etc. Others show the influence of even older artists. But it seems to me as the '50s progressed, these artists each explored what else they could do and their styles became more idiosyncratic.

I myself would like to know how Graham Ingles became Graham Ingles. If anyone knows where he got his style from it would be a great revelation. Al Feldstein's EC work always seemed purposely underdeveloped--it looked like woodcuts--maybe Al was just too busy with all his other EC duties. But when I see the good girl art he was doing just before that, when he was in the Iger shop, it does make me wonder if there was more to his work than greets the eye.

[comavigilante]

I had never heard of Alter Ego, but it looks like an absolutely amazing resource. CB+ is even hosting 10 issues of it so I'm going to check all of them out. Thank you so much for that!

I remember reading that it was around this time period that comic books had began separating themselves from their newspaper-based cousin. Those names will give me a good place to start searching, because I know squat about newspaper comics.

There's a documentary on Feldstein that's was screened in October, but I don't see anything about a DVD or download release date.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Feldstein-the-Documentary/221025114652335