Well, it didn't rain today, but something else rather momentous just occurred, and thankfully Mr. Karswell was reminded in the very nickiest of danger dame time to get something related posted here immediately at AEET! And what on Earth could it possibly be? You'll just have to read the Al Feldstein and Wally Wood EC Weird Fantasy #17 comic adaptation below of Ray Bradbury's sci-fi classic (which originally appeared in a 1950's Collier's Weekly issue) to find out! And though many of you are already in bed, and likely won't see this until tomorrow-- it's still oh so very apropos! (And thanks again to DD for the amazing head's up!)
Your timing is impeccable as always, good sir! I never knew this was comic book-ized, and it’s so awesome to see the art and compare it to what I pictured in the ol’ theater of the mind. And the photo with the man himself?! Incredible!!
ReplyDeleteIt was quite an honor to meet one of my all-time favorite writers, he was super funny and very much the opposite of when I met Richard Matheson (for example.)
DeleteAh the Bradebury EC adaptations. Gaines lifted a couple Bradbury stories uncredited, and in one of the more well know comic stories, Bradbury sent them a letter noting that they had an "oversight" and "probably overlooked in the general confusion of office-work" about his royalty check. After that, they had a really fruitful collaboration and Bradbury stories were constantly adapted and they got to slap his name on the cover. Supposedly Bradbury was a real fan of the adaptations.
ReplyDeleteThis is some gorgeous Wood work and a pretty brave piece to adapt; there's no action, there's no monsters (does the poor dog count?), there's very little general sci-fi stuff just overwhelming horror. Yeah, it's a little weird in parts (how can humans be vaporized to leave shadows -- something that happened in Japan -- and not level the buildings or stop the power or etc) but it's sci-fi so you can suspend disbelief.
I like how at the end it mentions all this is done with "tapes", this is before anybody imagined digital information. And how it's missing stuff we really do in 2026 yet also imagined stuff we are no where near in 2026!
It's also full of wonderful Wood machinery. One of the classics of EC sci-fi.
That is def one of the better, behind the screams EC tales, and equally interesting to hear it told from the actual man himself in this fabulous clip where he's also wearing the exact same clothes as when I met him! lol
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUhZtT41jis
Gah, I'd forgotten all about the dog part.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite panel is certainly the one where Wally drew the paintings on the walls. So cool. Man, I really love it when pop artists and cartoonists redraw fine art.
Great pic of you and Bradbury. I never got to meet him (or Matheson, either). Definitely a hero of mine. But in the video you posted, it's Feldstein who floored me, asking where all the kids he'd raised via Mad Magazine had gone to? How were these generations he'd supposedly influenced still seventy percent in favor of the Iraq war? Man.
On the same day I met Ray Harryhausen too! It was definitely a day of fave Rays a’shining down on me!
Delete*I* had forgotten, until I noticed the absence here, of the significance of the title, which references the 1918 Sara Teasdale poem the house plays to the now deceased wife in the evening.
DeleteWell, we made it to August 6, 2026, heres to surviving and thriving in the rest of 2026 and all years after.
ReplyDeleteI consider you a most fortunate guy, Karswell, to have met so many of the greats in sci fi and horror, in both writing and illustrating, and meeting Ray Harryhausen, the wizard of stop motion.
And I thank you once more, not just for this great blog, but for sharing your experience with Ray Bradbury, the comic adapted story and recollections of the man himself.
Footnote, You don't have to post this, but there is an old humorous commercial for Sun Sweet Prunes featuring Ray Bradbury.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyd8vzdQ63k&t=656s
The run time is from 10:10 to 11:03
It was interesting, and funny, to see Ray Bradbury doing a commercial and adding a touch of humor to it. I don't know if he wrote the script for the commercial, but I would like to think he did.
> commercial for Sun Sweet Prunes featuring Ray Bradbury
DeleteHaha that’s hilarious! I’ve never seen that before :)
I read this story at school and I remember feeling incredibly sorry for the dog. It was the early 1980s. Nuclear war was a real possibility. I didn't know then that Bradbury wrote this in 1950, when nuclear war was still thought to be winnable. Especially with MacCarthyism then at full force it was not just imaginative but brave to write it.
ReplyDeleteThere is the other Bradbury story "The Veldt" about a highly automated house and a nursery with African animals on the walls. Did they ever adapt that?