Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories

The EC Artists' Library #5

by Johnny Craig, Gary Groth

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.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fiction, Crime, Mystery

196 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2012

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories contains 23 stories illustrated and sometimes also written by Johnny Craig.

My EC Artists Top Five list doesn't include Johnny Craig but the guy has some chops. A couple weeks ago, I saw this volume was out of print so I jumped on it. Have you seen what 50 Girls 50, another out of print artist's edition goes for these days?

The twenty-three tales in this collection fall into the horror or crime genres. Craig illustrates all of the tales and writes all but three of them. Ray Bradbury wrote one and Gaines and Feldstein, the usual suspects, wrote the others. Storywise, this is a very strong collection. Till Death, When The Cat's Away, and The Execution were my favorites.

Craig's art is never particularly flashy but the guy got the job done admirably. He's equally adept at drawing rotting corpses and double-dealing wives. I have to think he shares some influences with Steve Ditko since that's the artist I kept thinking of while reading this.

Bonus: It turns out Johnny Craig is responsible for a couple of my favorite EC covers:



Johnny Craig isn't one of my top EC Artists but Fall Guy for Murder might just be in my top five EC collections. Four out of 5 stars.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really crisp Fantagraphics reprints of 1950s EC comics—you know, the stuff that corrupted America’s youth and led to the notorious Comics Code! This volume features the work of Johnny Craig, who is maybe best known for his slow, careful work and clean line drawing, but the way this stuff was supposed to be churned out, slow could not have made for a great life for him. The tales sort of begged for fast and sketchy, but he took his time and did the drawing well, and made a name for himself in this area.

This is a pretty wide-ranging collection, with science fiction and horror and crime comics, with murderous husbands and wives, vengeful sword-swallowers, vampires, and werewolves. Just entertainment, folks. And in eight pages a comic, in case you don’t have the patience for Moby Dick, let’s say.

I went straight (on Stewart Tame’s advice) to "Touch and Go!" which was adapted from Ray Bradbury's "The Fruit At the Bottom of the Bowl" and the title piece, "Fall Guy For Murder," which is really great, a mirror story where a detective tries to catch a guy who is planning on murdering his wife, finds out the guy is reading this book, Fall Guy For Murder. He needs to keep reading to find out what will happen. . . and sure enough, finds that a detective will go to the potential murderer’s house. . . and. . . OH, NO!

One features a sword swallower who teaches her fat and belching husband to swallow a sword, but. . . you better not belch, dear. . .. oops! You get the point?! Well, you can bet HE will!! (You know that kind of humor, throughout, worth a few smiles.)

So the best stuff in this wasn’t written by him, he’s a better artist than writer, but this is pulp, so “bad writing” is kind of a relative term, it’s sort of what Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzmann and Craig were about at EC. The Vault of Horror. Crime Suspenstories. Funny and gory, funny and slick monsters of all kinds, human and otherwise.

You don't give a collection like this four stars because you like the literary quality of its zombie stories. It's the historical value, the eight page little comically accomplished thrill, recapturing the Gory Days of EC.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnny Craig: noir before noir.
Recommended.

[ComicNerdSam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way better than I was expecting, I knew Craig was a magnificent artist but I had no idea his writing was just as stellar. His art is extremely slick and confident, I'd stop and stare at individual panels drooling over his inks. But really, some of the best written comics are in here: "The Execution", "When The Cat's Away", "Touch And Go", and "Easel Kill Ya!" are the best of the bunch. Johnny Craig was very clearly a treasure, and this has sent him near the top of my list of favorite EC artists.

[Ioan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit to being quite the neophyte when it comes to EC comics. In all kinds of art, I got to be one of those persons that run too fast forward and then start walking back slowly. I listened to Captain Beefheart first and after that I got to like Moby Grape. I loved Faulkner's prose and only later I started to pay the well-deserved respect to Balzac's writings. I started with Skull, horror stories by Jaxon, Greg Irons, Rory Hayes and now here I am getting the juice out of classic 1950 stories.
One should point out that this volume dedicated to an author that, to my shame, I hadn't heard of (being too busy with Wood, Davis and other loud names), shows like a lot of other books that there is more stuff than you imagine that remains fresh to the eye and mind even after several decades, centuries maybe. Craig's meticulous drawing was pretty much devoid of pyrotechnics and ornaments, save for some rich images, but it was nonetheless very effective in depicting emotions - mostly negative. His writing is remarkable, chock full of storylines that even today might sound pretty grim and sordid. It's not gore or obscenery that grabs you by the eyeballs, but paradoxically, it's the ruthless subtlety that does the trick. Con artists and lousy sweet talkers that get a lot more than they bargained for, husbands driven to murder by all sorts of daily quarrel that eventually degenerates into severe acts of defiance from neurotic wives, the good ole infidelity so dear to many EC writers... It all ends in crimson ways. The physiognomies are crystal clear, exhibiting all sorts of frustrations, malicious pleasure, madness. Though most stories relish in this kind of low-key sordidness and a stark aridity of the human soul, the title story is as enlightening as Wally Wood's more socially conscious stories that appeared in Came The Dawn... and plays the theme of the innocent at the wrong place to a truly bitter finale. Aside from these, there are also the mandatory horror stories, where Craig manages to coax some really sensuous feminine figures (try guessing which story of these is my favorite - there's a big chance that the respective story will be your fave too).

Highly recommended reading. If you are a completist, you don't need this review anyway, but if you are looking for something very sturdy and resisting countless re-reads, you might find it here.

[Bart Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun stories culled from the 1950s work of Johnny Craig. Most of these stories were not only drawn by Craig, but written by him as well. Many of the stories first appeared in EC Comic's "Vault of Horror" and "Crime SuspenStories." The horror stories are well rendered in pacing, and the art is clean and neat. But, the better stories are the noir crime stories. The book states that this collection of Craig's work, only represents 25% of Craig's comic work. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Craig's work as Fantagraphics Books continue to produce these wonderful black-and-white collections of EC Comics reprints.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another volume in Fantagraphics' excellent line of artist-centric reprints of classic EC comics, this one focused on Johnny Craig. This is a nice mixture of horror and crime tales, including the wonderful "Touch and Go!" (adapted from Ray Bradbury's "The Fruit At the Bottom of the Bowl") and the sublime (and titular) "Fall Guy For Murder." The volume is rounded out by an introductory essay with details about each story, as well as brief biographies of both Craig and EC comics. Great stuff!

[Kim]

very good art

[Chad Jordahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this mainly for its historical value, and the best of the art is quite good.

If I held it to the standards of my favorite contemporary comics, though, I would give only 2 or 3 stars.

[Jeff Lewonczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently the crisp, mid-century coolness of Johnny Craig's work was hard-won - he had a reputation for being a slow-going perfectionist, which I suppose paid off, though it's a shame that his own working experience wasn't as satisfying as the result. These could almost be said to be the archetypes of the EC horror and suspense comics - arch and knowing, yet fully committed to the highest quality of execution in art and storytelling. I'd read many of these as a teenager, and they've done as much as anything to shape for me the desperation and paranoia lurking under the squareness of the 1950s stereotype. All these middle-class, misogynist white guys who think they're smarter than everyone else, and who get kneecapped by their own pride, idiocy and hatred - still relevant!

[EC Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stories, but visually not as compelling as Johnny Craig's earlier two collections. This one, the third of four, starts off with him at the end of his first classic hot streak. "One Last Fling", the first story, is only alright, not the most compelling mix of tropes (female vampires and circus performers) that is very predictable. "Out of the Frying Pan" is much cleverer, a crime story that is light in tone and style (and maybe better in color), but shows off Craig at his smartest.
The rest is similarly hit and miss. "Fountains of Youth" is the better plotted of his two 'veiled lady' stories, but visually not as disturbing as the earlier one ("About Face", in the "Voodoo Vengeance" collection). "Understudy to a Corpse" is eight pages of generic plot but nice scenic details, followed by "A Stitch in Time", one of the best tales here and one of only a small handfull that really punch in black and white.
Of the other tales where the B+W presentation actually adds something (rather than taking away), only "The Execution" is truly a great story, with it's chilling panels of snowfall on a corpse alongside the doomed mans head getting shaved. "Till Death" is a good voodoo story with nice fine detail of fire and rotting flesh. The others, "Seance", "Easel Kill Ya", "Silver Threads Among The Mold" and to some extent "The Mausoleum", are not really in the same league narratively or artistically, although I did enjoy them more here.
Which is not to say there aren't more great stories: "Rendezvous" has a nice build to a killer explosive ending, the titular "Fall Guy" is not my favorite but regarded as a (well plotted but visually plain) classic, and the splendid Bradbury adaptation "Touch and Go" is funny and super stylish, maybe his most stylish story of all.......in color. Actually, the story was originally printed with a mix of black and white with color, so while the wildly imaginative detail and composition is there, it's visually losing much of it's impact and specialness.
Johnny Craig was a talented man, and I am all for him getting his due. Which is why I would recommend the earlier "Voodoo Vengeance" collection over this one (which is richer in monochromatic detail), or even his first, the super-pulp of "The Woman Who Loved Life" (which is crudely drawn and written and made for people who like that) before this, unless you are collecting or just trying to read the stories. (If you are looking for this stuff in color, the best of it is in the EC Archives Vault of Horror vol 2 and Crime Suspensetories 2 and 3. The stories "Touch and Go" and "Fall Guy" are also in the very affordable "Choke Gasp: Best of EC" collection).

[L D · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-star plus stories: out of frying pan, on a dead man's chest, the execution, sweet dreams, touch and go, easel kill ya, and fall guy for murder.
The essay "The ups and downs of EC Commics" is also an interesting read.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little surprised I didn't like this one better, as I do have a high appreciation for Craig's clean, elegant line, which often serves to make the horrific in his work that much more disturbing, as it seems incongruous with the otherwise precise and orderly universe he seems to depict. But . . . generally, these stories are just not that excellent. I'm not sure if that is a function of selection--certainly, the book includes acknowledgedCcraig classics such as "Touch and Go!" and the title story--but many of these just are not that memorable. It could be in part a function of format, as this book reproduces the stories somewhat smaller than they were originally, which makes them feel, to me at least, a bit cramped at times (admittedly, EC's propensity for very word-heavy stories does not help on this front). I was definitely disappointed by the absence of original publication info: the book does not indicate which issues of which comics from which years were the original homes of these stories, which seems like an unfortunate omission to me. There is odd repetition of information among the introduction and essays following the stories, as well, as if there was no real coordination between who covered what in these separate pieces. It is nice to see a collection of Craig, beautifully reproduced in black and white so his line work is easy to see, but overall, well, the whole just seems less than the sum of its parts.

[reveurdart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading quite a few of these EC collections this month, but this may be my favourite of the ones I've read so far. I love dark, gritty crime noir stories from this period (post-WWII era, 1946 to early 1950s), so I was bound to love this. The horror stories were well done as well.
Furthermore, the art was just top notch!

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I just love these old things.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic artwork, but, frankly, I would turn the trashy up a notch or four.

[Mike Hunchback · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantagraphics' artists editions are among the absolute best reproductions of EC comics out there ... essential series.