The Thing From The Grave and Other Stories by Joe OrlandoMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Thing From The Grave & Other Stories collects 33 EC tales illustrated by Joe Orlando.
When I think of Joe Orlando, I normally think of him in his capacity as editor of House of Mystery and Swamp Thing at DC. It turns out Joe knew his way around a drawing board as well, both late in his career as an artist on Daredevil, and in his heyday at EC.
While Joe wasn't as prolific as other EC artists, some of his horror and humor work from EC is collected here. Once I forgave him for not being Jack Davis or Wally Wood, I enjoyed this volume quite a bit.
The tales inside are penned by Al Feldstein, Carl Wessler, Jack Mendolsohn, Jack Oleck, Nick Meglin, Ray Bradbury, and Gardner Fox. They range from great to passable. I found the parodies from Panic tolerable but they are woefully dated. The standard EC surprise ending is in full effect in the others.
Like I said before, Joe Orlando is no Wally Wood but the guy could draw. He's great at setting the mood with his use of blacks and he's also great at drawing rotting corpses, a must for EC artists back in the day. The parodies from Panic! show Orlando's versatility.
While he's no Wally Wood, Joe Orlando could hang with the big dogs any day of the week. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
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