A Slight Case of Murder and Other Stories

A Slight Case Of Murder And Other Stories by George Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Slight Case of Murder and Other Stories contains twenty-nine EC Comics stories illustrated by George Evans.

I proclaimed February 2021 Fantagraphics February and I've had this one on my pile for a few weeks. I passed on the other George Evans volume in the EC Artists Library, Aces High, because I'm not keen on war comics but I'll be grabbing it for sure after reading this.

The bulk of the stories are written by the usual suspects, Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein, with additional ones penned by Ray Bradbury, Otto Binder, and Carl Wessler. The twenty-nine tales feature faulty dishwashers, parasitic twins, and everything in between, punctuated by the standard EC poetic justice ending.

As for the art, I was not prepared for how good this was going to be going in. I bought it because I buy all of the EC Artist Library editions. George Evans is making me reevaluate my EC artist rankings because he's so damn good!

The foreword likens George Evans to Ghastly Graham Ingels and I'd say the comparison is apt. Evans knows his way around a crazy spouse or rotting corpse. His angles are dynamic and the use of black is bold but not overdone. Once again, I wonder why anyone would want to read EC comics in color after seeing how great they look in black and white.

The stories in this collection are great, some even iconic. The only ones I didn't care for were the final three, the ones from after the Comics Code set comics back a couple decade. For How the Bell Tolls, Indisposed, Blind Allway, and Lover, Come Hack to Me were among my favorites.

Normally a long running series of books of this type starts petering out after a few years but A Slight Case of Murder and Other Stories is a fantastic entry in the EC Library. Five out of five murdered lovers.

View all my reviews