Reading Through 2021 20: The Woman Who Loved Life and Other Stories, by Johnny Craig

The Woman Who Loved Life and Other Stories, by Johnny Craig

2019, reprinting material from the early 1950s

I know some of the EC artists by style, but one I really don't know is Johnny Craig. I even have another book of his work from a Fantagraphics EC box set I bought five years ago, but, honestly? I've never sat down and read one of those books cover to cover. I usually read a story or two and just start looking at the pictures. So with this, I decided to actually sit down with it; I read about two stories a day for a week and a half.

At the end of it, I still don't have a handle on Craig as an artist, not like the artists who went on to have broader careers, such as Jack Davis, Al Williamson, or Wally Wood. I can look at those guys' art and recognize it. Craig is more like a Hal Foster type artist to me: very realistic, very clear, but not a lot of stylistic flourish. This is my first time with his work, so I'm sure there are fans of his out there who completely know him at a glance, but I had trouble with it myself.

It's the feet off the ground that makes this work

The book collects about 25 stories by Craig, from between 1950 and 1955, mostly in the crime genre, but some horror stories turn up too. At first, I was quite disappointed with the stories. EC is famous for tight stories with twist endings, and the early stories have almost none of it. The book begins with a lot of "true" crime stories which follow a pretty standard pattern: escalating, tempting criminality resulting in the inevitable death of the criminal. It's amusing, but not so compelling to read in large doses. 

Stew and banshees: I can laugh at this because I have some Irish blood in me

There are always the odd panels that stand out, and Craig really uses the comic trope of bodies in mid-air to great effect. And the antiquated way of thinking is amusing, be it in repeated "happy" endings about the death penalty or the political leanings of the day, but they're not all that special or unique to Craig.

So many stories have cops happily shooting crooks or laughing about the death penalty, I have to imagine the attitude toward death was a lot more cavalier in the 1950s

About the halfway point though, I started to pick up the vibe of the book a bit better, and Craig was showing development as an artist as EC Comics refined its formula. Stories started having twists instead of merely inevitable endings, and Craig's line work became bolder. The panels became more arresting, and the inking on characters, especially on foregrounded characters, used strong flowing lines. It wasn't perfect, and I wasn't blown away by it, but the amount of cool images per 7-8 page story certainly increased. At the very least, I started appreciating it.

 

Great use of silhouette 

There were lots of cool sequences that, if they appeared in comics today, people would take note of. Craig had solid dramatic fundamentals.

I love this sequence, especially panels 1-3

I could imagine some influence on the panels of Charles Burns and Art Spiegleman. Those guys are probably Craig fans.

Taking the text out of this, it's just potent images

So, I have another eight of these EC books I haven't read. I stopped buying them because I just never got around to reading them due to them being relatively hard to read. They're dense, and they aren't meant to be binged. They were monthly stories in color originally, dished out in small amounts. I'll have to make an effort to finish a few more this year though. There are treasures inside. 

That is a great picture