Two-Fisted Tales

Two-Fisted Tales
Cover illustration by Harvey Kurtzman
Publication information
Publisher	EC Comics
Schedule	Bi-monthly
Format	Anthology
Publication date	November/December 1950 - February 1955
Number of issues	24
Creative team
Creator(s)	William Gaines Harvey Kurtzman

Two-Fisted Tales was a bi-monthly, anthology war comic published by EC Comics in the early 1950s. The title originated in November 1950 when Harvey Kurtzman suggested to William Gaines that they publish an adventure comic. Kurtzman became the editor of Two-Fisted Tales, and with the advent of the Korean War soon narrowed the focus to war stories. The book often took an anti-war stance. The title appeared on newsstands with the November/December 1950 issue and ceased publication February 1955, producing a total of 24 issues. Years after its demise, the title was reprinted in its entirety and was adapted to television.

Numbering

As with most of the EC comics published at the time, Two-Fisted Tales did not start with issue number one, since it was renamed from a previous title. Two-Fisted Tales was a renaming of The Haunt of Fear starting with issue 18. Wholesale problems had caused Gaines to consider dropping The Haunt of Fear, but he changed his mind without skipping an issue. Two-Fisted Tales took over the numbering, and The Haunt of Fear then reverted back to the correct numbering for the remainder of its run.^[1] During the 1950s, publishers would frequently change comic title names to save money on second class postage.

Artists and writers

Artists who contributed included Kurtzman and other EC regulars such as John Severin, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, George Evans, Will Elder, Reed Crandall and Bernard Krigstein. Non-EC regulars that contributed to the comic included Alex Toth, Ric Estrada, Gene Colan, Joe Kubert, and Dave Berg.

Kurtzman wrote the majority of the book's stories from 1950 through 1953, with Jerry De Fuccio contributing one-page text stories and the occasional regular story as well. Colin Dawkins provided the writing for the majority of the stories for 1954 and 1955, with contributions from Severin, Evans, Davis and John Putnam.

Anti-war theme

The stories Kurtzman wrote for this title often displayed an anti-war attitude. Canadian journalist Mitchell Brown wrote about the impact and influence of Kurtzman's approach:

Kurtzman discussed his approach to Two-Fisted Tales in a 1980 interview:

Other themes

In addition to contemporary stories about the Korean War and World War II, Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat contained a number of stories taking place in historical settings, including the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and ancient Rome.

A series of special issues dedicated to the Civil War included issues 31 and 35 of Two-Fisted Tales and issue 9 of Frontline Combat. Although originally planned to be seven issues in total, the series was never completed.

Development

Kurtzman's editing approach to Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat was a stark contrast to fellow EC editor Al Feldstein's style. Whereas Feldstein allowed his artists to draw the story however they chose, Kurtzman prepared detailed layouts for each story and required his artists to follow them exactly.^[3] Kurtzman's writing tended to use less text than Feldstein's, which enabled the two war titles to be hand-lettered rather than machine-lettered like the remainder of EC's titles.^[4] Kurtzman was dedicated to making the stories as historically accurate as possible and along with assistant Jerry De Fuccio put a lot of research into each story. As a result, where Feldstein took generally about a week to complete each issue he edited, Kurtzman took approximately a month.

Change in format and demise

Two-Fisted Tales was published with a companion title, Frontline Combat, for most of its run. Towards the end of 1953, a decrease in interest due to the end of the Korean War, as well as Kurtzman becoming overwhelmed with his work on Mad required changes to be made. Frontline Combat was dropped entirely while Two-Fisted Tales was changed from bi-monthly to quarterly publication. The editorial duties were handed over to John Severin for the remainder of the comic's run, and it once again took on more of an adventure theme. Unfortunately, sales continued to drop, and Gaines was forced to fold the title. Over its four-year span, the comic ran for 24 issues, ending with issue 41, in February 1955.

Television adaptation

In 1991, the comic book was adapted for a TV pilot by producers Joel Silver, Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis and others. Apart from an opening montage of covers from the comic book and use of comic's logo, this film had little connection with Kurtzman's creation. In imitation of EC's horror books, the hour-long anthology drama featured ghostly gunfighter Mr. Rush (Bill Sadler) as a host and a device to connect the segments, although Kurtzman's war-adventure stories had never been introduced by a host. Two of the stories, "Showdown" and "King of the Road," were original scripts and not adaptations from EC (although Showdown did share a title with a story from issue 37). The third story, "Yellow," was adapted from a story written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Jack Davis for the first issue of EC's Shock SuspenStories. The pilot had a single telecast, generating little interest, and all three segments were later extracted to become individual episodes of HBO's Tales From The Crypt television series. The cast included Kirk Douglas, Brad Pitt and Dan Akyroyd.

Issue guide

Reprints

Two-Fisted Tales was reprinted by publisher Russ Cochran in 1980 as several slipcased hardcover volumes. Cochran and Gemstone Publishing began another series of reprints in 2007 with The EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales.

Footnotes

References

• Goulart, Ron. Great American Comic Books. Publications International, Ltd., 2001. ISBN 0785355901.
• Overstreet, Robert M.. Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. House of Collectibles, 2004.

Listen to

• The Golden Age of Comic Books podcast (January 18, 2006)

External links

• Mitchell Brown on Two-Fisted Tales