Book Review: The Spawn of Venus and Other Stories, Illustrated by Wallace Wood

If you’ve been following along with Fantagraphics’ ongoing releases in their EC Comics Artists Library series, this title might seem suspiciously familiar. Not to fear, this is an all-new collection, not a re-release of one of Wallace Wood’s prior spotlight titles, The Spawn of Mars (2015). The new book contains 26 senses-shattering sci-fi yarns drawn by Wood for EC in the early 1950s, just as he was emerging as a true master of the craft.

With the sci-fi emphasis, Wood gets to draw plenty of rockets and aliens, but also some dinosaurs and cavemen. Still early in his career, he wasn’t yet crafting his truly out-there mindbenders of later years, but the seeds are evident in his imaginative alien creature designs. For the most part, he’s tasked with focusing on the human participants in the sagas, drafting meticulously detailed faces on the expertly rendered figures. His backgrounds are also lavishly constructed, with so much fine detail that it boggles the mind how he was able to perform at this level on notoriously short timelines. However he did it, the results have stood the test of time and still serve as an aspirational benchmark for most artists. 

The stories are primarily scripted by Al Feldstein, based on stories and ideas by William M. Gaines, as well as Ray Bradbury and Jack Oleck. Feldstein’s plotting clearly isn’t the selling point here, with the stories rarely rising above the typical drivel of formulaic, disposable ‘50s pulp fiction for kids, but a few standouts emerge. One is a humorous, self-referential poke at the EC staff titled “EC Confidential”, with the head honcho convinced that the EC writers have been predicting the future in their comics, as evidenced by a deadly plane crash in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, as well as other eerie coincidences. The others are the Bradbury adaptations, particularly “There Will Come Soft Rains” where Bradbury’s story muses about the ramifications of nuclear devastation, referencing the Hiroshima shadows of incinerated bodies on walls. 

A big selling point for the book is the inclusion of Feldstein and Wood’s original take on the story “You, Robot,” finally receiving uncensored publication for the first time ever. See, the story was originally rejected by the Comics Code Authority, resulting in page 2 being replaced with an approved substitute page that altered the story. When the original art for that missing page surfaced for sale, albeit missing its final panel, it set off a decades-long quest to get it reinserted in the story, with Feldstein himself agreeing to script the missing panel a year before his death. For EC purists, this is gold, finally getting the unfiltered story 70 years later. As a bonus to close out the collection, the book includes the originally published first two pages of the story, allowing readers to compare the two versions.

Wood’s art is so phenomenal that the only real downside here is the book’s standard hardcover size, approximating the original comic book sizes but failing to allow readers to really savor the detail in a larger format. Luckily, Fantagraphics has you covered, at least for the Bradbury stories, as all three of them appear at much larger dimensions in their fantastic Bradbury/EC collection, Home to Stay. In the plus column, the new book includes Wood’s original pencils for his opening “The Spawn of Venus” splash page, side by side with the inked page, providing a fascinating peek at his process. There are also multiple forewords and afterwords, including in-depth notes on each story, a special report on the “You, Robot” quest, and appreciations by fellow esteemed pros and former Wood assistants Howard Chaykin and Larry Hama.

The book is a must-have for all Wood aficionados, especially ones most interested in his wild forays into the realms of science fiction. Highly recommended.