![]() "Under Cover," about the Black Vigilante Society's murder of a young woman for "consorting with that trash element" and the do-gooding reporter who witnessed the killing, was one such tale – a not-so-thinly veiled condemnation of the Klan. Shock SuspenStories, after all, was where EC's creators were allowed to tell stories that mattered – stories that "do a lot of good for the American public," as one reader put it in the letters to the editor in that very issue. In 2017's essential book The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood, Thommy Burns writes that this final issue of the comic's first year is "frankly breathtaking" as it "depicts a sheer-nightied pin-up girl kneeling before a whip-wielding, robed man." This wasn't typical fare for EC, then specializing in sci-fi and horror. As proof, the book itself is one of the most valuable and sought-after titles of the Golden Age, endlessly reproduced in hardback and soft-cover copies and cited whenever one needs proof comics were always about more than just strongmen in tights. All the titles in which Wood had a hand left their mark, but Shock SuspenStories No. It was produced by Wood at the most fertile period of his career, as he ascended from journeyman to legend, moving from comic-strip assistant to an illustrator of romance comics to a MAD man for Harvey Kurtzman to a creator of titles for Bill Gaines at EC in the 1950s. A perfect storm of creator and content: Wally Wood takes on the Ku Klux Klan!Īnd for the first time in four decades, this 1952 masterpiece heads to auction as one of the centerpieces of Heritage Auctions' June 17-19 Comics and Comic Art Signature Auction. 6 is among the most famous images in the history of comics.īecause of its subject matter. 6, in which he took on the Klan, is one of the most reproduced in comic books historyĭALLAS, Texas (May 24, 2021) – The cover of Shock SuspenStories No. Wally Wood's original art for Shock SuspenStories No. Wally Wood Shock SuspenStories #6 cover, EC Comics 1952.Ī Shock to the System: One of the Most Powerful and Important Covers in Comics History Heads to Heritage Auctions in June The piece has a pre-auction estimate of $300,000 and up. And as the above-quoted caption from the story implies, it was certainly not the only such group making headlines during this period.Ī historically important cover by a master of the art form, Wally Wood's cover for EC Comics' Shock Suspenstories #6 will go up for bid at Heritage Auctions' June 17-19 Comics and Comic Art Signature Auction. The group was again making newspaper headlines around the country during the early 1950s era when this story was created. A domestic white nationalist terrorist organization typically described as an even more extremist version of the KKK, the Black Legion rose to such infamy by the 1930s that they were the subject of a Humphrey Bogart film of the same name in 1937. The white supremacist group of the story, called the "Black Vigilante Society", is typically compared to the Ku Klux Klan in analyses of this tale, but it may also be a more specific reference to a similar group from mid-20th century American history called the Black Legion. How long can we stay cool and indifferent to this threat to our democratic way of life? It is time to unveil these usurpers of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms." Mind you, they are shrewd and ruthless men such as those in our story. A caption blurb makes the intent of this story clear: "Safe behind their masks of prejudice, these hooded peddlers of racial, religious, and political hatred operate today. The interior story behind this cover of Shock SuspenStories #6 is a tale titled Under Cover!, co-plotted by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein, scripted by Feldstein, and drawn by Wood. ![]()
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