EC - Split Second! (Kamen)

Split Second!
art by Jack Kamen, story by Al Feldstein
Shock SuspenStories #4 (1952)

Steve Dixon, the mean-spirited boss of a remote lumber camp marries beautiful big city singer Liz and brings her to live at the camp, even though he doesn't allow any of the lumberjacks to bring their wives to live there.  She's soon bored and starts to cause trouble, but the lumberjacks know enough to avoid her.  Ted, a new young kid joins the camp, impressing everyone with his chopping skills which they hope will win them the upcoming big lumberjacking tourney.  Liz also sets her sights on him, bringing on the wrath of her husband. This leads to the usual revenge plot from the other lumberjacks.

Pretty story with the usual sexy woman, rugged men and lush backgrounds from Kamen, but the story is a bit cruel and doesn't age too well.

EC - Old Soldiers Never Die (Wood)

Old Soldiers Never Die
art by Wallace Wood, story by Harvey Kurtzman
Two-Fisted Tales #23[#6] (1951)

A story set in France in the last few months of World War I, as veteran American soldier Pappy Davidson tries to impart some of his hard won experience on recent replacement Caruso.  Two page vignettes for each month from August to November as they withstand attacks from air, artillery and gas until they finally get to the end of the war.

Very nice story, Kurtzman and Wood were always a good combination, with good attention to detail, using silent panels and sound effects well and even adding a few touches of humour to the overall messiness of war in the trenches.

Cerebus #104 [1987] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Cerebus #104 [1987]

CEREBUS was a Canadian funny animal comic published for 298 issues from 1977 to 2004 by Dave Sim out of Kitchener through his company Aardvark-Vanaheim, featuring the wacky adventures of the titular Cerebus, an aardvark in a mostly human world.  By this point Sim had been joined by Gerhard on the bankgrounds and tones.

This issue is part of the climax to the long-running Church&State storyline (#52 to #111), where Cerebus is ascending to the moon on a tower of giant heads.  I think it made sense in context, it's been about 30 years since I read the full Church&State story, and I've only ever sampled some of the later stuff.

In the middle of all this we get a crossover with Bob Burden's character the Flaming Carrot, which had also briefly been published by Aardvark-Vanaheim back in 1984.  The Carrot shows up in the middle of Cerebus' ascension, throws around the usual string of non-sequiturs, many of them anachronisms in the context of the usual Cerebus world of the time. The art and script for the Carrot is provided by Burden and lettered by usual Carrot letterer Roxanne Starr. Towards the end of the issue we get a callback and resolution to one of the Carrot's greatest failures, from the story "The Bandit Moons" in A-V In 3-D #1 [1984].

Entertaining issue, I remembered a few parts of it quite vividly from reading it decades ago.