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Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.87: George Evans

Published

5 years ago

August 9, 2021

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No.87: George Evans

One of the under-appreciated EC alumni, George Evans got his start in the industry at Fiction House in the late 40s, where he proved to be almost the complete article from the beginning. Working on titles at Fiction House such as Planet Comics, Rangers Comics and Wings Comics, he immediately shone with his quality pencils, displaying a fine illustrator’s line, especially with aviation stories – his fascination with war planes having been piqued during his time as a mechanic and pilot during the war, and he would be primarily identified with air force tales from thereon…

Evans would remain prolific throughout his career, working in comics and newspaper strips until the 1990s. His key period was from 1947 – 1954, when he worked at Fawcett, drawing for their horror book line on titles such as Strange Suspense Stories and This Magazine Is Haunted, and most significantly at EC Comics. His work for William Gaines’s company proved he was versatile – his moody yet crisp, neat pencils evoked foreboding atmospherics in key titles such as Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror and Crime Suspenstories and was very much a match for his colleagues at the publisher such as Johnny Craig and Jack Kamen. His work on EC’s war titles, Two Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, and New Direction title Aces High exhibited his expertise and attention to detail in terms of the field and aerial combat.

After EC, Evans plied his trade partly as a cartoonist on Terry and the Pirates, but continued to freelance at Warren, DC and Marvel, mainly focusing as he had done earlier on mystery and war stories, while painting his favourite subject, World War One dogfights. At his best Evans’s distinctive pencils and inks were tailor-made for EC, which had a house style of sorts, yet despite that his work never lacked for finesse and drama, and was exemplary at storytelling.