Digital Recoloring
In 2006, Gemstone began producing a more durable series of hardback reprint collections designed by Michael Kronenberg. Similar to the DC Archives and Marvel Masterworks series, the EC Archives superseded Cochran's original annotated EC Library (of black-and-white stories) by reprinting sequential compilations of EC titles in a full-color, hardback archival format with new annotations. On January 11, 2011, Cochran looked back on the project, noting the differences between his earlier EC Library and the later EC Archives:
- A few years ago, with the support and encouragement of Steve Geppi and with the permission of the Gaines Estate, I started on a new format: the EC Archives. These are slightly smaller hardcover books (smaller than the EC Library volumes but larger than the original ten-cent comic books), and because of increased demand and the availability of cheaper color printing in China, the EC Archives books were full color, with new color in an infinite palette now being possible with the advances in technology.
Each book reprints six issues for a total of 24 stories. The original coloring by EC's colorist Marie Severin was used as a guide for digital recoloring by Jamison Services, a color separation company in West Plains, Missouri, the hometown of publisher Cochran. Allen Jamison and Jamison Services had previously done coloring for the DC Archives. Also contributing to the project at Cochran's West Plains office were operations manager Angela Meyer and production artist Chris Rock. Crediting Kronenberg as "Art Director/Designer and Color Editor" and Marie Severin for "Colors", Cochran explained the digital upgrade given to Severin's coloring; "Most of the original coloring of these stories is the work of EC colorist Marie Severin, and although all of these stories have been re-colored for this new edition, her style of coloring was followed to retain the integrity of the original EC comic books". He later added:
- Technology changes. We are now able to color these comics with an infinite palette, and to reproduce the artists' linework much more clearly. If these new computer generated color techniques had been available in the 1950s, I think Bill Gaines would have used it because it makes the EC work even more beautiful. So the EC material has been printed three different ways: with the old color, as originally published back in the 1950s, without any color, as it was drawn by the EC artists (the EC Library), and with the best color we can do with modern technology (the EC Archives). It has been my experience that the most dedicated EC fans are not satisfied to have them reprinted only one, or two, ways. They want them all. Those fans will have the old comics in the EC Annuals, the black and white art in the EC Library, and the best color we can produce in the EC Archives. There's room there for everyone.
Along with the original EC advertisements, editorials and letters pages, the books also feature introductions by John Carpenter, Joe Dante, Paul Levitz, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, R. L. Stine, Jerry Weist and others. The entirety of the New Trend and New Direction comics were planned for eventual release. Kronenberg suggested EC's Pre-Trend titles might also be reprinted in Archive form. However, EC's black-and-white Picto-Fiction magazines are unlikely to be reprinted as EC Archives.
The EC Archives publishing schedule was interrupted in 2008 due to financial difficulties at Gemstone Publishing, but the line has since been revived by GC Press LLC, a boutique imprint established by Russ Cochran and Grant Geissman. Their first two volumes were released in January 2012. Apparently the contract was signed for the next two volumes, Tales from the Crypt vol. 4 and Two-Fisted Tales vol. 3, but they haven't materialized yet.
Read more about this topic: EC Archives