 So, in a previous video, we read Weird Science, we read a story, we flipped through this whole thing, and we read one story from Weird Science Fantasy, E.C.'s annuals, reprinting stories, 16 of the best stories from 1951. And what we're going to do in this video is read a story from Weird Science Fantasy, annual for 1953, and 16 of their top stories from 1952, right? And these are, as far as I know, these are the only two annuals, science fantasy annuals that E.C. Comics put out. This one is a better shape than the previous one, crack it open. It's got a little bit of tape here, I'm not sure if you can see, and let's see if this has got any restoration. No, not really, no actually, it's just got some tape, very minor little tape there, some tape here, little bits of tapes here and there. So, what we'll do, the complete Old Testament edition, Bible stories, five cents, that's pretty expensive. Let this open, here's E.C.'s second annual, what does this say? Malvin, you say you can't find Mad anywhere, Mad magazine, be elder. If you haven't been able to find Mad on your local newsstand, look harder, it may be at the bottom of the pile. Ask your dealer to send threatening letters to his wholesaler demanding Mad, send the attached subscription coupon, which gets you 60 cents worth of comic books for 75 cents. What, gets you 60 cents worth of comic books for 75 cents? That's funny, give up the whole business and spend your dime on something worthwhile. Weird Science Fantasy, 1953 published by Educational Comics, E.C. Comics, 225 Lafayette Street Copyright Educational Comics, printed in the United States. Wars at Mars is Heaven, Ray Bradbury, oh my god, Copyright 1948 by Ray Bradbury, adapted from a story by Ray Bradbury. We'll flip through the book and maybe come back and read this one. Let's see who else has contributed to this, yeah? Look at this, Ray Bradbury in comics, 1953. I feel like I want to read this right now. Let's see this one, snap ending, who is this? Williamson, Al Williamson, this one is signed as well. Just beautiful artwork, let me take a look at this, just the details. Really amazing, beautiful stuff. And very realistic, if you look at the people and their faces, lots of spaceships. A lot of the spaceships look the same, look alike, right? Science fiction from the 1950s, golden age of comics. And these spacesuits all have it all, that's round helmets, E.C. Comics. We at E.C. are proudest of our science fiction magazines, look for. It's the same one that they had in the previous one, right? Parallel universe, disassembled, assemble. Jewel or land, the spaceship, looks different, looks like a flying saucer, yeah? Serious, we're sort of jumping to the endings, the punchlines, eh? Precious years, I'm not sure if that's the artist's sign right there, wood. I think so, look at his outfit, Magnus Robot Fighter, the one who waits. Adopted from a tale by Ray Bradbury as well, Ray Bradbury. You know what, let's read the flipping, let's see what else is up. So this is another Ray Bradbury story, oh it's some other flag. It moves off in the head. We at E.C. are proudest of our science fiction magazines, look for, weird fantasy. This one's signed elder, right on the button. Della Baby, my husband, it was one of them, one of the aliens, keyed up. Name of the story, look at the faces there. In the beginning, diamond and gold ring, the advertisements. Amazing pseudo diamonds, made by European craftsmen. Precursor to zirconium, the head of the game, B Elder, the creator for this one, heads in a row. It reminds me of Futurama, I'm really liking a lizard creature. Weird sign, weird fantasy within the story of the comic, the lizard creatures find it. To say, the markings and pictures of the divisions of this object seem to form some sort of story. Here, on these first few sheets, these weird pictorial representations, must be what the third planet's greatest, what third planet's creatures look like. See, I guess this is after Earth, look at that. Yes, Earth, notice these hairy creatures, I wonder if they are Earth creatures too. Go on, yes, then there's a second story, and a third, and a spa fun. Look at the pictures that begin the third story, that's us. The third planet, our destination has exploded. The landing on one of the asteroids I guess, one of the pieces of Earth that's blown up. That's called, well I guess it could be called breaking the fourth wall. Story within a story, that is super cool. Look at that panel from the previous one, right? That, from up there, very cool. Oh, let's see, on page 5 you ask me how the story ends, and I can't answer. I can't answer you because I haven't turned the page. This will turn the page, he's jumping up and down. Brilliant. Often, look at this, they're just looping it, it's a fractal. Fractal from 1952 story, right? Because this is 1953, but it's a reprint of the 1952 stories. Fractal in AC Comics. Wow, just mind boggling. Yes dear readers, that's how the story ends. And this may be the very magazine those creatures will find when they land on the exploded fragments of Earth. The end. Here's another story. Here's another story from Ray Bradbury, 1950. Here will come, there will come soft rains. Adopted from a story by Ray Bradbury. We read, yeah? Let's read this one. Oh, there's a page loose here, maybe. Is it loose? Adopted from a story by Ray Bradbury. They will come soft rains. Then came, came out from behind the rain. The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes. There was the one house left standing. At night, at night, the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles. The entire west face of the house was black, safe for five places. Here, the white silhouettes of a man mowed, mowed along. There, there, as a photograph, a woman bent, bent to pick up flowers. Still, further, over there, images outlined in one titanic instant. A small boy, hands flung into the air, higher up the image of its own ball and deposit. An opposite of him, a girl, hands raised to cash the ball which never came. I guess this is from a nuclear explosion. From Hiroshima, we know that the silhouettes of people remained. The five spots of paint, the man, the woman, the children, the ball remained. The rest was charcoal layer. This is done by, signed by Wood. The morning house lay empty. In the living room, the voice clock sang. Repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Tick tock, seven o'clock. Time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock. In the kitchen, the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior. Eight pieces of perfectly brown toast. Eight eggs, sunny side up. Sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool, cool glasses of milk. Seven, nine. Breakfast time, seven, nine. Somewhere in the walls, walls and layers clicked. Memory tapes glided under electric eyes. Today is August 4, 2026. Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of the Teletesque marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bales. The voice clock sounded again. Eight one, tick tock, eight one, eight one o'clock. Eight one, tick tock, eight one o'clock. Off to school, off to work, run, run, eight one. But no door slammed. No carpets took the soft thread of rubber heels. It was raining again outside. The weather box on the front door sang quietly. Rain, rain, go away, rubber's raincoats for today. Outside, the grass shined and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car. After a long wait, the door swung down again. At 8.30, the eggs were shriveled and the toast was like stone. An aluminum wedge scraped them into the sink. Where hot water whirled them down a metal throat, which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea. The dirty dishes were dropped into a hot water hot washer and emerged twinkling dry. 9.15, time to clean, assembly line. Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot, robot mice like things darted. The rooms were a crawl with the small cleaning animals, all rubber and metal. They thudded against chairs, whirling their mustached runners. Needing the rug naps, needing the rug nap, sucking gently at the hidden dust. Then, like mysterious invaders, they popped back into their nooks. Their pink electronic eyes faded. The house was cleaned. 10.15, the garden. The clears came up in golden fountains. The water pelted with windowpains running down the charged west side where the house had been burned, evenly free of its white paint. That's where the silhouettes were. 12.00, a dog whined shivering on the front porch. The front door recognized the dog's voice and opened. The dog, once huge and fleshly, but now gone to bone and covered with sores, moved inside, tracking mud. Behind it, angry mice. Angry mice world, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at the convenience, inconvenience for not a leaf fragment blew under the door, but what the wall panels flipped open and the scrap rats flushed swiftly out. The dog ran around, mystically helping to each door. At last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here, it sniffed the air and scratched at the kitchen door. It was so skinny, the dog. Behind the door, the stove was making lunch, pancakes, which filled the house with a rich baking odor and the scent of maple syrup. Lying at the door, sniffing, its eyes turned to fire. It ran wildly in circles, biting its tail, spun frenzy. It lay in the hallway for an hour, two o'clock, two o'clock, delicately sensing decay at last. The regiments of mice, delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as softly as blown leaves an electrical wind. 2.15, the dog was gone. In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney. 2.35, bridge tables sprouted from patio walls, playing cars fluttered onto pads in a shower of pips, martinis and egg salad sandwiches manifested on an old conserver. Music played. 4 o'clock, the tables folded like great butterflies back through panel walls. 4.30, the nursery walls glowed, animals took shape. Yellow giraffes, blue lions, pink antelopes, lilac panthers, caverting, caverting, caverting in crystal substances. It was the children's hour. 5 o'clock, the bath filled with clean hot water. 6, 7, 8 o'clock, dinner in the study, a click, a cigar popped up in the metal stand opposite the hearth. Half an inch of grey ash on it, smoking, waiting. 9 o'clock, hidden circus warmed the beds for nights were cool here. The fire burned on the stone hearth and the cigar fell away into a mound of quiet ash as its tray. The empty chairs faced each other between the silent walls and the music played. At 10 o'clock, the house began to die. The wind blew, a falling bowl crushed through through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled sharpened, shattered over the stove. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant, fire, fire. The house lights flashed on, water pumped, pumps shot from the ceiling. But the solvent spread on the lillonium, lillonium, licking, eating under the kitchen floor while the voices took up the chorus. Fire, fire, fire. The house tried to save itself, door sprang tightly shut but the windows were broken by the heat and the wind blew, sucking up the fire. The house gave ground as the fire and the ten billion angry sparks moved with flaming ease from room to room through the house while scurrying water rats squeaked from the walls pistoled their water and ran for more. The wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain but it was too late, somewhere sighing a pump shrugged to a stop. The quenching rain ceased. The reserve water supply which had filled baths and washed dishes for many quiet days was gone. The fire crackled on. It fed upon peccassoes and matises on the walls like delicacies, like delicacies baking off the oily flesh, tender and crisping the canvases into black shavings. Now the fire lay in beds, stood in windows changing the colour of the drapes and reinforcements from attic traps, trap doors blind robot faces peered down with faucet mouths crushing green chemicals. The fire backed off as an elephant must at the site of a dead snake. Now there were 20 snakes whipping over the floor killing the fire with a clean cold venom of green froth but the fire was clever and had sent flames outside the house up through the attic to the pumps there an explosion, an explosion. The attic brain which directed the pumps was shattered into bronze, bronze shrapnel on the beams the fire rushed back into every closet and felt of the clothes hung there. The house shattered, oak bone on bone its beared skeleton cringing from the heat its wires, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off off to let red veins at clear capillaries quiver in this scalding air heat snapped, mirrors the voices wailed help, help, fire, run, run like a tragic nursery rhyme a dozen voices high, low like children dying in a forest alone and the voices faded as the fire popped their sheathings in the nursery the blue lion roared purple giraffes sounded bounded off, panthers ran in circles changing color voices died in the last instant under the fire avalanche other choruses, oblivious could be heard announcing the time playing music reminding the hot flames of doobills doors opened and slammed a few last cleaning mice darted bravely out to carry away the horrid ashes and in the kitchen, an instant before the rain of fire and timber the stove could be seen making breakfast at a psychopathic rate 10 dozen eggs, 6 loaves of toast 20 dozen bacon strips which, eaten by fire started the stove working again hysterically hissing the crash, the attic smashed into the kitchen the kitchen into the cellar the cellar sub-cellar into the sub-cellar deep freeze, armchair film tapes, circuits, beds all like skeletons thrown in a cluttered mound, deep under then, smoke and silence dawn showed faintly in the east among the ruins one wall stood alone within the wall a last voice said over and over again today is August 5th, 2026 today is August 5th, 2026 today is the end you won't find stories like this not nowadays in comic books absolutely wow will come soft rain by Ray Bradbury and Wood is the artist I guess he must have put some of the dialogue together I wonder if this is exactly the wording of Ray Bradbury's story I'll have to look this up I think absolutely brilliant we skimmed through this whole thing and there's all these stories of people and interactions of people and the only living creature in the story was a dog that dies including bamboo con owners shove $10 bills in your pockets when you show them America's greatest auto seat cover values auto seat covers look at the seats that they had in cars including bamboo so there's a lot of adults that were buying AC Comics and you can tell from just the advertisements right this is an advertisement for kids signed Severn and Elder on starters and spaceships zero hour copyright 1947 by Love Romances Publication Company this carman adapted from a story by Ray Bradbury again zero hour so I guess this is a story by Ray Bradbury that was published in Love Romances Al Williams said on this one as well Al Williams' work is amazing the artwork you can't see this maybe you can see it but there's a reflection of the human, of this person in the window as well just faintly put in there the detail in these AC Comics is magnificent homesick there's a space station right there cabos, look at this gunslingers George's stories Judgement Day Joe Orlando's this one and the stories are magnificent we'll have to come back to these and read some more of these stories Waki Daki from 1950s right some of the books like AC Comics published in 1952 and put the compilation together in the 1953 Animal I'll see you guys in the next video