Description

Otto Binder’s The Unwanted adapted by Robert L. Reiner, art by Angelo Torres & Stefan Koidl

Hardcover – Fantagraphics Press – Feb 2023

The Mastermen called it a “census,” but it was so much more. If its citizens proved worthy, the Earth would join the interstellar confederation and reap the benefits of advanced alien technology, food, medicine, and educational resources the likes of which could scarcely be imagined.

But first, there was the question of race …

Uncannily perceptive and prescient when it was written in 1953, EC writer Otto Binder’s “The Unwanted” went unsold for more than a decade until he finally gave it to a fanzine publisher who promptly got out of the fanzine business — and so it languished, unread, in a yellowing file folder for decades.

Never before published and now unearthed, “The Unwanted” is Binder’s response to the 1950s McCarthy era, couched in metaphorical science fiction terms. Fantagraphics Underground Press ushers in this previously unknown mini-masterpiece by the writer of Captain Marvel, Superman, Captain America, and the “human” robot, Adam Link. Illustrated by EC artist Angelo Torres and his international collaborator Stefan Koidl, this edition pays homage to Binder’s comics career. The result is a stunning tribute to Binder’s lifelong commitment to comics and prose.

An unbelievable journey, unavailable no longer.