Which EC Comic inspired Kang and Kodos?

Cafe Society
1

I was watching the old sci-movie, The Atomic Submarine the other night. The one-eyed, tentacled antagonist in the flying saucer instantly brought to mind everyone’s favorite aliens from The Simpsons. An earlier movie, Monster from the Ocean Floor had a similar creature that looks even more like a proto-monster from Rigel 7 (on the lobby card, anyway–it looks like crap in the film).

According Wikipedia and other uncited sources, the inspiration for Kang and Kodos was a cover of EC Comics Horror Tales.

My google fu isn’t up to finding an image of that particular cover. I’ll bet a Comic Book Guy-type Doper probably has a copy–or knows where it is online. Am I right?

2

There was no EC comic entitled Horror Tales. Kang and Kodos are vaguely similar to the aliens on the cover of Weird Science #6. Very vaguely.

Also, Weird Science #16 has aliens with oversized bubble helmets like Kang and Kodos.

3

Yeah, I must have misread the reference. Weird Science #6 appears to be a likely candidate, though. Thanks!

4

“Alien-like procedures! On just a few boys!” is wrong on so many levels.

(Interesting that the comic was published nine years before the Betty and Barney Hill abduction.)

5

Well, Kang and Kodos were created as a one-shot parody of Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man.”

As for their appearance – it’s a pretty generic mashup of alien monster cliches of the 50s – tentacles, big eyes, and helmets (the latter two were used, for instance in Mars Attacks!. I doubt it could be pinned down to any one source.

6

“Alien-like procedures! On just a few boys!” has been added to that cover. It does not actually appear on the original EC comic.

7

Ah. Right you are. Here’s the original.