In 1973, Gary Arlington, proprietor of the San Francisco Comic Book Company came upon a novel idea. He devised a plan to promote the work of local underground and his favorite mainstream cartoonists, as well as re-introduce and celebrate vintage cartoons strips and comic books. He would accomplish this by publishing a series (500 no less!) of one-sheet pages of art and sell them for five-cents apiece. Dubbed "The Nickel Library", the 8 1/2" x 11"sheets were often printed on colored paper and came three-hole punched so that they could be collected in binders.
Besides a supporter of the Bay Area underground comics movement, Arlington was also a devoted fan of EC Comics and at one time had a large collection of them. As a part of The Nickel Library he had a number of artists create spoofs of the old EC titles.
Everyone thought is was fun until somehow Bill Gaines found out about it and threatened Arlington with a lawsuit to the tune of $50,000. Arlington didn't have near the money to fight it so he ceased printing them. Since he was such a big fan of EC, he did however keep Gaines' letter with a certain amount of pride.
After that, the whole thing petered out and what could have been a really big thing for the underground comics industry only lasted for 64 pages.
Here are some examples of the "forbidden" EC Comics cover spoofs:
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| 31. Jack Kinney |
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| 33. Larry Todd |
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| 34. Charles Dallas |
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| 35. David Geiser |
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| 42. Charles Dallas |
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| 43. Larry Todd |
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| 48. Larry Todd |
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| 49. Charles Dallas |
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| 51. Wally Wood |
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| 53. Larry Todd |
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| 54. Larry Todd |
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| 57. Charles Dallas |
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| 58. Larry Todd |
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| 60. Charles Dallas |
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