EC Comics
Entertaining Comics was headed by
William Gaines but is better known by its publishing name of
EC Comics. It was a
publisher of
comic books specializing in crime, horror, humor, war and science-fiction from the 1940s through the 1950s until censorship pressures eventually prompted it to concentrate on the seminal humor magazine,
Mad.
The firm, first known as
Educational Comics, was owned by
Max Gaines, who published
Picture Stories from the Bible and biographies of important figures from science and history in comic book form. A decade earlier, Max Gaines had been one of the pioneers of the comic book form by repackaging and distributing comic strips in 64-page pamphlets.
When Max Gaines died in 1947 in a boating accident, his son William inherited the comics company. After four years (1942-46) in the
Army Air Corps, Gaines returned home to finish school at New York University, planning to work as a chemistry teacher. He never taught but instead took over the family business. In 1949 and 1950, he began to change titles in order to introduce stories with a focus on
horror,
suspense,
science fiction,
war and
crime. At the same time, Gaines and his editors,
Al Feldstein and
Harvey Kurtzman, gave assignments to the best freelance artists working in the field.
The firm had success with its fresh approach and pioneered in forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and its fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. While the stories were sensational, the art was highly regarded and the stories always had a certain literary sheen.
EC Comics was unique in a number of ways. They promoted their stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign their art, encouraging them to develop idiosyncratic styles, and by printing one-page biographies of them in the comic books. This was in stark contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing and generic "house styles" were the norm. As an example,
Donald Duck writer-cartoonist
Carl Barks was known for years as the "Good Artist" because his stories stood out from the pack, but readers had no other way of identifying his work. In EC stories, readers could easily identify the signed work of such artists as
Graham Ingels,
Wally Wood,
Jack Davis,
Johnny Craig,
Bernard Krigstein,
Will Elder,
Harvey Kurtzman,
Al Feldstein,
Jack Kamen,
George Evans,
Joe Orlando,
John Severin and
Al Williamson. Other artists of note who worked for EC included
Frank Frazetta,
Basil Wolverton and
Reed Crandall. The comics were generally written by Kurtzman, Feldstein and Craig with assistance from Gaines. Later other writers like Carl Wessler, Jack Oleck and Otto Binder were brought on board.
EC published distinct lines of titles under its Entertaining Comics umbrella. Most notorious were their horror books,
Tales from the Crypt,
The Vault of Horror and
The Haunt of Fear. These titles reveled in a gruesome
joie de vivre, with grimly ironic fates meted out to many of the stories' protagonists. The company's war comics
Frontline Combat and
Two-Fisted Tales often featured weary-eyed, unheroic stories that were out of step with the jingoistic times. Many EC tales wrapped up with twist endings, but
Crime SuspenStories and
Shock SuspenStories positively reveled in them, and they became the comics' hallmark; several of the SuspenStories therein tackled weightier issues such as racism, sex, drug use and the American way of life. EC always claimed to be "proudest of our science fiction titles," and
Weird Science and
Weird Fantasy were certainly a step up from the standard space opera tales found in
Planet Comics.
Superior illustrations of stories with surprise punch endings became EC's trademark. However, the sheer volume of material required for Feldstein's titles occasionally resulted in a formulaic approach. Gaines would generally stay up late each night during the week and read large amounts of material. The next day he would present a number of ideas he came up with from his readings to Feldstein. Known as 'springboards', Gaines would go through them one by one until Feldstein found one that he thought he could use as a story. Each story was written with the artist in mind. Hence artists like Davis and Ingels were given the more gruesome, supernatural themed stories that fit their style while artists like Kamen and Evans were given tamer material. Kurtzman was a slower, more meticulous editor, which is why his comics are more highly regarded than Feldstein's and why he handled fewer titles. At EC's peak Feldstein edited seven titles while Kurtzman handled at most three.
With hundreds of stories written, common themes became apparent. Some of EC's more well known themes include the following:
* EC's most common 'house plot' was to take an ordinary situation and turn it on its head in gruesome fashion, often times as poetic justice for a character doing something wrong. For example the story
Collection Completed features a man who takes up the hobby of taxidermy to bug his wife. When he kills and stuffs her beloved cat, the wife snaps and kills him, stuffing and mounting his body as he did to so many animals before. The story
Revulsion contains a spaceship pilot bothered by insects due to an experience in his past when he found a bug in his food. By the end of the story a giant alien insect screams in horror when he finds the dead pilot in his salad. This type of theme appeared in dozens of stories and covered all sorts of situations imaginable. Dissection, the broiling of lobsters, mexican jumping beans, fur coats, and fishing are just a small sample of the kind of themes that these types of stories were built around.
* The 'Grim Fairy Tale', which appeared almost exclusively in EC's horror comics featured gruesome twists on common fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and many others.
* Adaptations of
Ray Bradbury stories appeared frequently in EC comics starting in 1952. The neverending need for material led to a humorous incident where Feldstein and Gaines combined 2 of Bradbury's stories into a single one for one of their science fiction comics. Learning of the story, Bradbury sent a note praising them, while remarking that he had "inadvertantly" not yet received his payment for their use. Charmed and relieved, EC happily sent a check and began a productive series of Bradbury adaptations.
* Stories with a political message became common in EC's science fiction and suspenstory comics. Issues including racism, lynching, anti-semitism, police corruption were just a small sample of those featured.
EC's most lasting legacy came with
Mad, which started as a side project for Kurtzman before buoying the company's fortunes and becoming a remarkably significant humor publication. A sister publication,
Panic, was also produced when humor magazines were the industry rage in 1954.
The three horror titles featured stories introduced by a trio of horror hosts. The Crypt Keeper was the introducer of
Tales from the Crypt, the Vault Keeper of
The Vault of Horror, and the Old Witch of
The Haunt of Fear. Besides gleefully recounting the unpleasant details of the stories, the characters squabbled at one another, unleashed an arsenal of puns and even insulted and taunted the readers. This irreverent mockery of the audience also became the trademark attitude of
Mad. Such glib, snarky give-and-take was later mimicked by many, including
Stan Lee in his
Marvel Comics.
During the 1950s, the comic book industry was drastically altered in the wake of a mass wave of public and official protest about the nature of much of the matter in the stories, as described in Dr.
Fredric Wertham's book
Seduction of the Innocent. Adding to the problem was a heavily-touted Congressional hearing on juvenile delinquency cast comic books in an especially poor light. At the same time, a federal investigation led to a shakeup in the distribution companies that delivered comic books and
pulp magazines across America. Sales plummeted, and several companies went out of business.
EC Comics was hit especially hard by these events. Gaines called a meeting of his fellow publishers and suggested that the comic book industry gather together to fight outside censorship. However, his industry colleagues did the exact opposite and quickly formed the
Comics Code which mandated severe oversight and restrictions on all approved comics prior to their publication. Among the Code's new rules were that no comic book title could use the words "horror" or "terror" or "weird" on its cover; it was seen as no coincidence that many of EC's top-selling comics included these words in their titles. Gaines at first refused to join the code, but when distributors then refused to handle much of his comics, Gaines had no choice but to voluntarily kill his five most popular comics - the three horror and the two Suspenstory comics.
Facing unending conflict, EC shifted its focus to a line of more realistic comic book titles, including
M.D. and
Psychoanalysis (known as the 'New Direction' line). It also watered down and renamed its remaining science fiction comic. With these changes put in place, Gaines reluctantly started submitting his comics to the Comics Code. This attempted revamp was a speedy failure. Some believe that EC's publishing woes in 1955 and 1956 were largely thanks to an unspoken blackballing of EC titles by the industry and its distributors.
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The infamous final panel of Judgement Day |
Gaines waged a number of battles with the Comics Code Authority, in an attempt to keep his magazines free of censorship during the later days of EC. One notable incident involved his threatening the members of the Comics Code Authority board with a lawsuit after being ordered to alter the climactic scene of the science fiction story '
Judgement Day', so that one of the characters would not be seen sweating. Gaines and others felt that the true sticking point was not the sweat, but depicting a Black man as the lead pilot of a U.S. spacecraft. This aggravation, when combined with the declining sales of his remaining titles, were the leading causes for Gaines's decision to leave the comic book industry entirely.
With the failure of his "New Direction" comics, Gaines focused on EC's
Picto Fiction magazines, black and white magazines where the artist would generally draw 1-4 panels per page and the text was overlaid onto the artwork. These also lost money from the start, and only lasted 2 issues per title. When EC's national distributor went bankrupt, it was the last straw. Gaines dropped his comic book line.
Luckily, EC had found a large audience embracing its humor comics
Mad and
Panic.
Mad always sold well throughout the company's troubles, and Gaines focused exclusively on publishing
Mad in magazine form. This move was done to placate its editor
Harvey Kurtzman, who had received an offer to join the magazine
Pageant but preferred to remain in charge of his own magazine. More crucially, the switch had the happy result of removing
Mad from the auspices of the Comics Code. While no EC comic book lasted six years,
Mad has been published without interruption for over 50 years.
Though Kurtzman did not last long with
Mad after this point (leaving when Gaines wouldn't give him 51% control of the magazine), Gaines brought back Al Feldstein as his replacement. The magazine enjoyed unrivalled success for decades afterwards.
The
Tales from the Crypt title was licensed for a movie in 1972, and more successfully for a TV series in the 1980s.
*
List of EC Comics publications*
Horror Comics of the 1950s*
1954 Senate Interim Report: Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency*
The Long, Gory Life of EC Comics Reason magazine (June 2005)
