1944–1950: Founding of publisher as Educational Comics The firm, first known as Educational Comics, was founded by
Max Gaines, former editor of the comic-book company
All-American Publications, and it was initially a shell company of All-American. When that company merged with
DC Comics in June 1945, Gaines retained rights to the comic book
Picture Stories from the Bible, and began his new company using the EC name with a plan to market comics about science, history, and the
Bible to schools and churches, and soon expanded to produce children's humor titles. A decade earlier, Max Gaines had been one of the pioneers of the comic book form, with
Eastern Color Printing's proto-comic book
Funnies on Parade, and with
Dell Publishing's
Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, considered by historians the first true
American comic book.
1950–1955: Rebranded as Entertaining Comics, introduction to "New Trend" When Max Gaines died in 1947 in a boating accident, his son
William inherited the comics company. After four years (1942–1946) in the
Army Air Corps, Gaines had 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, Bill Gaines began a line of new titles featuring
horror,
suspense,
science fiction,
military fiction and
crime fiction. His editors,
Al Feldstein and
Harvey Kurtzman, who also drew covers and stories, gave assignments to such prominent and highly accomplished freelance artists as
Johnny Craig,
Reed Crandall,
Jack Davis,
Will Elder,
George Evans,
Frank Frazetta,
Graham Ingels,
Jack Kamen,
Bernard Krigstein,
Joe Orlando,
John Severin,
Al Williamson,
Basil Wolverton, and
Wally Wood. With input from Gaines, the stories were written by Kurtzman, Feldstein, and Craig. Other writers, including
Carl Wessler,
Jack Oleck, and
Otto Binder, were later brought on board. EC succeeded with its fresh approach and pioneered forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. EC Comics promoted its stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop distinctive styles; the company published one-page biographies of them in comic books. This was in contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing, although some artists at other companies, such as the
Jack Kirby –
Joe Simon team,
Jack Cole and
Bob Kane had been prominently promoted. EC published distinct lines of titles under its Entertaining Comics umbrella. Most notorious were its 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 out of step with the jingoistic times.
Shock SuspenStories tackled weighty political and social issues such as
racism,
sex,
drug use, and the American way of life. EC always claimed to be "proudest of our science fiction titles", with
Weird Science and
Weird Fantasy publishing stories unlike the
space opera found in such titles as
Fiction House's
Planet Comics.
Crime SuspenStories had many parallels with
film noir. As noted by
Max Allan Collins in his story annotations for
Russ Cochran's 1983 hardcover reprint of
Crime SuspenStories, Johnny Craig had developed a "
film noir-ish bag of effects" in his visuals, while characters and themes found in the crime stories often showed the strong influence of writers associated with
film noir, notably
James M. Cain. Craig excelled in drawing stories of domestic scheming and conflict, leading
David Hajdu to observe: Superior illustrations of stories with surprise endings became EC's trademark. Gaines would generally stay up late and read large amounts of material while seeking "springboards" for story concepts. The next day he would present each premise until Feldstein found one that he thought he could develop into a story. At EC's peak, Feldstein edited seven titles while Kurtzman handled three. Artists were assigned stories specific to their styles; for example, Davis and Ingels often drew gruesome, supernatural-themed stories, while Kamen and Evans did tamer material. With hundreds of stories written, common themes surfaced. Some of EC's more well-known themes include: • An ordinary situation given an ironic and gruesome twist, often as
poetic justice for a character's crimes. In "Collection Completed", a man takes up
taxidermy to annoy his wife. When he kills and stuffs her beloved cat, the wife snaps and kills him, stuffing and mounting his body. In "Revulsion", a spaceship pilot is bothered by insects due to an experience when he found one in his food. After the story, a giant
alien insect screams in horror at finding the dead pilot in his salad.
Dissection, the boiling of
lobsters,
Mexican jumping beans,
fur coats, and
fishing are just a small sample of the kind of situations and objects used in this fashion. • The "Grim Fairy Tale", featuring gruesome interpretations of such
fairy tales as "
Hansel and Gretel", "
Sleeping Beauty", and "
Little Red Riding Hood". •
Siamese twins were a popular theme, primarily in EC's three horror comics. No fewer than nine Siamese twin stories appeared in EC's horror and crime comics from 1950 to 1954. In an interview, Feldstein speculated that he and Gaines wrote so many Siamese twin stories because of the interdependence they had on each other. • Adaptations of
Ray Bradbury science-fiction stories appeared in two dozen EC comics starting in 1952. It began inauspiciously, with an incident in which Feldstein and Gaines
plagiarized two of Bradbury's stories and combined them into a single tale. Learning of the story, Bradbury sent a note praising them, while remarking that he had "inadvertently" not yet received his payment for their use. EC sent a check and negotiated a productive series of Bradbury adaptations. • Stories with a political message, which became common in EC's science fiction and suspense comics. Among the many topics were
lynching,
antisemitism, and
police corruption. The three horror titles featured stories introduced by a trio of
horror hosts:
The Crypt Keeper introduced
Tales from the Crypt;
The Vault-Keeper welcomed readers to
The Vault of Horror; and the
Old Witch cackled over
The Haunt of Fear. Besides gleefully recounting the unpleasant details of the stories, the characters squabbled with one another, unleashed an arsenal of puns, and even insulted and taunted the readers: "Greetings, boils and ghouls..." This irreverent mockery of the audience also became the trademark attitude of
Mad, and such glib give-and-take was later mimicked by many, including
Stan Lee at
Marvel Comics. EC's most enduring legacy came with
Mad, which started as a side project for Kurtzman before buoying the company's fortunes and becoming one of the country's most notable and long-running humor publications. When satire became an industry rage in 1954, and other publishers created imitations of
Mad, EC introduced a sister title,
Panic, edited by Al Feldstein and using the regular
Mad artists plus
Joe Orlando.
1955–1956: "New Direction" and "Picto-Fiction" 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 renamed its remaining science-fiction comic. Since the initial issues did not carry the Comics Code seal, the wholesalers refused to carry them. After consulting with his staff, Gaines reluctantly started submitting his comics to the Comics Code; all the New Direction titles carried the seal starting with the second issue. This attempted revamp failed commercially and after the fifth issue, all the New Direction titles were canceled.
Incredible Science Fiction #33 was the last EC comic book published. Gaines switched focus to EC's Picto-Fiction titles, a line of typeset black-and-white magazines with heavily illustrated stories. Fiction was formatted to alternate illustrations with blocks of typeset text, and some of the contents were rewrites of stories previously published in EC's comic books. This experimental line lost money from the start and only lasted two issues per title. When EC's national distributor went bankrupt, Gaines dropped all of his titles except
Mad.
1960–1989: Acquisition by Kinney, focus on MAD and other licensing Mad sold well throughout the company's troubles, and Gaines focused exclusively on publishing it in magazine form. This move was to reconcile its editor
Harvey Kurtzman, who had received an offer to join the magazine
Pageant, but preferred to remain in charge of his magazine. The switch also removed
Mad from the auspices of the
Comics Code. Kurtzman, regardless, left
Mad soon afterward when Gaines would not give him 51 percent control of the magazine, and Gaines brought back
Al Feldstein as Kurtzman's successor. The magazine enjoyed great success for decades afterward. Gaines sold the company in the 1960s as E.C. Publications, Inc., and was eventually absorbed into the same corporation that later purchased
National Periodical Publications (later known as
DC Comics). During the 1960s, Gaines granted Bob Barrett, Roger Hill, and Jerry Norton Weist (1949–2011), the co-founder of
Million Year Picnic, permission to produce a
EC Comics fanzine "Squa Tront" (1967 - 1983) that would last for several years. In June 1967,
Kinney National Company (it formed on August 12, 1966, after Kinney Parking/National Cleaning merge) bought National Periodical and E.C., then it purchased
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in early 1969. Due to a financial scandal involving price fixing in its parking operations, Kinney Services spun off its non-entertainment assets as
National Kinney Corporation in September 1971, and it changed names to
Warner Communications on February 10, 1972. The
Tales from the Crypt title was licensed for a
movie of that name in 1972. This was followed by another film,
The Vault of Horror, in 1973. The omnibus movies
Creepshow (1982) and
Creepshow 2, while using original scripts written by
Stephen King and
George A. Romero, were inspired by EC's horror comics.
Creepshow 2 included animated interstitial material between vignettes, featuring a young protagonist who goes to great length to acquire and keep possession of an issue of the comic book
Creepshow. In 1989,
Tales from the Crypt began airing on the U.S.
cable-TV network HBO. The series ran through 1996, comprising 93 episodes and seven seasons.
Tales from the Crypt spawned two
children's television series on
broadcast TV,
Tales from the Cryptkeeper and ''
Secrets of the Cryptkeeper's Haunted House. It also spawned three "Tales from the Crypt"-branded movies, Demon Knight, Bordello of Blood, and Ritual. In 1997, HBO followed the TV series with the similar Perversions of Science'' (comprising 10 episodes), the episodes of which were based on stories from EC's
Weird Science.
1973–2013: Focus on reprints Although the last non-
Mad EC publication came out in 1956, EC Comics have remained popular for half a century, due to reprints that have kept them in the public eye. In 1964–1966,
Ballantine Books published five black-and-white paperbacks of EC stories:
Tales of the Incredible showcased EC science fiction, while the paperbacks
Tales from the Crypt and
The Vault of Horror reprinted EC horror tales. EC's Ray Bradbury adaptations were collected in
The Autumn People (horror and crime) and
Tomorrow Midnight (science fiction).
The EC Horror Library (Nostalgia Press, 1971) featured 23 EC stories selected by
Bhob Stewart and Bill Gaines, with an introduction by Stewart and an essay by theater critic
Larry Stark. One of the first books to reprint comic book stories in color throughout, it followed the original color guides by
Marie Severin. In addition to the stories from EC's horror titles, the book also included
Bernard Krigstein's famous "Master Race" story from
Impact and the first publication of
Angelo Torres' "An Eye for an Eye", originally slated for the final issue of
Incredible Science Fiction but rejected by the Comics Code. East Coast Comix reprinted several of EC's New Trend comics in comic form between 1973 and 1975. The first reprint was the final issue of
Tales from the Crypt, with the title revised to state
The Crypt of Terror. This issue was originally meant to be the first issue of a fourth horror comic which was changed to the final issue of
Tales from the Crypt at the last minute when the horror comics were cancelled in 1954. A dozen issues ended up being reprinted.
Russ Cochran reprints include
EC Portfolios,
The Complete EC Library,
EC Classics,
RCP Reprints (Russ Cochran),
EC Annuals, and
EC Archives (hardcover books). The EC full-color hardcovers were under the Gemstone imprint. Dark Horse continued this series in the same format. In February 2010,
IDW Publishing began publishing a series of Artist's Editions books in 15" × 22" format, which consist of scans of the original inked comic book art, including pasted lettering and other editorial artifacts that remain on the original pages. Subsequent EC books in the series included a collection of
Wally Wood's EC comic stories, a collection of stories from
Mad, and
Graham Ingels. In 2012,
Fantagraphics Books began a reprint series called ''
The EC Artists' Library'' featuring the comics published by EC, releasing each book by artist. This collection is printed in
black and white. In 2013,
Dark Horse Comics began reprinting the
EC Archives in hardcover volumes, picking up where Gemstone left off, and using the same hardcover full-color format. The first volume to be reprinted was
Tales from the Crypt: Volume 4, with an essay by Cochran.
2024–present: Return to comics In February 2024,
Oni Press announced that it will revive the brand, starting with horror title
Epitaphs from the Abyss and the science fiction title
Cruel Universe. The Gaines family licenses the titles. == Criticisms and controversies ==