EC Comics
Cover of Tales from the Crypt, published during the 1950s
1950 [...]
EC Comics launches its "new trend" of horror comics signaling a new era in comics. Titles published are Crypt of Terror (Tales From the Crypt), Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, Crime Suspenstories and Two Fisted Tales. --http://mediastudies.sacredheart.edu/resources/comtime.htm [May 2005]
These short stories inspired the magazines which would carry those names (Crypt of Terror later became Tales from the Crypt), and their sister-title, The Haunt of Fear. Each first appeared in 1950 and became an instant success. --http://www.geocities.com/utherworld/seasons/horrorcomix.html [May 2005]
Profile
Entertaining Comics, was headed by William Gaines but is better known by its publishing name of EC Comics. The firm was a publisher of comic books specializing in crime, horror, war, and science-fiction comics from the 1940s through the 1950s. It also published MAD and other satire comics which evolved into MAD Magazine.
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.
When Max died in 1947 in a boating accident, his son, William Gaines inherited the business. He had no previous interest in publishing, being a student studying to become a science teacher at SUNY. After a time, he began to enjoy publishing, but only after turning the company into a more successful publisher. He did this by focusing on horror, suspense, science fiction, war, and humor comics. With this new content, the company needed a name change, and so it became Entertaining Comics.
The firm had success with its many titles, and pioneered in forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and its fan organization, the National E.C. Fan-Addict Club.
After the comic book industry imploded during the 1950s in the wake of the hysteria caused by Dr. Frederick Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent (and, just as important, a shakeup in the distribution companies who sold comic books and pulp magazines in America), most of EC Comics' titles were cancelled. William Gaines attempted to revive a few of the science fiction based EC comics, watering down the story lines and artwork in order to conform to the newly founded Comics Code. However this was unsuccessful, and instead the company shifted its focus to publishing the comedy and satire magazines.
William Gaines waged a number of battles with the Comics Code, 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 board with a lawsuit after being ordered to alter the climactic scene of a science fiction story, so that one of the characters would not be seen sweating. When EC found a large audience of young readers embracing its humor magazine Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD, the company abandoned its other titles and focused exclusively on publishing MAD magazine for the next four decades. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertaining_Comics [Aug 2004]
Comics [...]
EC Comics and the Comics Code
Tales of Terror: The EC Companion (2002) - Grant Geissman, Fred Von Bernewitz [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Booklist
Nearly 50 years after they were crushed by moral guardians outraged by their Grand Guignol excesses, the genre comic books published by EC Comics still enthrall readers who grew up with them and generations of younger fans, too. EC's horror, science fiction, and war comics remain unsurpassed, and the early EC issues of Mad vitally influenced a generation of humorists and cartoonists. EC's output has been the subject of many lavish publications, including slipcased, oversize reprints of the runs of several titles and massive coffee-table tributes, but this book by two longtime fans is something else again. Its heart is a checklist, with detailed writer and artist credits, of every single EC comic book. This core is rounded out with interviews of comics creators, photos, private sketches, and other memorabilia, such as EC publisher William Gaines' testimony before the U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating horror comics. Most of the previous books about EC were designed for a relatively mainstream audience. This one aims at the hardcore fan-addicts--and should hit that target dead center. Gordon Flagg via Amazon.com
Cover of Tales from the Crypt, published during the 1950s
1950
EC Comics launches its "new trend" of horror comics signaling a new era in comics. Titles published are Crypt of Terror (Tales From the Crypt), Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, Crime Suspenstories and Two Fisted Tales. --http://mediastudies.sacredheart.edu/resources/comtime.htm [May 2005]
These short stories inspired the magazines which would carry those names (Crypt of Terror later became Tales from the Crypt), and their sister-title, The Haunt of Fear. Each first appeared in 1950 and became an instant success. --http://www.geocities.com/utherworld/seasons/horrorcomix.html [May 2005]
Crypt of Terror #17 was 1st issue of Crypt Keeper tales, from EC comics.
image sourced here.
After the comic book industry imploded during the 1950s in the wake of the hysteria caused by Dr. Frederick Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent (and, just as important, a shakeup in the distribution companies who sold comic books and pulp magazines in America), most of EC Comics' titles were cancelled. William Gaines attempted to revive a few of the science fiction based EC comics, watering down the story lines and artwork in order to conform to the newly founded Comics Code. However this was unsuccessful, and instead the company shifted its focus to publishing the comedy and satire magazines.
William Gaines waged a number of battles with the Comics Code, 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 board with a lawsuit after being ordered to alter the climactic scene of a science fiction story, so that one of the characters would not be seen sweating. When EC found a large audience of young readers embracing its humor magazine Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD, the company abandoned its other titles and focused exclusively on publishing MAD magazine for the next four decades. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertaining_Comics [Aug 2004]
Dr. Fredric Wertham
Dr. Fredric Wertham (March 20, 1895-November 29, 1981) was a German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of mass media-comic books in particular-on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent (1954), which led to a U.S. Congressional inquiry into the comic book industry and the creation of the Comics Code.
Wertham's writing, in books and magazine articles, turned exclusively to the unwholesome effects of the media, and comic books in particular. He was not alone in these criticisms, but as a respected clinician who had been called to testify in trials and government hearings, he was particularly influential. Seduction of the Innocent (1954), and Wertham's subsequent public testimony about comic books, represented the peak of this influence.
Seduction of the Innocent and Senate hearings
Seduction of the Innocent described overt or covert depictions of violence, sex, drug use, and other adult fare within "crime comics"-a term Wertham used to describe not only the popular gangster/murder-oriented titles of the time, but superhero and horror comics as well-and asserted, largely based on undocumented anecdotes, that reading this material encouraged similar behavior in children.
Comics, especially the crime/horror titles pioneered by EC, were not lacking in gruesome images; Wertham reproduced these extensively, pointing out what he saw as recurring morbid themes such as "injury to the eye". Many of his other conjectures, particularly about hidden sexual themes (e.g. images of female nudity concealed in drawings of muscles and tree bark, or Batman and Robin as homosexual lovers), were met with derision within the comics industry. (Wertham's claim that Wonder Woman had a bondage subtext was somewhat better documented, as her creator William Moulton Marston had admitted as much; however, Wertham also claimed Wonder Woman's strength and independence made her a lesbian.) The splash made by this book, and Wertham's previous credentials as an expert witness, made it inevitable that he would appear before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency led by anti-crime crusader Estes Kefauver. In extensive testimony before the committee, Wertham restated arguments from his book and pointed to comics as a major cause of juvenile crime. The committee's questioning of their next witness, EC publisher William Gaines, focused on violent scenes of the type Wertham had decried. Though the committee's final report did not blame comics for crime, it recommended that the comics industry tone down its content voluntarily; possibly taking this as a veiled threat of potential censorship, publishers developed the Comics Code Authority to censor their own content. The Code not only banned violent images, but entire words and concepts (e.g. "terror" and "zombies"), and dictated that criminals must always be punished-thus destroying most EC-style titles, and leaving a sanitized subset of superhero comics as the chief remaining genre. Wertham described the Comics Code as inadequate. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Wertham [May 2005]
Horror and terror
William Gaines, head of EC Comics among whose best selling titles were Crime Suspenstories, The Vault of Horror and The Crypt of Terror, complained that clauses prohibiting titles with the words "Terror", "Horror", or "Crime", as well as the clause banning vampires, werewolves and zombies, all seemed targeted to put EC out of business. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority [Apr 2005]
see also: American comics - censorship - comics - Comics Code - crime - EC Comics - 1950s - horror - youth
Creepshow (1982) - George A. Romero
Creepshow (1982) - George A. Romero [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Inspired by the controversial E.C. Comics of the 1950s--which also provided the title and inspiration for the popular Tales from the Crypt TV series--director George Romero and screenwriter Stephen King serve up five delightfully frightful stories. Utilizing comic-book panels, animated segues, and exaggerated lighting and camera angles, Romero and cinematographer Michael Gornick come very close to replicating a horror comic in film format. The results mix fine acting with the morbid sense of humor and irony that made the E.C. books so popular in their heyday. Actors such as Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook, Ted Danson, Adrienne Barbeau, Ed Harris, E.G. Marshall, and even King appear in the stories, which include tales of a sinister father's day celebration, a mysterious meteor, seaweed-draped zombies, a monster in a crate, and a cockroach-phobic millionaire. Fiendishly fun fare from one of horror's most famous directors. --Bryan Reesman, Amazon.com
Five spooky stories, written by Stephen King, are shown in a format based on the popular horror comics of the 1950's. --Description
your Amazon recommendations