publishing genre romance crime war western funny animal horror science fiction satire adventure fate continues to publish mad magazine founded 1944 founder max gaines headquarters new york city united states key people max gaines william gaines products comics parent time warner 1 website eccomics.com entertaining comics more commonly known as ec comics was an american publisher of comic books which specialized in horror fiction crime fiction satire military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid 1950s notably the tales from the crypt series . in 1954 55 censorship pressures prompted it to concentrate on the humor magazine mad leading to the company s greatest and most enduring success . initially ec was privately owned by maxwell gaines and specialized in educational and child oriented stories . later during its period of notoriety it was owned by his son william gaines . contents 1 educational comics 2 entertaining comics 3 backlash 3.1 judgment day 4 mad and later years 5 reprint history 5.1 ballantine books 5.2 the ec horror library 5.3 east coast comix 5.4 russ cochran reprints 5.5 fantagraphics books reprints 5.6 idw ec artist s editions 6 ec publications 7 footnotes 8 external links educational comics edit 225 lafayette street home of ec comics the firm first known as educational comics was founded by max gaines former editor of the comic book company all american publications . when that company merged with dc comics in 1944 gaines retained rights to the comic book picture stories from the bible and began his new company with a plan to market comics about science history and the bible to schools and churches . 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 2 considered by historians the first true american comic book . 3 entertaining comics edit 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 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 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 . ec comics promoted its stable of illustrators allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop idiosyncratic styles ; the company additionally published one page biographies of them in the 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 . 4 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 5 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 . 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 . 6 at ec s peak feldstein edited seven titles while kurtzman handled three . artists were assigned stories specific to their styles . davis and ingels often drew gruesome supernatural themed stories while kamen and evans did tamer material . 7 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 in order 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 a past experience when he found one in his food . at the conclusion of the story a giant alien insect screams in horror at finding the dead pilot in his salad . dissection the broiling 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 . 8 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 . 9 adaptations of ray bradbury science fiction stories which 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 . 10 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 . 11 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 . backlash edit beginning in the late 1940s the comic book industry became the target of mounting public criticism for the content of comic books and their potentially harmful effects on children . the problem came to a head in 1948 with the publication by dr. fredric wertham of two articles horror in the nursery in collier s and the psychopathology of comic books in the american journal of psychotherapy . as a result an industry trade group the association of comics magazine publishers was formed in 1948 but proved ineffective . ec left the association in 1950 after gaines had an argument with its executive director henry schultz . by 1954 only three comic publishers were still members and schultz admitted that the acmp seals placed on comics were meaningless . 12 in 1954 the publication of wertham s seduction of the innocent and a highly publicized 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 . gaines called a meeting of his fellow publishers and suggested that the comic book industry gather to fight outside censorship and help repair the industry s damaged reputation . they formed the comics magazine association of america and its comics code authority . the cca code expanded on the acmp s restrictions . unlike its predecessor the cca code was rigorously enforced with all comics requiring code approval prior to their publication . this not being what gaines intended he refused to join the association . 13 among the code s new rules were that no comic book title could use the words horror or terror or weird on its cover . when distributors refused to handle many of his comics gaines ended publication of his three horror and the two suspenstory titles on september 14 1954 . 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 issues all the new direction titles were canceled . 14 judgment day was first published in weird fantasy 18 april 1953 judgment day edit gaines waged a number of battles with the comics code authority in an attempt to keep his magazines free from censorship . in one particular example noted by comics historian digby diehl gaines threatened judge charles murphy the comics code administrator with a lawsuit when murphy ordered ec to alter the science fiction story judgment day in incredible science fiction 33 feb. 1956 . 15 the story by writer al feldstein and artist joe orlando was a reprint from the pre code weird fantasy 18 april 1953 inserted when the code authority had rejected an initial original story an eye for an eye drawn by angelo torres 16 but was itself also objected to because of the central character being black . 17 the story depicted a human astronaut a representative of the galactic republic visiting the