E.C. Comics

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, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the '' Tales from the Crypt'' series. Initially, EC was owned by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. After Max Gaines' death in a boating accident in 1947, his son William Gaines took over the company and began to print more mature stories, delving into genres of horror, war, fantasy, science-fiction, adventure, and others. Noted for their high quality and shock endings, these stories were also unique in their socially conscious, progressive themes (including racial equality, anti-war advocacy, nuclear disarmament, and environmentalism) that anticipated the Civil Rights Movement and dawn of 1960s counterculture. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted it to concentrate on the humor magazine '' Mad'', leading to the company's greatest and most enduring success. Consequently, by 1956, the company ceased publishing all of its comic lines except ''Mad''.

Educational 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'', considered by historians the first true American comic book.

Entertaining Comics

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''. 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 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 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