''Shock Illustrated'' was an American black and white magazine published by
EC Comics
E.C. Publications, Inc., (doing business as EC Comics) is an American comic book publisher. It specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, nota ...
from late 1955 to early 1956. Part of EC's
Picto-Fiction line, each magazine featured three to five stories. The artists drew one to four panels per page with the text overlaid onto the artwork. The first issue appeared with a cover date of September–October 1955 and featured three psychology-themed stories, similar in theme to the comic ''Psychoanalysis'' published by EC in 1955. Starting with the second issue this type of story was generally reduced to one per issue, with the remaining stories being similar in theme to those that appeared in EC's comic ''
Shock SuspenStories''.
[Cochran, Russ. ''Complete EC Library: Terror Illustrated''. Gemstone, 2006.]
''Shock Illustrated'' ran for a total of three issues. The Picto-Fiction magazines lost money from the start, and when EC's distributor went bankrupt, the company had no choice but to cancel the prints. The third issue of this magazine is known as the rarest EC publication of all time. Although all 250,000 copies had been printed, publisher
Bill Gaines lacked the funds to bind them, and all but 100 copies were destroyed.
Contributors
The editor of ''Shock Illustrated'' was
Al Feldstein
Albert Bernard Feldstein ( ; October 24, 1925 – April 29, 2014) was an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine '' Mad''. After retiring from ''Mad' ...
. In addition to those stories credited to him, Feldstein also wrote under the pseudonym
Alfred E. Neuman. Feldstein included multiple retellings of previous stories, a move suggested by Gaines. This included "A Question of Time" and "Dead Right" in the second issue and "Curiosity Killed" in the third issue. Contributing writers included
Jack Oleck (who had worked as a writer on EC's earlier publications), Robert Bernstein, John Larner, and
Daniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes (August 9, 1927 – June 15, 2014) was an American writer who wrote the novel ''Flowers for Algernon''. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000.
Biography
Early life ...
(using the pseudonyms Kris Daniels and A.D. Locke).
Artists featured in ''Shock Illustrated'' included
Jack Kamen, Rudy Nappi,
,
George Evans George Evans may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* George "Honey Boy" Evans (1870–1915), American songwriter and entertainer
* George Evans (bandleader) (1915–1993), English jazz bandleader, arranger and tenor saxophonist
* George Evans (sin ...
,
Al Williamson
Alfonso Williamson (March 21, 1931 – June 12, 2010) was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western, science fiction and fantasy.
Born in New York City, he spent much of his early childhood in ...
,
Angelo Torres and
Graham Ingels.
Reprints
''Shock Illustrated'' was reprinted along with the other Picto-Fiction magazines in hardbound volumes by Russ Cochran (and
Gemstone Publishing) for the first time in 2006 as the final part of his ''Complete EC Library''. With these reprints, published for the first time, was the fourth issue of the title which had been produced but never printed.
Dark Horse
A dark horse is a previously lesser-known person, team or thing that emerges to prominence in a situation, especially in a competition involving multiple rivals, that is unlikely to succeed but has a fighting chance, unlike the underdog who is exp ...
reprinted ''Shock Illustrated'' as part of the ''
EC Archives
The ''EC Archives'' are an ongoing series of American hardcover collections of full-color comic book reprints of EC Comics, published by Russ Cochran (publisher), Russ Cochran and Gemstone Publishing from 2006 to 2008, and then continued by Cochr ...
'' series in 2021.
Issue guide
See also
*
Terror Illustrated
References
External links
"Lipstick Traces" by Bhob Stewart
{{EC Comics
EC Comics publications
Magazines established in 1955
Magazines disestablished in 1956
Defunct magazines published in the United States
Fiction magazines
Quarterly magazines published in the United States
1955 establishments in the United States