The birthplace of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, MAD MAGAZINE, WEIRD SCIENCE, and more of the most influential and celebrated comic series published, EC Comics cemented itself as one of the central nerves of American pop culture. Its legacy spans more than seven decades.
Established, in 1944, as “Educational Comics” by founder M.C. Gaines it was later rebranded “Entertaining Comics” under the leadership of Publisher & Editor William M. Gaines who led a creative renaissance for the comics industry. Heralded as “one of the great explosions of vox-pop literature” by Time Magazine and “fiercely honest, politically adversarial, [and] visually masterful” by The Comics Journal, EC’s line of comics books – which collectively sold more than 10 million copies annually at their peak – entertained and informed in equal measure, using brilliantly crafted tales of horror, science fiction, satire, and battlefield conflict to critique and subvert America’s dark impulses toward violence, racism, inequity, environmental destruction, and war.
Forcibly shuttered by the Comics Code Authority – a pro-censorship group specifically tasked with eradicating EC’s illuminating influence from the American comic book industry – in 1956, EC’s unique brand of subversive storytelling lived on through the continued success of MAD Magazine, which would fuel American counterculture through the death of Publisher William M. Gaines in 1992. EC’s titles and stories have been adapted in a number of media – including HBO’s long-running TALES FROM THE CRYPT franchise of television series and feature films.
Last year EC announced a new partnership with publisher Oni Press to produce the first all-new EC Comics titles in nearly 70 years. EC continues to publish new titles, expanding their range of genre as well as their definition of fright.
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