“Gutter of Horror” is a Brazilian column from DinamoStudio website that talks about horror comics.
This is the translated version of the article.
In its first years, E.C. had several successful
titles, such as Crypt of Terror (later renamed to Tales From the Crypt), The
Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear1, which kind of created the
“horror host” trope in comics. But there was so many others. War comics like
Frontline Combat e Two-Fisted Tales usually focus on stories that subverted
the traditional north-American heroism trope while Shock SuspenStories featured
heavy themes like racism, drugs, sex and the “American way of life”, with a
tone close to film noir. But the company was really proud of its science
fiction titles like Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, which featured unusual
stories compared to space operas published in other companies’ titles. This E.C. was
far from Educational Comics’ original intent (more on that here), but regardless, Bill Gaines was carrying the family business with great success.
Among the most recurring themes in E.C. Magazines were
ordinary situations with an ironic or sinister plot twist, generally a poetic
justice for the crimes of the protagonist; Siamese twins – yeah, that was a
thing; “Grimm fairy tales”, horror interpretations of children’s fairy tales; and
adaptations of Ray Bradbury stories with a political message – which became the
mark of science fiction and suspense stories of E.C. Among the political topics
were conviction without trial, antisemitism and political corruption. Among
the artists and writers that contributed to E.C. were Jack Davis, Graham
Ingels, Al Williamson, John Severin, Marie Severin, Reed Crandall, Joe Orlando,
Jack Kamen, Russ Heath, Roy Krenkel, Gene Colan, Dave Berg, William Elder,
George Evans, Frank Frazetta and Wally Wood.
But by far the most prominent element of E.C. Comics was satire, a theme that were everywhere in the titles, sometimes in the political criticism,
sometimes in the black humor of the ordinary situations that ended up badly.
And that satire essence ended up giving birth to probably the most famous E.C.
title: Mad.
Created in 1953, MAD focus on satire and parody. It
started as a comic book and two years later became a magazine - without
losing the original appeal. MAD’s popularity was probably due to being
published in a time where Americans needed political satires once censorship of
the media was a reality in the wake of Cold War paranoia. For a while, MAD was
the most successful magazine in America to publish completely without the help
of advertisement. This was great for the writers and artists, which could criticize
everyone without any worries without holding back.
But it was not all flowers and daisies for MAD, which
got several lawsuits for its acid, critical and many times ridiculous humor. Mad
Magazine was the longest E.C. title, having survived the end of the company, being
published in a intermittent way until it was acquired by DC, which, for years, kept Gaines involved and let the magazine ran without editorial interference.
The last issue of Mad Magazine was published in 2018, with some issues in 2019,
when publication ceased completely.
Unfortunately, even with the success of E.C. and his
popular themes, a monster worse than anything that the writers and editors
could imagine in his stories would put an end to the company: Censorship.
Rafael Algures is a Bachelor of Philosophy specialized in Neurosciences of Language. He is also a copywriter, content and science writer, and a comic book creator. His latest work, “Gutter of Horror: Transition”, is available at Amazon – digital and paperback.
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1. You probably notice
that I didn’t talk much about E.Cs main horror titles. That’s because those
titles will need separate articles. But don’t worry, we will talk about them in
length.