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 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.
Little Lulu is a comic strip created in 1935 by American author Marjorie Henderson Buell. The character, Lulu Moppet, debuted in The Saturday Evening Post on February 23, 1935, in a single panel, appearing as a flower girl at a wedding and mischievously strewing the aisle with banana peels. Little Lulu replaced Carl Anderson's Henry, which had been picked up for distribution by King Features Syndicate. The Little Lulu panel continued to run weekly in The Saturday Evening Post until December 30, 1944. A later variation of Little Lulu is Little Audrey.
The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940, as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday edition of Register and Tribune Syndicate newspapers; it was ultimately carried by 20 Sunday newspapers, with a combined circulation of five million copies during the 1940s. "The Spirit Section", as the insert was popularly known, continued until October 5, 1952. It generally included two other four-page strips, plus filler material. Eisner, the overall editor, wrote and drew most Spirit entries, with the uncredited assistance of his studio of assistants and collaborators, though with Eisner's singular vision a unifying factor.
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books. The first 25 issues (1939–1942) are known as "series 1". In mid-1942, the numbering started over again, and "series 2" began. After the first hundred issues of the second series, Dell stopped putting the "Four Color Comics" designation on the books, but they continued the numbering system for twenty years.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an American comic book series published by Mirage Studios between 1984 and 2014. Conceived by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, it was initially intended as a one-shot, but due to its popularity it became an ongoing series. The comic created the Turtles franchise of five television series, six feature films, numerous video games, and a range of toys and merchandise.
Krazy Kat is an American newspaper comic strip, by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run. The characters had been introduced previously in a side strip with Herriman's earlier creation, The Dingbat Family. The phrase "Krazy Kat" originated there, said by the mouse by way of describing the cat. Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, KrazyKat's mixture of offbeat surrealism, innocent playfulness and poetic, idiosyncratic language has made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than 80 years.
The Carl Barks Library (CBL) is a series of 30 large hardcover books reprinting all of the Disney comics stories and covers written and/or drawn by Carl Barks. Stories that were modified in the original publication, sometimes for production reasons and sometimes due to excessive editing, were restored in CBL to Barks' original intent. The books are collected in ten slipcase volumes with three books in each, a total of about 7,400 pages. The volumes were published from 1983 to 1990 in the United States by Another Rainbow Publishing under license from The Walt Disney Company. The comics were printed in black and white. In addition to the comics, there are numerous articles with background information.
John Stanley was an American cartoonist and comic book writer, best known for writing Little Lulu comic book stories from 1945 to 1959. While mostly known for scripting, Stanley also drew many of his stories, including the earliest issues of Little Lulu and its Tubby spinoff series. His specialty was humorous stories, both with licensed characters and those of his own creation. His writing style has been described as employing "colorful, S. J. Perelman-ish language and a decidedly bizarre, macabre wit ", with storylines that "were cohesive and tightly constructed, with nary a loose thread in the plot". He has been compared to Carl Barks, and cartoonist Fred Hembeck has dubbed him "the most consistently funny cartoonist to work in the comic book medium". Captain Marvel co-creator C. C. Beck remarked, "The only comic books I ever read and enjoyed were Little Lulu and Donald Duck".
The EC Archives are an ongoing series of American hardcover collections of full-color comic book reprints of EC Comics, published by Russ Cochran and Gemstone Publishing from 2006 to 2008, and then continued by Cochran and Grant Geissman's GC imprint (2011–2012), and finally taken over by Dark Horse in 2013.
The DC Comics Classics Library was a line of hardcover comic book collections, collecting older DC Comics storylines in a standardized reprint format along a similar direction as Marvel Comics' Marvel Premiere Classic hardcover comic book collection line, which started in 2006. Nine volumes were released between 2009 and 2010, after which the line was cancelled. No further volumes were published after that.
Russ Cochran was a publisher of EC Comics reprints, Disney comics, and books on Hopalong Cassidy, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, and vacuum tubes. He was a publisher for over 30 years, after quitting his job as a physics professor.
Tubby Tompkins, generally referred to as Tubby, is a comic book character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell. The character Thomas "Tubby" Tompkins first appeared in the Little Lulu comic panel in The Saturday Evening Post and went on to appear alongside Lulu in comic books, advertising, and animated cartoons, as well as in his own solo comic book series beginning in 1952.
The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library is a series of books collecting all of the comic book Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, originally published between 1942 and Barks' retirement in June 1966. The series was launched in late 2011, and will comprise 6,000 pages over roughly 30 200- to 240-page volumes when it is finished.
Donald Duck: The Complete Daily Newspaper Comics is a series of hardcover books collecting the complete run of the Disney Donald Duck comic strip, a daily newspaper comic strip drawn by the American comic artist Al Taliaferro. The comic strip debuted on February 7, 1938, and within eight weeks became the fastest growing syndicated comic strip worldwide. The publisher behind the project is IDW Publishing and their imprint, The Library of American Comics. The first book of the series was released on September 2, 2015.
The Complete Little Orphan Annie is a hardcover book series collecting the complete output of the American comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, written and drawn by Harold Gray from the strip's debut in 1924 to Gray's death in 1968. The newspaper comic strip title as a whole was published uninterrupted during 86 years straight (1924–2010) under the Tribune Media Services syndicate. A strip ranked as the most popular comics strip in its heyday according to a Fortune poll. The publisher of this book series is The Library of American Comics, the series' first volume was released in June, 2008.
Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies & Color Sundays, also known as The Complete Li'l Abner, is a series collecting the American comic strip Li'l Abner written and drawn by Al Capp, originally distributed by the syndicate United Feature Syndicate and later by Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, in total during 43 years before the strip ended. The strip debuted in August 1934 and at its peak, it had an estimated readership of over 60 million people regularly. The collection is published by The Library of American Comics.
Bloom County: The Complete Library is a book series published by The Library of American Comics which collects the complete comic strips Bloom County, Outland and Opus all written and drawn by Berkeley Breathed between 1980 and 2008. The first volume of this series was published in September, 2009, and also received the Eisner award in the category Best Archival Collection/Project - Strips in 2010; in November 2012, the final and seventh volume finished the series.
The Amazing Spider-Man: The Ultimate Newspaper Comics Collection is a series of books collecting the first 10 years of The Amazing Spider-Man newspaper comic strips by Marvel Comics, an American comic strip title which debuted on January 3, 1977. It was first syndicated by Register and Tribune Syndicate (1977–1985), later Cowles Media Company (1986), and currently King Features Syndicate (1987–onwards). The series launched in 2015 and is published by The Library of American Comics.
Lucky Luke - The Complete Collection is a series of books collecting the complete output of the Belgian comic title Lucky Luke, a comic title that was first published and introduced in the French magazine Spirou during the late 1940s, and later continuing in Pilote before finally switching back to Spirou and being collected in the album format. The comic title was created by Morris in 1949, and later also written by René Goscinny. The publisher behind this reprint book collection is Cinebook Ltd. The first volume of the series was released in June 2019.
