Creepy, Eerie, Frazetta, EC, and the CCA

Back in the 50s German Psychiatrist and epic douchelord Frederic Wertham helped establish the Comics Code Authority as part of his crusade against all things groovy. He wrote a book that stated comics were corrupting kids and causing them to become more violent and murderous; basically the same thing that people say about video games today and what protohumans probably said about cave drawings of boobs. Before Wertham came along comics companies could print anything they wanted on their covers. The 30s and 40s were when some of the most awesome covers were produced. Comics companies printed some pretty risqué stuff back then too, not just for the era either, some of the "Pre-Code" stuff would make Dan Savage Blush.

One of the biggest companies in the horror and crime genres was Entertaining Comics. Owned by Bill Gaines, EC produced a ton of famous titles like Tales From the Crypt and Mad Magazine. EC was the bane of the CCA, they'd censor and pare down EC stories until there was practically nothing left. One of the biggest scandals involves a story EC wrote about a black astronaut. Apparently judge Charles Murphy, the Comics Code Authority administrator was utterly opposed to the idea of children reading a story about a black astronaut. Gaines told him to stick it, but the damage done to EC by that point was irreversible. The CCA prohibited any comic with words like "horror," "shock," "crime," or "suspense" in the title. That pretty much spanned all of EC's repertoire.
Enter Warren Publishing. Warren created the Creepy title as a magazine-format newsstand publication, and thus it didn't require the Comics Code Authority's approval. Originally, Creepy was published quarterly, but by the end of the first year it was published bimonthly. After the initial success of Creepy, Warren came out with Eerie and Vampirella. Warren had some major names working on their covers and storyboards. Alex Toth, Gray Morrow, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, and of course, Frank Frazetta. These guys created some awesome work for the Warren publications. In addition to his Conan stuff, the Creepy and Eerie covers are some of my favorite work done by Frazetta. Anyway, here's some of my favorite covers: