Johnny Craig
Before creating and writing the all-time greatest satirical comic, Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993) had already been the only humor cartoonist given full editorial freedom by Stan Lee and created and wrote the first serious war comics in an age of heroic jingoism. After revamping MAD from a comic into the all-time greatest satirical magazine, he went on to create and write the most widely read adult comic strip (with “Little Annie Fanny” in Playboy) and write and draw one of the earliest graphic novels (with the 1959 The Jungle Book). He continued to work in magazine and book publishing his whole life, with an eye for talent that gave leading cartoonists of the 1960s undergrounds and the 1980s alternative comics movement their earliest opportunities. Since 1988, one of the two major awards programs in American comics has been given annually in his name.
Albert B. Feldstein (1928–2014; Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2003) was a triple-threat writer, artist, and editor, renowned for his work on such titles as Weird Science, Tales From the Crypt, and MAD magazine. He received the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
Jack Davis (1924–2016) was a founding cartoonist of MAD and one of the most in-demand caricaturists and cartoonists in the world throughout his 60-plus-year career. Among many other honors, he was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003.
Wallace Allan Wood (1927–1981) is widely considered to be America’s greatest science fiction cartoonist. But Wood could—and did—do it all: humor (a founding cartoonist of MAD), crime, superheroes, romance, war. He was also a pioneering alternative/underground cartoonist/publisher with his magazine witzend. Among many other honors, he was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1992.
John “Johnny” Thomas Alexis Craig (1925-2001), a triple-threat comic book artist, writer, and editor, is best-known for his EC work on Tales From the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, and The Vault of Horror.
Graham Ingels (1915–1991), began working for EC Comics, drawing Western, romance, and crime stories, in 1948. But it was with the advent of EC’s horror titles that “Ghastly” Graham Ingels’s detailed work perfectly evoked the proper mood for the kind of wickedly macabre stories EC excelled at, and it made him a fan favorite. Ingels drew the lead feature for every issue of Haunt of Fear starting with #4, but his work, “hosted” by his signature character, the Old Witch, appeared regularly in all three EC horror titles and in Crime SuspenStories. In 1989, Ingels returned briefly to the comics landscape when he created a series of oil paintings featuring the Old Witch.
Frank Frazetta (1928–2010) was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers, and other media. He is often referred to as the “Godfather of fantasy art”, and one of the most renowned illustrators of the 20th century. He was also the subject of a 2003 documentary Painting with Fire. Frazetta was inducted into the comic book industry’s Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame, the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and was awarded a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
Grant Geissman is the four-time Eisner Award-nominated author of several books related to the EC comics and MAD magazine, the most recent being The History of EC Comics (Taschen). He is also an Emmy-nominated guitarist and composer (for co-writing the theme to Two and a Half Men), and his most recent solo album, BLOOZ, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2022. He lives in Los Angeles.
