The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt Volume 1

Al Feldstein was an American writer, editor, and artist best known for his work at EC Comics. He was also editor of the satirical magazine Mad from 1956 to 1985. After retiring from Mad, Feldstein concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife. Feldstein died in 2014.

Johnny Craig was an American comic book artist born in 1926. A veteran of World War II, Craig got his start in comics as an assistant to Harry Lampert, cocreator of the Flash. After the war he worked as a penciler and inker at EC Comics. Before EC's collapse after the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings, Craig was best known for his work on The Vault of Horror and Crime SuspenStories. He passed away in 2001 and was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2005.

Born in 1911 in Brooklyn, New York, Gardner Fox was probably the single most imaginative and productive writer in the Golden Age of comics. In the 1940s, he created or co-created dozens of long-running features for DC Comics, including the Flash, Hawkman, the Sandman, and Doctor Fate, as well as penning most of the adventures of comics' first super-team, the Justice Society of America. He was also the second person to script Batman, beginning somewhere around the Dark Knight Detective's third story. For other companies over the years Fox also wrote Skyman, the Face, Jet Powers, Dr. Strange, Doc Savage and many others—including Crom the Barbarian, the first sword and sorcery series in comics. Following the revival in the late 1950s of the superhero genre, Fox assembled Earth's Mightiest Heroes once more and scripted an unbroken 65-issue run of Justice League of America. Though he produced thousands of other scripts and wrote over 100 books, it is perhaps this body of work for which he is best known. Fox passed away in 1986.

Harvey Kurtzman (1924–1993) was a cartoonist, writer, editor, and comics genius. He is probably best remembered for MAD, which he founded in 1952. He created 28 revolutionary issues for E.C. publisher Bill Gaines (for whom he also created Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat) with such talent as Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Wally Wood before leaving in 1956. Kurtzman then created the short-lived satire magazine Trump for Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner in 1957. He followed with the comic-size Humbug in 1958, then Help! magazine. During his Help! tenure he discovered such diverse talent as Terry Gilliam, Gloria Steinem, Gilbert Shelton, and R. Crumb. In 1962 he and collaborator Will Elder began producing the long-running and elaborate Little Annie Fanny comic for Playboy. In the 1970s he became known as the "father-in-law of underground comix" for inspiring a new generation of media-bending cartoonists.