Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was an American cartoonist best known for his defining work on the Mickey Mouse comic strip, which he worked on from 1930 until his retirement in 1975. His contribution to Mickey Mouse comics is comparable to Carl Barks's on the Donald Duck comics. 17 years after his death, his memory was honored with the Disney Legends award in 2003 and induction into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
Gladstone Publishing was an American company that published Disney comics from 1986 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1998. The company had its origins as a subsidiary of Another Rainbow Publishing, a company formed by Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran to publish the Carl Barks Library and produce limited edition lithographs of Carl Barks oil paintings of the Disney ducks. The name references Gladstone Gander.
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 the 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 the dawn of the 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.
Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck.
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, sometimes abbreviated WDC&S, is an American anthology comic book series featuring characters from The Walt Disney Company's films and shorts, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale, Li'l Bad Wolf, Scamp, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and others. With more than 700 issues, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories is the longest-running Disney comic book in the United States, making it the flagship title, and is one of the best-selling comic books of all time.
Donald Duck, also known as Donald Duck and Friends, is an American Disney comic book series starring the character Donald Duck and published by various publishers from October 1942 to June 2017. As with many early Disney comics titles, Donald Duck began as individual issues of Dell Comics' Four Color one-shots series. It was published as its own regular series in November 1952, starting with issue #26.
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. They transport comic books and graphic novels, as well as other popular culture products such as toys, games, and apparel from comic book publishers or suppliers to retailers.
Joseph Orlando was an Italian-American illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades. He was the associate publisher of Mad and the vice president of DC Comics, where he edited numerous titles and ran DC's Special Projects department.
Crime SuspenStories was a bi-monthly anthology crime comic published by EC Comics in the early 1950s. The title first arrived on newsstands with its October/November 1950 issue and ceased publication with its February/March 1955 issue, producing a total of 27 issues. Years after its demise, the title was reprinted in its entirety, and four stories were adapted for television in the HBO's Tales From The Crypt.
Tales from the Crypt was an American bi-monthly horror comic anthology series published by EC Comics from 1950 to 1955, producing 27 issues. Along with its sister titles, The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt was popular, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s comic books came under attack from parents, clergymen, schoolteachers and others who believed the books contributed to illiteracy and juvenile delinquency. In April and June 1954, highly publicized congressional subcommittee hearings on the effects of comic books upon children left the industry shaken. With the subsequent imposition of a highly restrictive Comics Code, EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines cancelled Tales from the Crypt and its two companion horror titles, along with the company's remaining crime and science fiction series in September 1954.
Shock SuspenStories was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. The bi-monthly comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein, began with issue 1 in February/March 1952. Over a four-year span, it ran for 18 issues, ending with the December/January 1955 issue.
Weird Fantasy is an American dark fantasy and science fiction anthology comic that was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. The companion comic for Weird Fantasy was Weird Science. Over a four-year span, Weird Fantasy ran for 22 issues, ending with the November–December 1953 issue.
Weird Science was an American science fiction comic book magazine that was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. Over a four-year span, the comic ran for 22 issues, ending with the November–December, 1953 issue. Weird Fantasy was a sister title published during the same time frame.
Impact was a short-lived comic book series published by EC Comics in 1955 as the first title in its New Direction line.
Incredible Science Fiction was an American science fiction anthology comic published by EC Comics in 1955 and 1956, lasting a total of four issues.
Shock Illustrated was an American black and white magazine published by EC Comics from late 1955 to early 1956. Part of EC's Picto-Fiction line, each magazine featured three to five stories. The artists drew one to four panels per page with the text overlaid onto the artwork. The first issue appeared with a cover date of September–October 1955 and featured three psychology-themed stories, similar in theme to the comic Psychoanalysis published by EC in 1955. Starting with the second issue this type of story was generally reduced to one per issue, with the remaining stories being similar in theme to those that appeared in EC's comic Shock SuspenStories.
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.
Stephen A. Geppi is an American comic book distributor, publisher and former comic store owner. Having established an early chain of comic shops in Baltimore in the mid-late 1970s, he is best known for his distributing business. Geppi founded Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic direct distribution service in 1982, and has served as the company's head to the present. Diamond Distribution became the successor to direct market pioneer Phil Seuling's distribution dream when Geppi took over New Media/Irjax's warehouses in 1982. He further bought out early-distributor Bud Plant in 1988, and main rival Capital City in 1996 to assume a near-monopoly on comics distribution, including exclusivity deals with the major comic book publishers.
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.
