From the desk of Phantom Stranger:
“Today we shall be looking at the history of EC Comics, most famous as the publisher of MAD Magazine and many Horror/Thriller titles such as Crime SupenStories.
But how was EC formed? Well, to explain that, we must first look at the history of another company. Since the real meat of the matter is EC, I’ll be going over this as fast as possible, and I do apologize if things get slightly confusing, as some company name changes are incredibly close to one another.
In 1934, a man by the name of Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson had the idea to published comic books with new never before seen stories. Up until that point, comic books were simply reprints of news paper strips; an early form of a trade paper back if you will. Nicholson created the company National Allied Publications. By 1935, Nicholson’s company was failing horribly. Sales were poor and he lost many backers. Nicholson went to Harry Donenfeld at Independent News, who agreed to pick up N.A.P. However, this would mean that Nicholson would lose much control over anything the company owned.
Together they formed Detective Comics, Inc. In early 1938, Harry sued Nicholson for non payment, and Detective Comics, Inc went bankrupt. Harry would buy up both N.A.P and Detective Comics, Inc. Later, in 1938, Superman would make his first appearance under the National Allied Publications banner.
The two companies would eventually merge into National Publications, which in 1944 would buy All-American Publications, a company National promoted and did crossovers with quite often. After the buy out, National Publications would once again change names, this time becoming National Allied Periodicals.”