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<\/a><\/p>\nThose familiar with the Golden Age of horror comics our Lifetime Achievement Awards recipient Al Feldstein was responsible for back in the 1950s know that if HE had scripted the Stoker Awards weekend, it would start off with a punning title like, \u201cI\u2019m Fine, Horror You?\u201d It would culminate in a banquet at which one of our Guests of Honor would mysteriously fail to show and meanwhile the steaks would taste REAL good. And once all the speechifying was over and we\u2019d start rushing out of here to party, we\u2019d find the halls lined with razor blades \u2026 and then some idiot would turn off the lights.<\/p>\n
Feldstein was born in Brooklyn in 1925, and when he was 15, barely able to afford the subway fare to the High School of Music and Art which he attended in Manhattan, he learned that a friend was earning some money in the comic book business. Feldstein was hired by Jerry Iger of the Eisner and Iger shop, which created content for the comics publishing companies of the day, to do the scut work of ruling panel border, inking pointers on word balloons, and erasing pencils once pages were done \u2026 for three bucks a week.<\/p>\n
He enlisted in the Air Force in 1943, where, among other thing, he designed flight jackets and painted squadron insignias, and after his discharge, he started freelancing for Fox Comics. But there was something missing about those assignments. Something like \u2026 getting paid in a timely manner, which I think many of you here in this room are all too familiar with. But he heard about another publishing company that treated its freelancers a little better, one called Entertaining Comics, owned by a guy named Bill Gaines.<\/p>\n
So in 1948 Feldstein began working for Gaines first as an artist and then as a writer as well on such titles as A Moon, A Girl, A Romance<\/em>, and Crime Patrol<\/em>, and Saddle Romances<\/em>. But one day, realizing that both he and Gaines loved the spooky radio series such as Inner Sanctum<\/em> and Lights Out<\/em>, Feldstein thought, hey, why don\u2019t we give horror a try. And when they did, it turned a struggling company into a huge success.<\/p>\n They started by sneaking gruesome tales into the company\u2019s non-horror titles, introducing sardonic horror hosts such as The Crypt Keeper in a title called Crime Patrol<\/em> and The Vault Keeper in War Against Crime<\/em>. Sales were phenomenal, resulting in dedicated horror titles like Tales from the Crypt<\/em>, Vault of Horror<\/em> and The Haunt of Fear<\/em>. Feldstein drew some of his own stories, but couldn\u2019t draw them all, and he had the best artists in the business working for him, artists such as Jack Davis and Graham Ingels and Wally Wood and Johnny Craig and \u2026 and here\u2019s where Feldstein gets points not just for being a great horror artist and writer, but also a great horror editor. Because unlike other comics companies of the day, he encouraged his artists to maintain their personal styles, not forcing them to conform to a stultifying house style.<\/p>\n