Crestwood Publications, also known as Feature Publications, was a magazine publisher that also published comic books from the 1940s through the 1960s. Its title Prize Comics contained what is considered the first ongoing horror comic-book feature, Dick Briefer's "Frankenstein". Crestwood is best known for its Prize Group imprint, published in the late 1940s to mid-1950s through packagers Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who created such historically prominent titles as the horror comic Black Magic, the creator-owned superhero satire Fighting American, and the first romance comic title, Young Romance.
Crestwood Publications
Prize Comics number 63 (March 1947), cover art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to the demise of many titles and the toning down of others. Black-and-white horror-comics magazines, which did not fall under the Code, flourished from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s from a variety of publishers. Mainstream American color comic books experienced a horror resurgence in the 1970s, following a loosening of the Code. While the genre has had greater and lesser periods of popularity, it occupies a firm niche in comics as of the 2010s.
EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt #24 (July 1951) Cover art by Al Feldstein
Gilberton Publications' Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (August 1943), possibly the first full-length comic-book horror story
Avon Publications' Eerie Comics #1 (January 1947). Cover artist unknown.
Beware: Chilling Tales of Horror number 10 (July 1954). Artwork by Frank Frazetta.