Panic (comic)

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Panic was part of the EC Comics line during the early 1950s. The bi-monthly humor comic, published by Bill Gaines as a companion to Harvey Kurtzman's Mad. Panic was edited by Al Feldstein (who became the editor of Mad a few years later). Beginning with issue 1 (February - March 1954), Panic had a 12-issue run for two years, ending with the December 1955 - January 1956 issue.

Feldstein was the cover artist, with Jack Davis cartooning the cover for the final issue. Stories were illustrated by Davis, Will Elder, Jack Kamen, Joe Orlando, Basil Wolverton and Wally Wood.

The publication was controversial, as detailed by Steve Stiles in his article,"It's a Panic!:

What Panic also earned was a storm of indignation that burst over Gaines' head with the very first issue, and all over the holiday of "Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men." It's strange that Gaines didn't see it coming, but some people got very annoyed with a satire of "The Night Before Christmas." To put it mildly.

The lead story was provocative enough --an eight-page satire, drawn by Jack Davis, of crime novelist (and comics writer) Mickey Spillane's work, titled "My Gun Is The Jury." Feldstein set about to parody Mike Hammer's rather gory crime solving techniques, labeling the satire "Sex and Sadism Department." In page after page "Mike Hammershlammer" blows away a variety of beautiful women ("I let her have it, right in the gut, a little below the belly-button..."). In the last few panels Mike has shot Stella --only to discover that "she" is a "he." Not only that, but Mike "himself" is a female transvestite! That was pretty heavy stuff for the nineteen fifties and came to cause Gaines considerable grief, as did the last story in the first issue!

The next two stories in the first issue were "This Is Your Life," a TV show satire illustrated by Joe Orlando, and a "Grim Fairy Tale," usually a regular feature in EC's horror titles, illustrated by Jack Kamen (father of inventor Dean Kamen).

Then came "The Night Before Christmas."

"T'was the night before Christmas when all through the house... Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..."

Small wonder, because in the first three panels Bill Elder has drawn the interior of a butcher's meat-storage locker, with various gutted carcasses --including a rodent's-- hanging from meat hooks! Panel by panel, Elder used visual puns to lampoon the 1822 poem by Clement Clarke Moore. The last page was a splash, a Christmas greetings from EC to its readers. Elder has drawn Gaines as Santa rolling away in a wheelchair. The sack over his back contains caricatures of all the E.C. staff, and on the right wheelchair armrest are a number of pill containers (an in-joke reference to Gaines' problems with insomnia and dieting) and a revolver.

A hornet's nest was stirred up. Some people evidently mistook Santa Claus for a Christian icon. In one panel Elder had placed a "Just divorced" sign on the back of Santa's sleigh! The result was a burst of indignation that was particularly strong in the state of Massachusetts and resulted in Panic being banned there. Gaines "retaliated" by announcing that he was yanking his Picture Stories from the Bible from that state --a hollow gesture, since it was soon discovered that the book hadn't been published in years!

"My Gun Is The Jury" caused a bigger splash, however. A few days after the Santa Claus storm burst, the EC offices were raided by NY police, announcing that they were arresting whoever was in charge. Lyle Stuart, a friend of Gaines and publisher of the muckraking Expose magazine (which Gaines financed) was on the premises and volunteered to take the rap. Stuart needn't have worried about doing any time: a judge labeled the case as nonsense and threw it out.

That might have been the end of it, but Walter Winchell, an influential and controversial newspaper, TV and radio columnist, mentioned Stuart's arrest in his column (without mentioning its outcome) and proclaimed "Attention all newsstands! Anyone selling the filth of Lyle Stuart will be subject to the same arrest!"

Inasmuch as Expose had published an exposé of Winchell, that column was hardly surprising. Neither was Stuart's decision to sue. It eventually netted him $21,500, good money in the 1950s, which he used as seed money for more publishing enterprises. A further revenge came with the cover of Panic #9, which parodied a Winchell favorite, Confidential magazine, by featuring scandal headlines about Superman, Smilin' Jack, and Dick Tracy. In the right hand corner is a photo of Winchell with the caption, "Does Walter Winchell read comics?" ^[1]

Some aspects of Panic's negative Santa depiction resurfaced a half-century later in Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa (2003).

EC called Panic the "only authorized imitation of Mad." Some story ideas were by Nick Meglin, later the editor of Mad. Scripts were by Feldstein, Elder and Jack Mendelsohn, later a co-screenwriter of Yellow Submarine (1968) and an Emmy-nominated TV comedy writer.