Were most horror comics produced by studios or did publishers eventually create them in-house?
Most were created in-house, but a few came from outside packagers such as Jerry Iger and Bernard Baily. What was the nature of the relationship between studios, like those run by Jerry Iger, and the publishers? Did the studios simply bundle comics together or did they work on commission, doing customized stories for each publisher? In the early days (c. 1937-45) the shops often packaged the entire books, though some titles contained stories by different shops and were assembled by the publishers. By the late forties most publishers began running their own studios to eliminate the middle man. The shop system was on its way out by the horror period, with publishers hiring their own freelance artists and writers. I think Jerry Iger’s was the last to go, in the late 1950s. Horror comics seemed to have a very brief heyday due to the adoption of the Comics Code Authority. Did you notice any evolution, from the early 50s until the mid-50s, in the way horror stories were told? Well, like most
