Werthan's book, Seduction of the Innocent was, according to Wikipedia, "a minor bestseller" that nonetheless had sweeping effects on the comic book industry: Horror comics, for the most part, ceased publication overnight. Where there had been dozens of publications, only a few survived, and those became more tame than the "funny animal" comics or "Blondie and Dick Tracy reprints.
But they didn't go away. Not forever. And not completely.
Initially, EC tried to shift their comic book lines over to black-and-white prose magazines with illustrations drawn by many of their comic book artists, but the effort was too little, too late: the magazines went bust after a couple of issues, and only one magazine out of EC's whole line--the humor-oriented Mad--survived.
But that wasn't the end of the gory story. Oh no.
In the 1960s, Warren Publishing began a line of black-and-white magazines--Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella--that was a direct throwback to the EC Comics line, even employing some of the same artists and writers (Johnny Craig, Wallace Wood, Frank Frazetta, Reed Crandall and Angelo Torres, to name just a few). Since these were magazines, not comic books, they weren't subject to the Comics Code and, thus, could publish whatever the hell they wanted to. And did.
Creepy lasted until 1983 (with a lone followup issue published in 1985). Eerie ended around the same time. And Vampirella? Her original run ended at the same time as they other two magazines, but she was revived in comic books soon after and has rarely been out of print since.
Take that, Fred.
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