Impact was a short-lived comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 series published by EC Comics

EC Comics

Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...

 in 1955 as the first title in its New Direction line. The bi-monthly comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein

Al Feldstein

Albert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...

, began with an issue cover-dated March-April, 1955. It ran for five issues, ending with the November-December, 1955 issue. The subtitle "Tales Designed to Carry an" ran above the title Impact. The book was dedicated to stories with shock endings, and was seen as a toned down, Comics Code Era version of EC's earlier Shock SuspenStories

Shock SuspenStories

Shock SuspenStories was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. The bi-monthly comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein, began with issue 1 in February/March 1952. Over a four-year span, it ran for 18 issues, ending with the December/January 1955 issue.- Artists and writers...

. Front covers were by Jack Davis

Jack Davis (cartoonist)

Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...

, and the stories were illustrated by Davis, George Evans, Jack Kamen

Jack Kamen

Jack Kamen was an illustrator from Brooklyn, New York. His first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor working for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George Brandt Bridgman and William C. McNulty...

, Graham Ingels

Graham Ingels

Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...

, Joe Orlando

Joe Orlando

Joseph Orlando was a prolific illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades...

, Reed Crandall

Reed Crandall

Reed Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.-Early...

 and Bernard Krigstein

Bernard Krigstein

Bernard Krigstein , was an American illustrator and gallery artist who received acclaim for his innovative and influential approach to comic book art, notably in EC Comics. He was known as Bernie Krigstein, and his artwork usually displayed the signature B...

.

There are two versions of the cover to Impact # 1. One logo is yellow and the other is white.

Impact was reprinted as part of publisher Russ Cochran

Russ Cochran (publisher)

Russ Cochran is a publisher of EC Comics reprints, Disney comics and books on Hopalong Cassidy, Chet Atkins, Les Paul and vacuum tubes. He has been a publisher for over 30 years, after quitting his job as a physics professor....

's Complete EC Library in 1988. Between April and August 1999, Cochran (in association with Gemstone Publishing

Gemstone Publishing

Gemstone Publishing is a U.S. company that publishes comic books and collectors' guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen A. Geppi. Gemstone published licensed Disney comic books from June 2003 until November 2008. The company has...

) reprinted all five individual issues. This complete run was later rebound, with covers included, in a single softcover EC Annual.

Master Race

In the debut issue, Krigstein illustrated "Master Race," regarded as one of the more significant stories ever published in a comic book. It still resonates today. In his article "Master Race and the Holocaust" Martin Jukovsky analyzed how the story was an "exceptional undertaking," conspicuous at a time when a few books had been written about the Holocaust:

When EC published "Master Race" in 1955, there was little in the mass media about the murder by the Nazis of millions of Jews, Gypsies, political oppositionists and homosexuals. The images of crowded gas chambers, mountains of corpses piled like cordwood, and smoke from the burning bodies continuously spewing out of tall chimneys had not yet established themselves in the public consciousness. The material was there, however. You just had to look for it. Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer and documentary photographer. She is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet Industry, the first female war correspondent and the first female photographer for Henry Luce's Life magazine, where her...

's Life

Life (magazine)

Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

magazine photograph of almost-dead staring faces behind barbed wire -- shot at the evacuation of a concentration camp) at the end of World War II -- was sometimes reprinted. This now-familiar photo is echoed in page four, panel five of "Master Race," as well as in Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...

's 1972 version of Maus

Maus

Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...

(in his book Breakdowns). Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz, a harrowing account by Olga Lengyel

Olga Lengyel

Olga Lengyel was a Romanian woman who became a prisoner at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and later wrote about her experiences in her book Five Chimneys.-Life and career:...

, a death camp survivor, was published in 1947. Eugen Kogon's Theory and Practice of Hell, detailing the horrible workings of the German death camps, was published in 1950. The facts began to surface about the incredible numbers murdered and the cold-blooded, single-minded efficiency with which it was done. Many Americans began to discuss the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust, but most just found it all too hard to believe. Krigstein's "Master Race" was therefore an exceptional undertaking. As their contribution to the anti-German propaganda effort, wartime movies and comic books had shown concentration camps and Nazi brutality. But never had they shown the death camps (as distinct from concentration camps) and the unique atrocities such as "medical" experimentation on living people... Krigstein's piece didn't spare the sensibility and complacency of the postwar reader. On page four, panel seven, ordinary citizens cover their noses with handkerchiefs against "the stinking odor of human flesh burning in the ovens... men's... women's... children's..." Book burnings, mass live burials, a quiet clinical scene of an operation on a human guinea pig -- "Master Race" starkly depicts the madness of the Nazi period in Germany as well as the burning vengeance inspired by these unspeakable crimes.

Issue guide

#	Date	Cover Artist	Story	Story Artist
1	March/April 1955	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...	Tough Cop	Reed Crandall Reed Crandall Reed Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.-Early...
			The Diamond Pendant	Graham Ingels Graham Ingels Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...
			The Dress	George Evans
			Master Race	Bernard Krigstein Bernard Krigstein Bernard Krigstein , was an American illustrator and gallery artist who received acclaim for his innovative and influential approach to comic book art, notably in EC Comics. He was known as Bernie Krigstein, and his artwork usually displayed the signature B...
2	May/June 1955	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...	Mother Knows Best	Reed Crandall Reed Crandall Reed Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.-Early...
			Divorce	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...
			The Suit	Graham Ingels Graham Ingels Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...
			Paid in Full	Joe Orlando Joe Orlando Joseph Orlando was a prolific illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades...
3	July/Aug 1955	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...	Life Sentence	Reed Crandall Reed Crandall Reed Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.-Early...
			The Debt	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...
			Totally Blind	Jack Kamen Jack Kamen Jack Kamen was an illustrator from Brooklyn, New York. His first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor working for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George Brandt Bridgman and William C. McNulty...
			The Good Fairy	Graham Ingels Graham Ingels Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...
4	Sept/Oct 1955	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...	The Lonely One	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...
			Fall in Winter	Graham Ingels Graham Ingels Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...
			The Bitter End	Reed Crandall Reed Crandall Reed Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.-Early...
			Country Doctor	George Evans
5	Nov/Dec 1955	Jack Davis Jack Davis (cartoonist) Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...	Heart Interest	George Evans
			The Travelers	Joe Orlando Joe Orlando Joseph Orlando was a prolific illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades...
			The General	Graham Ingels Graham Ingels Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...
			So Much More	Bernard Krigstein Bernard Krigstein Bernard Krigstein , was an American illustrator and gallery artist who received acclaim for his innovative and influential approach to comic book art, notably in EC Comics. He was known as Bernie Krigstein, and his artwork usually displayed the signature B...