Larry Stark, pioneer of EC Comics fandom and noted theater critic, dies at 93

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Thommy Burns | May 28, 2026

Photo of Larry Stark courtesy of Thommy Burns.

Lawrence Edward Stark III, of Boston, Massachusetts, passed away peacefully of cardiac failure on May 1 after a short stay at Boston Medical Center. He was 93 years old.

Larry was born on Aug. 4, 1932 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and attended Rutger’s University there from 1950-56. During this time, Larry discovered EC Comics, publishers of Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science, and later, Mad. As Larry later said to EC publisher Bill Gaines, in a letter dated May 28, 1991: “I'm not arrogant enough to insist that I was the only person back then who read E.C. comics seriously or carefully. But I'm sure that — back then at least — I was one of the few who let YOU know I was reading them thoughtfully.”

Cover to one of Stark's early zines.

Gaines received many letters from fans (soon to be christened “E.C. Fan-Addicts”), but Larry was different — here was a college age reader who reviewed and critiqued E.C. stories with the same seriousness and consideration he would give to great literature. Larry remembered that “soon I was writing a letter of criticism to every issue in the EC armoire, and soon Bill gave me a free lifetime subscription to everything he published.” There was one caveat: Larry was to continue reviewing every single story in every single issue.

He did, gladly, and Gaines kept a “Stark File” in his large desk to read and revisit. EC artist George Evans recalled in a 1995 interview with S.C. Ringgenberg, that “whoever was reading the books evidently took each plot as a challenge, trying to out-think the writer. Larry Stark was one. His letters would come in … he’d actually do a literary critique of what we had done and often challenge the ending. Then we’d play around with different endings because of the letter.” Marie Severin hand-lettered a sign for Gaines’s office that read: “God Help Us To Write Stories That Will Please Larry Stark!”

Soon Larry’s letters were developing a fan base of their own. As he put it in a March 1, 2014, email: “In the early '50s one of the more rabid enemies of comic-books sneered that they couldn't be ‘books’ because they had generated no critical articles of any kind. Bhob Stewart, in Kirbyville Texas, countered that I had been doing just that for years, so he, and then a couple other mimeograph-publishers, published my long critical-columns — in other words, he and I started ‘Comic-book Fandom!’”

Larry’s letters were occasionally excerpted in the EC letters columns but many fans wanted to read them in their entirety, as Gaines did. The first fanzine to satisfy that demand was Potrzebie, in which Bhob Stewart wrote that “Potrzebie's main purpose in life is to present the criticism of Stark … sans censorship. You rarely get to peruse his monstrous prose other than a few sentences in the EC letter columns. EC values his opinions so much that Gaines has given Larry a free lifetime subscription to all the EC Comics on the condition that he will write EC a letter about each issue telling what he liked and didn’t like about it. Now you’ll know too. Thru Potrzebie.” Larry’s column was titled “One Man’s Opinion” and it ran through a change in editorship for Potrzebie, later continuing in The EC Fan Journal.

When EC stopped publishing comics Larry, for the second time in his life, “gave up comics forever” (though his free lifetime subscriptions continued for decades and through several address changes with Mad Magazine), though truth be told, Larry was disenchanted before the EC lines even ended. His disappointment in the hiring of outside writers, ever more excessive gore, and especially the later sanitized, Code-Approved titles prompted a simple postcard from Gaines: “Larry, please, have a heart! We’re tired!”

A 1991 letter from Bill Gaines, extolling Stark.

Larry’s most well known piece is "Elegy," originally published in Ron Parker’s legendary fanzine Hoohah! in 1956. It has been reprinted multiple times over the years in The Complete EC Checklist, Tales Of Terror!, The American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1950s, and EC’s Number One Fan: The Historic 1950s Fanzine Writing of Larry Stark.

In 1962 Larry began writing theater reviews in the Boston area, first for The Tech, and later Boston After Dark and The Cambridge Phoenix. For many years, starting in 1994, Larry published in-depth reviews and coverage of Boston theater, as well as links to his short stories and poetry, on his website, Theater Mirror. During this time Larry was taking in four to five plays per week. In 2013 a documentary film on Larry, Stark Review: The Heart of Boston Theater, was released by Red Dragonfly Films.

In the Summer of 2013 Larry began writing all new EC story reviews and essays for the EC Fan-Addict Club on Facebook. As he said at the time, “My past has caught up with me!” Larry wrote essays and introductions for The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood, Voodoo Vengeance and Other Stories by Johnny Craig, and The Million Year Picnic and Other Stories by Will Elder, and contributed new articles to several latter-day EC fanzines.

In 2016 Larry was brought to San Diego Comic-Con by EC Fan-Addict Club admins Thommy and Josh Burns to appear as Guest of Honor on their inaugural EC Fan-Addict Club Panel, connecting with EC fans of multiple generations who got to hang out with the “official number one fan” and say thank you.

Larry leaves behind a wealth of highly regarded writing, a tremendous legacy, and a devoted fan base of both comic book aficionados and theater lovers who have benefited from, and been enriched by Larry’s years of enthusiasm, support, and fellowship.