Love is Pain in EC Comics’ TORTURED HEARTS #1 – A Violent Bouquet of Brutality Coming in February!
Hey, Loverboy! Hot-and-Bothered Meets Cold-Blooded in EC’s First 56-Page Valentine’s Special from Oni Press – Featuring Rancid Romantics Jordie Bellaire, Dan McDaid, Tini & Blake Howard, Anne Nocenti, & Many More!
COVER A BY DUSTIN WEAVER
PORTLAND, OR (November 18, 2025) – THIS VALENTINE’S DAY, BETTER SHAKE OFF THE BLUES…BEFORE THEY TURN BLACK AND START TO SMELL BAD! Oni Press, the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award–winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997, and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., are proud to announce their newest romantic obsession in TORTURED HEARTS #1 – a 56-page, coffin-shaped bouquet of brutality forged in the unrelenting tradition of EC Comics!
Did your heart ever break so hard that it felt like Cupid himself had plunged his sharp little arrow into your ribcage, only to leave a sucking chest wound for all the world to see? No?! Well, are you free on the second Wednesday in February?! Because TORTURED HEARTS #1 knows the feeling!
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here's one for all of you lovesick lunatics, rancid romantics, and forlorn fatalities as Oni Press proudly presents our next giant-sized special full of soft whispers and death rattles from hot-blooded writers Jordie Bellaire (Redlands), Tini Howard (Excalibur) & Blake Howard (Vampire: The Masquerade), Ann Nocenti (Daredevil), and Amy Roy (EC's Epitaphs from the Abyss), alongside candy-coated artists Sebastián Cabrol (Hulk: Maestro), Fabiana Mascolo (Cyberpunk 2077), Dan McDaid (EC's Outlaw Showdown), Arjuna Susini (Lamentation), and many more!
Plus, as an extra-added bonus: Another newly restored and authentically remastered classic from the EC vaults by legendary fiends William M. Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Reed Crandall!
Eat your heart out – but make sure to save some for the rest of us! This Valentine’s Day, EC Comics is gifting you a box of poison chocolates and cyanide-laced champagne in TORTURED HEARTS #1 – featuring a slate of salacious covers that will make your eyes linger a second too long from Dustin Weaver (Avengers), Miguel Mercado (X-Men), Tom Fowler (Refrigerator Full of Heads), Shawn McManus (Fables), and Patricia Martín (EC’s Blood Type)! Warm your heart to the boiling point – only in comic shops on February 11th!
EC TORTURED HEARTS #1 (ONE-SHOT)
WRITTEN BY JORDIE BELLAIRE, TINI HOWARD & BLAKE HOWARD, ANN NOCENTI, AMY ROY & MORE
ART BY SEBASTIÁN CABROL, FABIANA MASCOLO, DAN McDAID, ARJUNA SUSINI & MORE
COVER A BY DUSTIN WEAVER
COVER B BY MIGUEL MERCADO
COVER C BY TOM FOWLER
EC HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY SHAWN McMANUS
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY TOM FOWLER
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY PATRICIA MARTÍN
ON SALE FEBRUARY 11th, 2026 | $8.99 | 56 PAGES | FC
IOC: 12/27/2025
FOC: 1/19/2026
COVER A BY DUSTIN WEAVER
EC HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY SHAWN McMANUS
COVER B BY MIGUEL MERCADO
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY TOM FOWLER
COVER C BY TOM FOWLER
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY PATRICIA MARTÍN
About EC Comics
As the birthplace of Tales from the Crypt, MAD magazine, Weird Science, and more of the most influential and celebrated comic series ever published, EC Comics has cemented itself as one of the central nerves of American pop culture with a legacy that spans more than seven decades. From 1944 to 1956, EC—established as “Educational Comics” by founder M.C. Gaines and later rebranded “Entertaining Comics” under the leadership of publisher and editor William M. Gaines—led a creative renaissance for the comics industry that, for the first time, elevated the once-derided comics medium into the echelons of English literature and high art. Heralded as “one of the great explosions of vox-pop literature” by Time magazine and “fiercely honest, politically adversarial, [and] visually masterful” by The Comics Journal, EC’s line of comics books—which collectively sold more than ten million copies annually at their peak—entertained and informed in equal measure, using brilliantly crafted tales of horror, science fiction, satire, and battlefield conflict to critique and subvert America's dark impulses toward violence, racism, inequity, environmental destruction, and war.
Forcibly shuttered by the Comics Code Authority—a pro-censorship group specifically tasked with eradicating EC’s illuminating influence from the American comic book industry—in 1956, EC’s unique brand of subversive storytelling lived on through the continued success of MAD magazine, which would fuel American counterculture through the death of publisher William M. Gaines in 1992. EC’s titles and stories have been adapted in a number of media—including HBO's long-running Tales from the Crypt franchise of television series and feature films—and continue to be celebrated by multiple generations of comic creators, filmmakers, comedians, and musicians as a seminal influence.
Today, EC Comics’ canon of classic stories can continuously be found in print through new editions at Dark Horse Comics, Taschen, Fantagraphics, and IDW Publishing. In 2024, EC announced a new partnership with multiple Eisner- and Harvey Award–winning publisher Oni Press to produce the first all-new EC Comics titles in nearly seventy years.