He recalled, ...running errands, erasing pages and doing general gofer work after school for three dollars a week (later raised to five...then twelve over the Summer, full time!).

He described Fox as the "typical exploiting comic book publisher of his day, grinding out shameless imitations of successful titles and trends" and mistreating his writers and artists.

Warned by his letterer Jim Wroten to be cautious about payments from Victor Fox, who'd "gotten himself into financial trouble", Feldstein approached Bill Gaines, who'd just taken over as EC Comics publisher following his father's death in a speedboat crash.

As EC's editor, Feldstein created a literate line, balancing his genre tales with potent graphic stories probing the underbelly of American life.

In creating stories around such topics as racial prejudice, rape, domestic violence, police brutality, drug addiction, and child abuse, he succeeded in addressing problems and issues which the 1950s radio, motion picture and television industries were too timid to dramatize.

[4][11] While developing a stable of contributing writers that included Robert Bernstein, Otto Binder, Daniel Keyes, Jack Oleck and Carl Wessler, he published the first work of Harlan Ellison.

EC employed the comics industry's finest artists and published promotional copy to make readers aware of their staff.

Distinctive front cover designs framing those recognizable art styles made Feldstein's titles easy to spot on crowded newsstands.

By the end of 1962, with the additions of Antonio Prohías, Paul Coker Jr., Jack Rickard, Don Edwing, Dick DeBartolo, Stan Hart, Dave Berg and Lou Silverstone, he had fully established both the format and the talent pool that kept the magazine a commercial success for decades.

[13] Feldstein moved in 1992 to Paradise Valley, Montana, near Livingston, finding new approaches to depict the Western way of life in his acrylic paintings.

He is represented by numerous Northwest galleries, and he continued to create his Western, wildlife and landscape paintings at his 270 acre (1.1 km2) ranch south of Livingston and north of Yellowstone National Park.