Quiz" feature of Look, and a report from the magazine's "Russian correspondant" entirely in Russian. There were more all-text articles, and artwork often featured Craftint halftones to simulate the feel of photographs. EC's fortunes were falling. In April 1955 EC dropped its horror titles and launched the New Direction line. whose titles were free of horror and crime. Following a press conference in September 1954 at which Gaines pledged to deliver "comics which will offend no one". The EC brand remained tainted in the eyes of retailers, and many refused to stock the new titles. From another angle Gaines and Feldstein launched the Adult Picto-Fiction line of comics magazines in a Mad-like black-and-white, typeset format; each title was canceled after only two issues. Mad was a success, but Kurtzman missed deadlines so frequently that it was only appearing quarterly, and he was pushing for more money for the artists. The distributor Leader News went bankrupt with $110,000 unpaid to EC, so Gaines was unable to pay off the $100,000 in debt EC had accumulated. Gaines planned to shut down EC, including the still-profitable Mad, but Kurtzman convinced him to keep going with Mad. The pair convinced Gaines' mother, who was EC's co-owner, for an investment of $50,000 to settle debts, and with another $60,000 from Gaines EC continued with Mad as sole title. Wholesalers left with unreturnable stock due to Leader's demise were reluctant to take another chance on Mad, so Gaines worked out a deal with American News Company, a company with its own wholesalers unaffected by the Leader situation. The new deal gave Mad wider distribution and by 1956 circulation had reached half a million. Kurtzman's departure Mads circulation was rising issue by issue, but while Kurtzman was pleased finally to be editor of a magazine, he was frustrated at the financial restrictions. He felt the $25-page rate for contributors was too low, and wanted to include color features. He felt responsible to a degree for EC's survival, and felt insufficiently rewarded for it. He also felt that Gaines and his business manager Lyle Stuart had handled the business poorly; Kurtzman felt that the horror comics, which Kurtzman despised, had brought on the Senate hearings, and that the failure of the New Direction and Picto-Fiction lines had resulted in a tightened budget and uncertain future for Mad. One-time cartoonist Hugh Hefner was a media mogul by the mid-1950s