Earl Kemp

Born Finis Earl Kemp in the Old Crossett Camp, an old lumber camp on the Chemin-a-Haut Creek, located south of present-day Crossett, Arkansas, in 1929 to Finis Watson Kemp (11 July 1904 – 20 July 1999) (a lumberjack at the time of his birth) and Ruth Magnolia Underwood (19 Sept 1906-15 Sept 2000). He later moved to Chicago, where he worked as a graphics artist.

Before Kemp left Arkansas, he discovered pulp fiction. As Kemp once wrote, "There were a number of magazines that struck my fancy for different reasons, among them were titles like Planet Stories, Weird Tales, Spicy Mystery Stories, etc. It was probably my emerging pubescence tilting me toward the spicy parts, but I had always been easy to tilt."