Jack Kamen was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York on May 29, 1920.[citation needed]
Kamen's first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor working for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George Brandt Bridgman and William C. McNulty. When Kamen attended classes at the Art Students League and the Grand Central Art School, he paid for his studies by painting theatrical scenery, decorating fashion mannequins and creating sculptures. Shortly after he began his illustration career with Western and detective pulp magazines, he was called into the Army in 1942. After World War II, he started drawing comic book stories for Fiction House and the Eisner & Iger studio.[citation needed]
Artist Al Feldstein also did work for the Eisner & Iger studio, where Kamen and Feldstein became friends. Later, Feldstein brought Kamen into EC Comics, as Kamen recalled in an interview with Ken Smith:

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