Fifties horror comics other than EC had a few horror hosts. One that piques my interest was The Ghost Writer in the Ajax-Farrell books. I'm fuzzy on the details of his origin, but as I recall (from reprints) he was a reporter who was murdered and his body (chained to his typewriter, to weigh him down) was dumped in the river. There was some kind of voodoo spell that kept him "alive", and he'd write the stories from the bottom of the river. As far as I know, he was only used a couple of times, but I think it's a pretty neat gimmick.