Jack Kamen is an illustrator who was born May 29, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. His first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor doing work for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George 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.

He was beginning a career as an illustrator for Western and detective pulp magazines when he was called into the Army in 1942. After World War II, he started drawing comic books for Fiction House and Iger Associates, eventually getting assignments from EC Comics to do romance comics. He became one of the most prolific EC artists, drawing crime, horror, humor, suspense and science fiction stories, and was known for his drawings of pretty women.

After EC, he did Sunday supplement illustrations and created advertising art for a wide variety of clients: Esquire Shoe Polish, Mack Trucks, Pan American Airlines, Playtex, RCA, Smith Corona, Sylvania. He also did all the comic book artwork for Stephen King and George A. Romero's 1982 horror anthology film, "Creepshow" - King and Romero's homage to the EC horror comics. Although the bulk of the artwork for the graphic novel adaptation of the film was done by acclaimed macabre artist Berni Wrightson (along with his daughter who did some of the coloring), Jack Kamen illustrated the cover.

Kamen's son Dean Kamen is the inventor of the Segway and the iBOT Mobility System. His son Barton is Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey as well as a Professor of Pediatrics and Pharmacology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.