Crime SuspenStories #13

Credits:
Cover dated October/November 1952
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Hear No Evil!" - Art by Johnny Craig and Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"First Impulse!/Second Chance!" - Art by Sid Check/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"A Question of Time!!" - Art by Al Williamson/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Forty Whacks!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"Hear No Evil!" - A woman named Rita meets a wealthy man named Fred who is deaf, and communicates by having people write down everything for him. She decides to marry Fred for his money, and often belittles him out loud, knowing that he can't hear her. An amount of time goes by, and Rita starts carrying on an affair with a friend of Fred's named Vance. When Fred gets in a car accident, he comes home and almost catches them together. Rita decides to poison Fred through his coffee, but Fred switches cups with one intended for Vance, and he dies instead. A distraught Rita confesses to the police and is taken away. Fred then turns on some music, revealing that he had recovered his hearing after being in the car accident. A rare team up of Johnny Craig and Jack Kamen in this story, which was there only team up in EC.

"First Impulse!/Second Chance!" - A woman named Helen suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her sister, Joan. She follows them and witnesses them buying a ring. Thinking they are going to get married, she pulls out a gun and when they get home, she shoots them. As they die, she realizes that they were actually buying an engagement ring for her, and her sister was merely helping her boyfriend pick it out. In the second story, things pick off as Helen's boyfriend and Joan are able to explain things, so Helen doesn't shoot them. Joan drives Helen's boyfriend to the station as he is going on a trip, but in actuality they run off together, and Helen's suspicions were revealed to be correct. Another one of EC's "quickies" which appeared most often in Crime SuspenStories. Sid Check makes another rare art appearance.
"A Question of Time!!" - The local sheriff finds a woman named Lila dead. He goes to see her husband Harry, figuring that he did it. The entire town knew about Lila fooling around with other men, but nobody told him about it. They all assumed he'd find out someday and do something about it. Harry refuses to confess, and the sheriff leaves. Later, Lila, who is still alive comes home, and knowing the truth, he kills her. This is a rather confusing story when you read it and isn't the most interesting one either (the vast majority of the story is simply Harry and the sheriff talking). It was later redone in EC's picto-fiction comics.

"Forty Whacks!" - A young woman named Fanny finds an axe in the attic, and enraged with her overbearing parents kills them both with it. When the police take her in, she blames the axe. At the police station, the head detective is greeted by his wife and son. His wife tells her about Lizzie Borden, who infamously murdered her father and step-mother with an axe. His wife tells her that she had moved to this town and had lived in Fanny's house. At that moment, their son looks at the axe, which is revealed to be the axe that Lizzie Borden used, and goes crazy, killing his parents with it. Obviously inspired by the real life incident of Lizzie Borden killing her parents with an axe, which was also featured on the cover of this issue. A rare instance where Graham Ingels did not do the Old Witch's story in Crime SuspenStories.

The Vault of Horror #26

Credits:
Cover dated August/September 1952
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Two of a Kind!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"Graft in Concrete!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Half-Way Horrible!" - Art by Sid Check/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Hook, Line and Stinker!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"Two of a Kind!" - A well known stage actress named Willow will only work at night and any attempts to take a photograph of her ends in failure. Willow starts going out with her latest costar, Brad Phillips and they plan to go on a weekend trip to a ski lodge together. Each holds a secret from another; Willow is a vampire and Brad is a ghoul. They plan to make the other their victim during the trip, but realize that they've fallen in love with each other and can't do it. The two are trapped in a cabin due to the severe snowstorm for several days. Rather than attack each other, Willow drinks her own blood and Brad eats his own flesh until the cabin collapses, killing them. A rare example of a romance horror story featuring different types of horror monsters falling in love. Another horror romance story, this time featuring a vampire and werewolf instead of vampire and ghoul appeared in "A Little Stranger" from The Haunt of Fear #14.

"Graft in Concrete!" - Four crooked politicians including the mayor and three members of the town council conspire to build a new road through the property of and using the construction company of one of the council members. Each of the council members appear to have information on at least one of the others, resulting in a lot of blackmail and kickbacks. One of the council members forces the others to run the new road through the cemetary that he owns. Rather than move the bodies, he simply has the headstones moved to save money. The four of them drive on the road the night before it is to be opened by the public, but numerous corpses burst out of the road and come after them, causing their car to crash. The next morning the construction company has a steamroller go over the road to fix it, but ends up crushing all four of them. The ending of this story is a bit questionnable as you wonder how in the world the steamroller driver completely missed the fact that it was running over the four politicians. A painted version of the cover of this issue, which was about this story, was later used as the cover for the Fred von Bernewitz's EC book "Tales of Terror!"

"Halfway Horrible" - A man calls for an undertaker to come to his apartment, where he keeps himself enshrouded in darkness. The mysterious man tells the undertaker his story. The man had a split personality which would do worse and worse things, starting with simply going out and partying, but escalating to criminal activities. When the man murders his psychiatrist while in his other personality, he flees the country to Haiti. There he finds a voodoo priest who he convinces to destroy the bad side of his personality. The priest does this, but it results in half of his body rotting away, which is why he called for the undertaker. Sid Check did 4 stories for EC around this time. He featured a Wally Wood/Joe Orlando-type style. He was an okay artist at EC and did some good stories, including this one, but didn't last that long. This story was later adapted as an episode of Tales from the Crypt.

"Hook, Line and Stinker!" - A woman named Bernice has been going out with a man named Stanley for 15 years but he always hesitates to ask her to marry him no matter how much she begs. Lately Stanley has grown to love fishing, bringing home a mounted fish after every weekend. One weekend Bernice goes for a walk and finds Stanley in a field with another woman, revealing that he made everything up about the fishing trips. The next week he returns with another mounted fish, and Bernice attacks him with a knife, mounting his body up on the wall. The issue wraps up with its weakest story, but overall this is still a fairly strong issue across the board.