The Haunt of Fear #26

Credits:
Cover dated August 1954
Cover by Graham Ingels

"Marriage Vow" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Otto Binder
"The Shadow Knows" - Art by Reed Crandall/Story by Otto Binder
"Spoiled" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Otto Binder
"Comes the Dawn!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Otto Binder

"Marriage Vow" - A man named Martin marries a beautiful, rich woman named Eva for her money. After a year of being married however, he gets bored with her and decides to kill her for her money. After convincing her to put him in her will, he tampers with their balcony and when she steps on it she falls to her death, being impaled on a spike fence he had installed. Eva comes back from the dead however, convinced that they cannot be seperated until he dies as well and forces Martin to continue living, eating and sleeping with her or she'll go to the police. Somewhat different than the typical EC formula (where you'd expect Eva to come back from the dead at the end of the story), which helps set this story apart from the typical EC fare.

"The Shadow Knows" - A salesman named Eric is carrying on an affair with a rich woman named Jondra who asks him to marry her. Since he is already married, Eric comes up with a plan to murder his wife, Mabel, and make it look like a suicide. He cuts of a letter from her making it look like a suicide note, then, sneaks out of his hotel at night, drives to his home and hangs his wife in the basement. Once Mabel is buried however, her shadow starts following Eric along. Jondra sees her shadow and thinks he is with another woman. He is able to convince her otherwise, but the shadow then murders Jondra and makes it appear as if Eric killed her. He is sentenced to die and following his burial Mabel's shadow returns to her grave. This is one of a couple of stories in this issue sharing very similar themes with stories from the past year that were in Tales from the Crypt. This particular story is a rehash of "Shadow of Death" from Tales from the Crypt #39.

"Spoiled" - A woman named becomes bored with her surgeon husband, who is either always away tending to patients, or spending time in his lab in the basement working on a new anesthetic. She starts going out to bars and starts carrying on an affair with another man. The two repeatedly see each other including at her own home since she can tell when her husband is finished with work in his lab by the light in his lab going off. One night however he is able to finish his new anesthetic and comes upstairs in a rush without turning the light off, finding them together. He decides to get revenge on the two of them by using his new anesthetic on them. He then switches their heads. The two wake up approximately a week later, and in horror discover their new bodies. A so-so story; the fact that the main character and her lover would carry on an affair while her husband was in the basement seemed quite foolhardy. They should have taken much better precautions (of course then we wouldn't have a story!). This story was adapted as a Tales from the Crypt episode.

"Comes the Dawn!" - Three men, Jack, Sam and Olaf pool their money and go on an expedition to the Arctic, hoping to find uraninum. They soon find a large amount of uranium, and land their plane near where they found it. They hire an eskimo named Kalak to bring them to where they detected the uranium and find a frozen coffin there. Kalak says it is a vampire that kills many of the eskimos in the spring time when it thaws. Kalak, scared, flees, stranding the 3 men. Luckily they find a cabin nearby where they can spend the night. Jack plots to kill his 2 colleagues so he alone can stake the claim to the uranium they found. He lights a fire around the coffin, letting the vampire loose. He then tricks Sam and Olaf into going outside and locks them out of the cabin such that the vampire kills them. Jack plans to destroy the vampire once the sun comes up, but realizes that based on the latitude he is at, the sun won't come up for another week and he'll starve to death before being able to leave the cabin. A so-so story which was very similar in theme to the story "By the Dawn's Early Light" which had appeared only a few months earlier in Tales from the Crypt #42. This is another story adapted for the Tales from the Crypt TV show.

Tales from the Crypt #30

Credits:
Cover dated June/July 1952
Cover by Jack Davis

"Gas-tly Prospects!" - Art by Jack Davis/Written by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"A Hollywood Ending!" - Art by Joe Orlando/Written by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Auntie, It's Coal Inside!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Written by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Mournin', Ambrose..." - Art by Graham Ingels/Written by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

My first issue in about a week or so; this is a slightly better than average issue of Tales from the Crypt.

"Gas-tly Prospects!" - This story is told by an old prospector named Jeff Whittiker, who heads to California to search for gold. Deep in the woods he comes across a stream filled with gold. One day however a man comes by and shoots Jeff, hoping to take over his territory. Jeff hides behind a rock with a shotgun, but the man waits him out and he dies. The man buries Jeff's corpse, but a wild cat comes by and digs him up, then fights with another cat and forgets about him. The man wakes up the next morning to find Jeff's corpse there, so he ties it up and throws it under water. Eventually however the corpse is loosened from its bonds and comes to the surface. The man decides to burn Jeff's corpse, but shotgun shells in his pocket explode, causing the woods around the man, and the man himself to be caught aflame, killing him. This story is told from an interesting perspective, that of a corpse.

"A Hollywood Ending!" - Hugh Howards, a famous Hollywood producer heads to the Arctic, where he meets a beautiful American woman named Terry. Terry tells Hugh that she has lived here for 6 years with a Dr. Wheems who has taken care of her after an accident she was in with her father where he died and she lost her memory. Hugh falls in love with Terry and convinces her to come with him to Hollywood to become a movie star. Dr. Wheems is fiercely against this, but they leave while he is asleep. At first all goes well in Hollywood, and the two are married. However soon the makeup man comes to see Hugh, telling him that Terry's skin is dry and cracking. Terry soon puts on a heavy veil and starts wearing gloves. She starts emitting a strange smell and locks herself up in her room. Dr. Wheems soon arrives and reveals the truth, that Terry died in the accident 6 years ago. Through an experiment he was able to keep her alive, but she had to be kept in cold weather to keep from decomposing. The two head into Terry's room where they find her rotting corpse remains. The strongest story of the issue, despite being a bit too wordy at times (particularly the final page).

"Auntie, It's Coal Inside!" - A seven year old boy named Toby keeps hearing a voice in his head that tells him to do bad things, in particular to take coal out of the coal bin in the basement despite his aunt Agnes telling him not to. Toby is immediately caught by her and she gets upset, telling him his father was a drunkard whose drunk driving killed both him and his Toby's mother. Agnes threatens Toby with going to the orphanage if he isn't good. Agnes decides to have a lock put on the coal-bin door, and the locksmith catches Toby trying to escape from his room, getting him in even bigger trouble. One day when Agnes orders more coal to be delivered she accidently locks herself in the coal bin. She calls out to Toby to let her out, but he thinks it is the voice inside his head and ignores it. When the coal truck arrives and pours the coal into the coal bin, Agnes gets crushed by it. Another kid-themed story by Jack Kamen, this is a fairly good one and one of the better of such stories.

"Mournin', Ambrose..." - A young man named Andrew is invited to his uncle Ambrose's mansion. There he meets Ambrose and his eccentric wife, Elsa. Ambrose tells Andrew that she has been this way since three relatives that had come to visit all mysteriously died. Elsa tells Andrew of a passage from Macbeth then meets him again later on and tells Andrew that Ambrose is a fiend. Andrew is awakened by Ambrose later that night who tells him that Elsa has died. after her funeral, Andrew repeatedly sees Ambrose visiting her body in the mausoleum outside. Thinking of Elsa's references to Macbeth, Andrew grabs it from the mansion's library but instead finds it to be a diary of Elsa's revealing that Ambrose murdered the 3 relatives. Ambrose refuses to consent to an autopsy of Elsa's body and it is soon discovered that he kept visiting her because he is a ghoul and was consuming his corpse. An average story to wrap up the issue.

The Vault of Horror #16

Credits:
Cover dated December 1950/January 1951
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Werewolf Concerto!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"Fitting Punishment" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Johnny Craig
"The Grave Wager" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Johnny Craig
"Escape!" - Art by Al Feldstein/Story by Al Feldstein & Johnny Craig

One of the oddest EC covers ever kicks off this issue of the Vault of Horror. It features a rather minimalist style and is the only EC horror comic to show only 2 of the 3 horror hosts on the cover, with the Crypt Keeper not having a story inside.

"Werewolf Concerto!" - Three deaths occur in a hotel, causing much anguish for the hotel owner, Hubert as the guests all flee. Hubert comes up with an idea to attract attention to his hotel by inviting the famous concert pianist Mademoiselle Micheline to stay at his hotel for free. Hubert doesn't see Micheline arrive, but some attendants of her carry a large piano inside. He later meets her leaving from her room and believes the lack of evidence that she signed in must have been an error. The murders at the hotel continue and everyone else leaves. Micheline is the only one that stays. Soon after, Hubert turns into a werewolf; it was he who had been killing the guests. With no other guests, he heads to Micheline's suite to find her, but she is gone. He bangs on her piano and it opens up, revealing dirt inside. Hubert realizes that Micheline is a vampire, but it is too late as she attacks him. This story was later adapted into an episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV show. It is interesting enough the only story in the issue that features a female character in it.

"Fitting Punishment" - A cheap old undertaker named Ezra is forced to take care of his nephew Stanley when his sister dies. Ezra hates that Stanley is around and constantly tries ways to save or make money, such as taking gold teeth from the people he buries. When Ezra blames Stanley for a mistake that causes him to have to buy an extra coffin, he hits Stanley with a hammer, crippling him. With Stanley now useless to him, he knocks him down a set of stairs, killing him. He then puts him in the extra coffin he had bought, but needs to saw his feet off since Stanley is too tall. After Stanley is buries, Ezra hears strange sounds and night and finds Stanley's feet at his doorstep. He tosses them in the fire, but Stanley's corpse soon returns to get them back. This story is inspired by "In the Vault" by H.P. Lovecraft. It was also made into an episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV show.

"The Grave Wager" - While visiting an amusement park, 3 men come across Pirro, the Wax-Man, a man who is able to resemble a wax figure. One of the men, Roger, who isn't shocked by Pirro or any of the wax figures they see there decides on a wager with his friends where he will sit in a room with a corpse for the night. His 2 friends dig up a corpse with him, but later go to see Pirro and convince him to wear make-up and play the corpse. That night he rises up, but Roger freaks out, killing him and going insane as a result. The issue's weakest story, both in art and writing.

"Escape!" - A prisoner named Luger comes up with a plan to escape from the prison where he is being held. He manages to have himiself transfered from his job of transporting bricks to working in the morgue. There he plans to sneak out of the prison in a coffin, as he frequently sees the coffins of those prisoners who have died escorted out of the prison in a hearse. During a visiting day, he tells one of his colleagues to rescue him from the coffin after it is transported out of the prison. The night finally arrives for him to escape and he heads into the coffin. A couple of men come to carry the coffin out, but carry it to a crematorium that had recently been contructed in the courtyard. A plot that had been redone multiple times over the years, including a couple of stories that I have already covered in this blog in The Haunt of Fear #13 and Tales From the Crypt #45. This was yet another story that was adapted into an episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV show, making 3 stories from this issue alone.

The Haunt of Fear #21

Credits:
Cover dated September/October 1953
Cover by Graham Ingels

"An Off-Color Heir" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Dig That Cat… He's Real Gone!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Corker!" - Art by Jack Kamen & Bill Elder/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The High Cost of Dying!" - Art by Reed Crandall/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines


"An Off-Color Heir" - An artist named Laura meets a man named Gilbert and they fall in love. Gilbert convinces her to marry him and come with him to his mansion in New Orleans. The mansion is in a remote location and has portraits of his ancestors including one of a Baron Gilles De Rais who seems familiar to her. The mansion has many rooms, but Gilbert refuses to let her go in one of them. Eventually Gilbert starts growing a beard. Laura finds some hair dye in the bathroom one day and realizes he is going gray. Eventually she steals his keys and goes into the locked room, finding numerous corpses in there. She then realizes where she had seen Gilles De Rais before. She rubs off some of the white paint on his beard, revealing blue behind it. Gilbert then reveals himself behind her, showing his own blue beard and holding a razor. He says De Rais was the original bluebeard and he is carrying on the family tradition, A fairly good story, inspired by the bluebeard serial killer folktale.

"Dig That Cat… He's Real Gone!" - A homeless man named Ulrich is approached by a Dr. Manfred who tells him that he can help make them rich by giving Ulrich the 9 lives of a cat. Manfred performs an operation on Ulrich, killing a common cat but transferring its 9 lives to Ulrich. Through his multiple lives, Ulrich and Manfred are able to make a lot of money by showing Ulrich doing crazy, life threatening stunts and taking all wagers against it. Ulrich soon becomes greedy however and purposely gets the two of them in a car wreck. Manfred dies, but Ulrich comes back yet again. Now on his own, Ulrich hires a man to ensure his body won't be embalmed, but the man ends up robbing him and taking one of his lives. Now down to his last life, Ulrich has himself buried alive. However it isn't until he's buried that he remembers that the cat gave one of its lives during the operation and he only had 8 lives, not 9. Ulrich dies for real this time. A very good and original story, which was adapted as one of the first couple of episodes of the Tales from the Crypt TV show.

"Corker!" - A woman named Janet goes to a swami with her fiance Peter. Janet recently underwent a major personality change where she started seeking out evil things. She also has felt some suicidal tendencies. She has tried traditional therapy to no luck. The swami believes that she is infected with a lamia, a type of devil. Upon hearing that she witnesses the hanging of a man during which time his head got tore off, the swami thinks that a decapitation lamia infected her. He says this type of lamia is impossible to remove unless she is beheaded. Janet runs off and Peter chases her. She jumps into an oncoming subway and is decapitated. Peter is then infected himself by the lamia. Another Jack Kamen collaboration, this time with Bill Elder. A fairly good and original story.

"The High Cost of Dying!" - This story takes place in Paris in the 1800's. A poor man named Henri carries around a body with him. Flashbacks reveal that Henri's wife Suzette died in her sleep. A new ordinance requires all bodies to be buried within 24 hours or they will be sent to the conservatory of medicine to be dissected by medical students. Henri is too poor to bury her, especially with his two starving children. An officer tells Henri that the Commissioner of Health makes 75 francs per body and that Henri should consider bringing Suzette to the conservatory himself to pocket the 75 francs. Back in the present, Henri brings the body he is carrying to the conservatory and receives 75 francs. The next morning Henri eats with his children, buys them new clothes and they hold a funeral for Suzette. In the conservatory, it is soon discovered that the body Henri brought them was that of the Commissioner of Health. Another strong story to wrap up this very good issue. Some really good artwork from Crandall here and a sympathetic main character.

Tales from the Crypt #24

Credits:
Cover dated June/July 1951
Cover by Al Feldstein

"Bats in My Belfry!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Living Death!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Midnight Snack!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"Scared to Death!" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

One of Tales from the Crypt's most well known covers starts off this issue.

"Bats in My Belfry!" - A stage actor named Harry goes deaf. This results in the end of his acting career and a lot of financial stress for he and his wife, Joan. Harry goes to see a blind friend, John, who reveals that he went to a man who was able to give him cat eyes that permit him to see. Harry heads to see the man, who provides him with the hearing organ of a bat. Upon returning home, with hearing abilities greatly in excess of that of a normal person, Harry is able to hear Joan talking to her lover on the phone. He later notices strange things happening to him. He wakes up in the closet, hanging upside down, notices hair growing on his face and a membrane growing beneath his arms. He returns to see his friend John, who he finds turning into a panther. Harry realizes he is turning into a bat. His wife and her lover plot to kill Harry for his life insurance, but he manages to overtake the lover in an alley. Now fully transformed into a vampire bat, he drinks the lover's blood, then returns home and does the same to his wife.  This story was the inspiration for the Tales from the Crypt TV episode "Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow". The episode had nothing to do with that original story, making me wonder why they didn't name it after this story. It was in the final season of the show, and was still a rather poor episode though.

"The Living Death!" - Two medical students, Lester and Arnold are close friends, even going after the same woman, Laurie. The two head into seperate fields, with Lester focusing on curing illness through psychological means, while Arnold focuses on surgery. Lester is set to marry Laurie, but when she develops a tumor the two conflict over whether to operate on her through psychosomatic means or surgery. Arnold wins out, but she dies during the procedure. Years go by. Arnold develops a brain tumor, and with no one who can operate on him, he goes to see Lester. Lester desires to prove to Arnold that he could have saved Laurie many years before and puts Arnold into a hypnotic trance so he cannot die. Upon leaving however, Arnold is it by a car and is killed. His body doesn't die however, nor even start decomposing. People don't believe Lester at first, but do as time goes by and nothing happens to Arnold. Months pass. Arnold calls out for Lester to help him with the pain. Lester mistakenly says "Laurie", the word he has chosen to break Arnold out of the trance. This causes Arnold to die for real, and he immediately decomposes. This story was inspired by the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar".

"Midnight Snack!" - A man reads horror stories late at night. Suddenly his feels dizzy and finds himself out in the middle of town. Hungry, he stops by a restaurant but the scent of cooking meat repulses him. He leaves the restaurant and has another dizzy sensation, waking up in a graveyard. Having a shovel with him, he digs up the body of a recently buried corpse. After another dizzy spell he awakens finding the body partially devoured. He grabs the corpse and starts running, being chased by an agngry mob. He trips and falls, but then awakens at his home, believing it all to be a dream. When he opens his refridgerator however, he finds a partially devoured corpse inside. He realizes that it wasn't a dream, and he's a ghoul. Bit of a drawn out story with an obvious conclusion; this is the weakest story of the issue.

"Scared to Death!" - A man named Ralph is brought to a party held in the honor of a young woman named Cora, whose uncle Alex is quite wealthy. With Cora being the heir to her uncle's fortune, Ralph decides to start a romance with her, and eventually marries her. Not liking the way Alex is treating him, Ralph is able to convince Cora to let him kill her, and he strikes him one night while he is out on a stroll, killing him. Alex's death has a grave effect on Cora, who suffers a heart attack and becomes bound to a wheel chair. Ralph decides to kill her as well, figuring he can do it by inducing another heart attack. He tries to convince Cora that her uncle Alex is back from the grave and wants revenge. He is successful and she has a heart attack and dies. Moments later however, Alex's corpse arrives for real. He grabs ahold of Alex and carries him into the middle of a pond where the mud, acting like quicksand, quickly consumes them. Some only so-so artwork from Wood here, but overall a fairly good rotting corpse story.

The Vault of Horror #36

Credits:
Cover dated May 1954
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Twin Bill!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"Witch Witch's Witch!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Johnny Craig
"Pipe Dream" - Art by Bernie Krigstein/Story by Johnny Craig
"Two-Timed!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Jack Oleck

A fairly strong late issue of the Vault of Horror, principally through the efforts of Johnny Craig. By this point, Craig was editor of the comic, and he wrote 3 out of 4 stories here, the most he'd ever write for a single EC comic.

"Twin Bill!" - A man, Larry Bannister, catches his wife and lover together at their cabin in the woods. He forces them at gunpoint to hike a mile into the woods then dig their own graves. When the lover fights back, Larry strikes him unconscious, and he buries both him and his wife alive. Larry returns to his car only to find that it won't start due to a dead battery. He returns home in his wife's car and it takes him several weeks to be able to return to the cabin to replace the battery. He forgets the keys however, and figures that he will dig up his wife's corpse and take them from her purse rather than have to make the long trip home to get them and risk that his car will be seen. When he arrives at the grave however, he finds it empty. Larry flees back towards the cabin, seeing the figures of his wife and lover in the distance, and when he makes it back, he waits there, hoping to shoot them when they come in. They finally do come in, but when he turns on the flashlight they are revealed to be rotting corpses, fused together, and his gun has no effect as they kill him. Some very strong artwork from Craig on this story, which also does a very good job of providing a very dark, scary atmosphere throughout.

"Witch Witch's Witch!" - A man named Eric who lives in a small European village goes away on business one week and when he has returned, he is now married to a woman named Helena. This upsets Eric's mother, as well as his fiance Alicia and her mother, but Eric will hear none of it. Soon afterwards, Eric's mother dies of a heart attack. The local church group bans Helena from attending and soon after their leader dies. Alicia's mother starts a rumor that Helena is a witch and caused this, and one day while passing her by, Helena stares at her and she drops dead. The rumors continue to build that Helena is a witch and at her mother's funeral, Alicia starts grabbing her chest with pain, claiming that Helena is doing it. A mob rushes to Eric and Helena's house, accusing her of a witch and finding a pin cushion shaped as a human that they think is the cause of Alicia's suffering. Eric tries to stop them, but is shot, and the mob carries Helena to the town square where they put her in the middle of a roaring bonfire. Suddenly, Helena raises her arms, shouts out a chant, transforms into her true form, and the entire mob turns to rats. Another strong story; its not often in these types of stories where someone is accused of being a witch, and then actually ends up being one.

"Pipe Dream" - The old Chinese man Chen Chu Yang spends his days smoking opium in a den and dreaming. He tells of how years ago, he had dreamed of his wife dying after smoking his opium and when he came home she had died. Chen is supported by his son, but he is soon drafted. Chen returns to his smoking and dreams that his son will die as well, and he does, being struck by a car on the way home from his going-away party. Chen's daughter marries a man against his wishes and months later she tells him he unbearable and beats her. Due to Chinese honor Chen tells her she must stay with him and will only be free if he dies. Chen then has another opium-induced dream where he is able to kill his son-in-law and free his daughter. When he awakens the man has died, but with no explanation, his daughter is put to death for the murder. Chen returns to his opium to dream another dream. Another strong tale, and similar to the recently reviewed "Murder Dream" it is a surrealistic, largely dream-based story, although this story is a bit better than that one.

"Two-Timed!" - A boy hears a noise one night and heads outside to the woods, where he finds an adult man who has just beat a woman to death with a pipe. The man grabs the boy, but suddenly there is a bang and the boy falls unconscious. When he wakes, his parents are there with the local constable and the man is gone, but the ground is all burned as if there was an explosion. Years pass. The boy, now an adult, hears that his wife is plotting to kill him, so he plans to kill her instead. He fools her into thinking he is going away then brings her into the woods where he beats her with a pipe. He suddenly notices a boy and grabs onto him, but realizes it is himself at a younger age and lets go. Thinking the bang he heard years before may have been a gunshot, he grabs a gun from his beaten wife and lights her on fire. Suddenly a shot rings out and he topples over. The town constable comes out and reveals that a paper at the scene many years ago had the current date on it, which led him here. An odd, confusing tale which is quite a disappointment after the first three stories in this issue.

The Haunt of Fear #5

Credits:
Cover dated January/February 1951
Cover by Johnny Craig

"A Biting Finish!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Horror in the Freak Tent! - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"A Tasty Morsel!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Seeds of Death!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig

"A Biting Finish!" - A man named Bruno flees from the police into an old house by the cemetary, looking for a secret tunnel that only he knows about. Flashbacks reveal how Bruno and another man named Bob had been after the same woman, Ellen. Bruno murders Bob and buries him in a coffin contained in a civil war cemetary. Bruno's guilt eventually reveals itself to Ellen when he talks in his sleep, causing Bruno to murder both her and the maid who witnessed it. This causes the police to chase after him, resulting in his current predicament. Bruno soon finds that the tunnel has caved in, but having a shovel with him, he digs through it. He comes across a coffin while digging and while trying to move it, his hand plunges inside. The corpse inside the coffin grabs Bruno's hand and bites it, not letting go until Bruno bleeds to death. As the story ends, the coffin is revealed to be that where he put Bob. A strong start to the issue. A rare instance where the lead off story had only 7 pages instead of the usual 8, and this story has four 7 page stories as a result (I believe the only time in EC's New Trend that this happened).

"Horror in the Freak Tent!" - This story is told by a man named Henry Hastings, manager of a carnival. At the carnival the owner of the Freak Show, Looey Glantz is an evil man who abuses the freaks and ruins the marriage of the knife thrower, Zolto. One night Zolto pulls a knife on Glantz after he abuses one of the freaks. Glantz responds by shoving 2 glowing pokers into Zolto's eyes, blinding him. The freaks take care of Zolto and train him to continue to be a knife thrower, while blind. What Zolto doesn't know is that when they have him practice, they tie up and gag Glantz, who is killed by the knives and weapons that Zolto throws at him. This story was later redone in the picto-fiction magazine Terror Illustrated #2.

"A Tasty Morsel!" - During a rainy night, a man comes across an inn at the end of the road and heads inside where he is greeted by a brutish looking innkeeper. The man heads to his room, but desiring a blanket goes back downstairs and waits in a chair by the fire for the innkeeper to return. He soon hears a moan and goes to the basement where he finds another man tied up and bleeding to death, his blood dripping into a pan. The innkeeper soon comes down and takes the man's blood, storing it in a freezer, revealing him to be a vampire. The man is caught by the innkeeper and soon suffers the same fate as the other man. He soon awakens though, revealing it to be a dream. Finding himself tied up, he accuses the innkeeper to be a vampire. This offends the innkeeper, who claims he is actually a ghoul and hates the taste of blood which is why he's draining it from him. The story ends with the innkeeper gleefully approaching him with a meat cleaver. This story is told in second person, a common style used by EC. The ending was also a common one, but a bit overused.

"Seeds of Death!" - This story tells the tale of how a dismembered hand ended up at a dump. In flashbacks we see a young woman named Connie, who is married to a brutish husband Basil. She is comforted by the handsome hired hand, Cliff, but Basil spots them together. When Connie asks Cliff to head to town and buy some Gardenia seeds, Basil takes the opportunity to kill him upon his return when he takes out some of the seeds. Basil buries Cliff and Connie, worried about him, heads to town to search for him. This angers Basil, who goes after her and attacks her in an ally. Connie hits him over the head, knocking him out, then puts him in a garbage can. Garbage men later come upon the garbage can and dump it in a truck, where his body is ground up. Connie returns home to find a mound of Gardenias, causing her to realize what happened to Cliff. This story takes an interesting approach to start the story off, with the Vault Keeper not being introduced until the second page, something that I can't recall being the case in any other EC horror story.

Tales from the Crypt #45

Credits:
Cover dated December 1954/January 1955
Cover by Jack Davis

"Telescope" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Carl Wessler
"The Substitute" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Murder Dream" - Art by Bernie Krigstein/Story by Carl Wessler
"The Switch" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Carl Wessler

Outside of the final story, which is one of my favorite EC stories of all time, this is a rather dissappointing issue. It was originally intended to be the final issue of Tales from the Crypt, although one final issue was published, containing the contents of the comic that was originally meant to be EC's fourth horror comic, The Crypt of Terror.

"Telescope" - A man is in a shipwreck; he and a rat are the only ones to survive. Using a piece of driftwood, they manage to make it out and land on a small deserted island made of little more than sand. At first, they provide company for one another, but the lack of clean water and food soon make the two bitter enemies. The man is fearful of sleeping should the rat try to eat him. He also makes attempts to kill the rat so he can eat it. The local natives refuse to come by, believing he is an island devil. One day the man manages to strike a seagull with a fish in its mouth with a rock, but the rat gets to it before he does and starts swallowing it. The man chases the rat back into the ocean and starts eating it himself, but is attacked by a shark. The natives arrive and kill the shark and find a bizarre sight - inside the shark's mouth is the man's head; in his mouth is the rat's head; in its mouth is the bird's head and in it's mouth is the fish's head. Overall this is a so-so story at best and is a bit dragged out; an interesting looking final panel is about the only notable thing in it.

"The Substitute" - A french prisoner named Henri Duval plots to escape from the Penal Colony where he is being held. Henri finds poisonous Hellebore plant and creates himself a poisonous dart out of it and other materials. He then kills the governor of the Penal Colony with the dart and gets it pinned on another prisoner. Henri helps with the construction of a coffin for the governor, which he puts holes in. The night the coffin is to be transported, Henri removes the governor's corpse, mangles it, then gets in the coffin himself, planning to escape once he returns to France. What he doesn't realize is that the governor has been set to be buried at sea, and the coffin is soon thrown into the ocean, resulting in his death by drowning. An alright story, but it is is essentially just a rehash of the story "Escape" from The Vault of Horror #16, with the protagonist dying of drowning instead of being thrown in a crematory.

"Murder Dream" - A man has dreams of trying to rescue a woman named Cathy. Flashbacks reveal Cathy moving into a house in the English countryside with her husband Howard. A caretaker named  Claude also lives there. Further flashbacks showing Howard preparing to go away. The dreams continue as our protagonist tries to save Cathy, who is seen being murdered by Claude, an axe wielding maniac. Eventually our protagonist sees Cathy sitting by a coffin. He awakes and heads to Cathy and the coffin, which contains Howard. Our protagonist, revealed to be Claude, grabs ahold of Cathy and kills her with an axe. This story was one of the most surrealistic ones done by EC; such stories were usually provided to Krigstein, who did similar surrealistic stories like "Pipe Dream" and "You Murderer"

"The Switch" - Carlton Webster is a wealthy, but very old man who has started up a relationship with a beautiful young woman named Linda, to whom he's kept his wealth a secret. Carlton proposed to her, but Linda tells him that his face is too old and wrinkled. Carlton goes to his doctor who tells him of another doctor named Faulkner. The German Faulkner tells Carlton that he can perform surgery to make his face look young by literally transplanting that of a handsome young man to whom a large amount of money will have to be paid. Through Faulnker, Carlton is able to find a man named George Booth who agrees to exchange faces with him. Carlton returns to Linda, who still refuses to marry him, saying his body is too decrepit. Carlton heads back to Faulkner and goes through surgery again, taking Booth's torso. Linda once again rejects Carlton's offer of marriage, this time blaming his scrawny arms and legs. Carlton goes through one more surgery that wipes him out financially so as to exchange his arms and legs with Booth's. He looks for Linda, only to find that she has moved to a fabulous penthouse. There she reveals that what she was looking for the whole time was someone wealthy, and introduces him to her new husband, George Booth. A fabulous story, one of my top 10 favorite EC stories of all time. It builds upon previous EC body/youth exchanging stories such as "Death Must Come" from the first issue of this comic and "Nobody There" from The Haunt of Fear #16. The story also had a very well done and faithful adaption on the Tales From the Crypt TV show.

The Vault of Horror #22

Credits:
Cover dated December 1951/January 1952
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Fountains of Youth!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"The Monster in the Ice!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Gone... Fishing!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein
"What the Dog Dragged In!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

Quite a strong issue of the Vault of Horror, featuring all better than average stories.

"Fountains of Youth!" - Despite warnings from her older brother, 19 year old Eileen interviews for and gets a job as a personal assistant for Madam Dubois, a famous socialite who wears a heavy veil over her face. Eileen heads with Dubois on a cruise ship to Europe but quickly becomes sick. Dubois stays by her bedside as Eileen rapidly ages and passes away. Eileen's brother Kenneth heads to Europe and confronts Dubois, being shocked at how young she is. Believing something fishy is going on, Kenneth stays nearby and spies on another young woman who becomes Dubois's next assistant. Kenneth follows Dubois and the woman as they go on another cruise ship voyage. When the young woman becomes ill, Kenneth convinces the doctor to seperate Dubois from her and lock her up. The young woman soon becomes better, but Dubois, who the doctor explains is some kind of youth-sucking vampire ages to death and crumbles to dust. A decent story to start off the issue, aside from the fact that the doctor at the end seems to know all about what is truly going on with Madam Dubois out of nowhere.

"The Monster in the Ice!" - A couple of Americans, Dawson and Campbell are in charge of a geological expedition in the arctic. The local eskimo Lomo refuses to bring them near a place where they hope to do some geological readings, fearing a monster in the ice. Dawson and Campbell head there and find a frozen body with its face obscured in the ice. They take it back them to their cabin and Lobo claims it is the monster. Campbell, refusing to believe him, orders Lomo to cop the ice off the body and show that it is just a dead human being so he will stop being so afraid. While Lomo works on chopping the ice, Dawson tells Campbell of the original Frankenstein novel where the monster was lost in the Arctic at the end. Dawson wonders if the novel was true. Suddenly there is a scream. Dawson and Campbell rush to see Lomo, who has gone insane and find that the monster has escaped. The two decide to trap it by digging a hole in the ice and acting as bait. Eventually the monster arrives. Upon seeing its horrific face, they lose their minds and are dragged into the water by it, with all three being frozen. A year later a couple of Air Force officers discover the frozen bodies and decide to dig them out. An excellent story inspired obviously by Frankenstein, but with a new twist on things. The monster, whose face is only revealed in a couple of panels on the final page is one of Ingel's scariest monsters.

"Gone... Fishing!" - An expert fisherman, Max, brings his friend Steven to the beach where he starts fishing. Steven is opposed to fishing on moral grounds, but stays for a little while as Max explains the various fishing gear he has to him. Eventually Max catches a giant bass, and Steve, not wanting to watch him cut it up, leaves. Max fishes some more with no success. He pauses for lunch, but realizes that it was in the car that Steven drove off in. Suddenly he finds a candy bar on the ground. Max bites into it, but the candy bar has a hook in it that goes into his mouth, and Max is dragged into the sea as if he was being fished. A strong story featuring one of EC's most common house plots. Feldstein came up with the story himself, making it one of the few stories during this timeframe in EC's history where the story wasn't based on a springboard provided by Gaines. The story would later be adapted into a French film called The Fisherman. It was also used for an episode of the Tales from the Cryptkeeper cartoon. This is one of the rare instances where the main horror host for the comic didn't host the third story, instead it was hosted by the Crypt Keeper and the Vault Keeper hosted the final story of the issue instead.

"What the Dog Dragged In!" - A young blind woman named Betty is dependent on her dog Jerry, who usually goes out with notes from her to get groceries and run other errands. One day Jerry is hit by a car driven by a wealthy philanthropist named Roger. Roger nurses Jerry back to health then returns him to Betty. Roger and Betty quickly become close and Roger proposes to her. As he's leaving however he is hit by a car and is killed. Betty sends Jerry out to find him, with no success for over a month. Eventually however Jerry digs up Roger's corpse, and he returns to Betty. This story was an unauthorized adaption of Ray Bradbury's short story "The Emissary". Gaines/Feldstein made one major change in that the main character of that story was a young boy, changed here into the adult woman Betty. Oddly enough this unauthorized adaption wasn't found by Bradbury, although he quickly noticed some unauthorized adaptions appearing in Weird Fantasy 13 a number of months later.

The Haunt of Fear #13

Credits:
Cover dated May/June 1952
Cover by Graham Ingels

"For the Love of Death!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Fed Up!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Minor Error!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Wolf Bait!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"For the Love of Death!" - A man named Morton is obsessed with funerals, trying to attend as many as he can. He believes that people are provided with tremendous dignity and respect at their funeral, even if they didn't receive it in life. Morton desires to have such feelings being made towards him, while he's still alive, so he murders the richest man in town then sneaks into his coffin so he can experience what its like to be the deceased during a funeral. He pays someone to dig up the coffin once its buried, but hadn't realized that the man he killed was set to be cremated, and is burned to death when the coffin is put in the crematorium. A rare Ingels lead story that features no supernatural elements to it, is is nonetheless a decent story kicking off an overall good issue.

"Fed Up!" - A woman named Sandra works at a carnival as a sword swallower's assistant. She meets a handsome man named Alec who convinces her to break out on her own with him managing him. Eventually they get married. Money is always tight for the two, particularly after Alec starts spending all of their money on food, growing morbidly obese. When Sandra gets a raise she hides money from Alec for several years in an attempt to buy a special sword that will make her act more famous, but he finds the money and spends it all on food. Fed up with him, she convinces him to practice swallowing a sword himself so he can get into the act, then ties his hands up while its still in his throat and leaves him such that any slight movement will result in his death.A rare Craig story that wasn't written by him, but still written perfectly to suit his style.
"Minor Error!" - A trio of boys notice a new boy named Ezra that has moved into town, but always stays inside. The boy's uncle is a cruel man who tells the boys off when they ask if Ezra can play. Ezra tells them that he isn't allowed to go outside and play with them. The boys follow the uncle and find him kill a man and collect his blood in a container. They become convinced that he is a vampire, so one day they head inside the house and drive a stake in his heart. When they head to the basement however they find Ezra sleeping in a coffin and realize that he was the vampire. Kamen was typically the artist tasked with drawing stories featuring kids as main characters, and this was many of such stories.

"Wolf Bait!" - This story takes part in Russia in the midst of winter as 5 people head through the snow on a horse drawn sleigh towards a nearby town. The sleigh's passengers include a mother and her baby, a young officer, an older man and the driver. The sleigh is being pursued by a ferocious pack of wolves. The officer shoots the wolves, which delays them slightly, but runs out of bullets. The old man uses the food he was carrying for his daughter and her family to delay them as well, but the wolves still catch up. With them nearing town, the passengers know there is only one thing they can do to delay the wolves further, to sacrifice one of them. One of the passengers, which is not revealed to the reader, is thrown to the wolves and killed by them, enabling everyone else to make it safely to town. The ending to this story, for which the 'sacrificial lamb' is not revealed made for quite the complaints from some readers in the letter columns in future issues.

The Crypt of Terror #18

Credits:
Cover dated June/July 1950
Cover by Johnny Craig

"The Maestro's Hand!" - Art by Al Feldstein/Story by Al Feldstein
"The Living Corpse" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by ???
"Madness at Manderville" - Art by Harvey Kurtzman/Story by Ivan Klapper
"Mute Witness to Murder!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig

"The Maestro's Hand!" - A man named Doctor Hellman comes to a lonely cabin in the woods where he finds a package waiting for him. Flashbacks reveal that Hellman was engaged to a woman named Virginia and had taken her to see the great musician Vladimir Borrstein. Virginia immediately falls in love with Vladimir's talens, which include not just playing the piano, but also painting. Virginia breaks off her engagement with Hellman and instead gets engaged to Vladimir. Hellman is convinced that Virginia is merely in love with Vladimir's talents, not him, and when Vladmir injures his hand, Hellman takes the opportunity to have it amputed. Vladimir is so distraught over losing his hand that he kills himself, and Virginia does the same shortly afterwards. Back in the present, Hellman opens the package, which is revealed to be Vladimir's severed hand. The hand comes alive and tries to kill Hellman. He tries all he can to avoid it, but it eventually grabs him by the throat and strangles him. Later the police find Hellman's body which shows that he actually imagined it all and strangled himself. A strong start to the issue, with good story and art from Feldstein.

"The Living Corpse" - A middle aged man named Jed Bryant works at a morgue. One night a corpse is brought in, but becomes alive, grasping Jed and causing him to be knocked out. Jed wakes up earlier and the corpse is gone, causing him to forge the books as if it was never there. Days later another corpse arrives and the same incident happens again, causing Jed's hair to go completely white in shock. Jed is convinced no one will believe him and instead of going to a doctor he goes to a theatre where a man named Satanus the magician defies death after beind held underwater. Later another corpse is brought to the morgue which is the murdered assistant of Satanus. Satanus himself is soon revealed to be the "living corpse", who had been faking his death so he could be brought to the morgue and the proof of his involvement in his assistant's murder could be  destroyed. The two struggle, and Satanus is knocked out when his head strikes a wall. Jed puts him in the freezer to hold him while he tries to call the police, but the shock of seeing a corpse come to life for the third time is too much and he dies of a heart attack. Locked in the freezer, Satanus freezes to death. A so-so art job, but another strong story.

"Madness at Manderville" - A woman named Marion is continuously nervous, including dropping dishes and being convinced that there are noises and lights outside when her husband Tom doesn't notice anything. Marion continues to go crazier and crazier, as the family dog is found dead. Tom brings her to a mental institution but upon arriving there, it is Tom who is committed as he wasn't noticing any of the things that were really happening. The ending to this story is a bit contrived, with Tom being committed over rather flimsy reasons. A similar ending was done in far superior fashion in the story "My Brother's Keeper" from Shock Illustrated #2.

"Mute Witness to Murder!" - A woman named Pam witnesses a neighbor murdering his wife which causes her to suddenly go deaf in shock. Her husband calls for a doctor to come, but the doctor, Dr. Bask, is the very man who committed the murder. Knowing she witnessed it, he has her committed to a mental institution where he plans to murder her by claiming she needs brain surgery, then murdering her during it. Pam soon regains her voice but keeps quiet, and manages to overpower Dr. Bask when he comes to take her. Bask, who has a heart condition begs her to call for help, but she refuses and he dies. This story was adapted for an episode of the Tales From the Crypt TV series late in the show's run. It is a type of story that would have fit better in Crime SuspenStories, having no supernatural elements to it.

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.

The Haunt of Fear #8

Credits:
Cover dated July/August 1951
Cover by Al Feldstein

"Hounded to Death!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Very Strange Mummy!" - Art by George Roussos/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Diminishing Returns!" - Art by ???/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Irony of Death!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"Hounded to Death" - A woman named Ann is married to an older, wealthy man named Edward. Edward owns many hounds, which he starves so they'll be ready to go on a hunt. During the hunt, one of the men, Steve, who has a bad heart, stays behind with Ann and the two quickly embrace. The two carry on an affair behind Edward's back, but one day he comes home earlier than expected. Steve fakes a heart attack, pretending to be dead, and Ann asks Edward to drop him off by the side of the road to avoid scandal. Instead Edward, who knows that Steve is still alive, throws him into the pen with the hounds, who devour him. Steve's partially eaten corpse comes after Edward however, to seek revenge. A good art job by Ingels, featuring one of EC's most common horror tropes, the corpse coming back to take revenge.

"The Very Strange Mummy!" - An expedition led by three Americans takes place in Egypt. The group comes across a tomb up on a cliff. Inside they find a perfectly preserved mummy inside a sarcophogus that they open. That night, one of the Egyptian natives is killed and two puncture marks are found on his neck. One of the archaeologists thinks it is a vampire, which the others don't believe. When the natives hear that the mummy's tomb was opened they all flee. That night one of the archaelogists is the next to die. One of the others heads inside the tomb and translates the hieroglyphics on the wall which reveal that the mummy is a vampire that was sealed up in the tomb. The vampire almost kills her but is forced inside by the dawn. With it asleep, a stake is driven into its heart, killing it. This story combines a couple of horror monsters into a single one, but is otherwise an only average story, that might have fared better with a better artist.

"Diminishing Returns" - A man named Vincent Beardsley is able to convince a wealthy man named Hagen to head to the Jivaro Diamond Fields where they hope to find a number of large diamonds. Beardsley has a secret deal with the Jivaros however whereas he is given a diamond for each head he brings the Jivaros. Hence, when they arrive, the Jivaros soon come upon them and Hagen is taken captive with his head being shrunk by the Jivaros. Beardsley returns to the US and plans to con another man but receives a wrapped package which contains Hagen's shrunken head in it. The head comes alive and is able to kill him by biting him in the neck. This story is the sole one from the new trend for which the artist is unknown. Its only a so-so art effort at best. The story itself is a bit of a rehash of previous stories such as "Jivaro Death" from Two-Fisted Tales #19 and "The Maestro's Hand" from The Crypt of Terror #18.

"The Irony of Death" - An ambitious man named Jeffrey Slag works as a superintendant at an iron and steel works company. He marries the daughter of the owner, then kills the man, making it look like an accident. The man is dumped into a vat of iron which Slag keeps. Slag uses the iron to make various things, including a safe, chairs, a shovel, etc... always gloating at what his former boss has become. Eventually the last remaining ingots of the iron vanish, upsetting Slag immensely. As part of an advertising campaign an exhibit of the uses of iron throughout the centuries is used, including a torture chamber. Slag decides to try it out by standing in an iron maiden. Suddenly the iron maiden closes on him, killing him. It is soon revealed that the missing ingots were used to make the iron maiden. Another average story; a similarly themed one titled "99 44/100% Pure Horror!" would later appear in The Vault of Horror #23", a story also drawn by Davis.

Tales from the Crypt #32

Credits:
Cover dated October/November 1952
Cover by Jack Davis

"Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Roped In!" - Art by George Evans/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Cutting Cards!" - Art by Fred Peters/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Squash... Anyone?" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity!" - A local butcher named Zach Gristle finds his meat in high demand during World War II with the advent of rationing. During the war, red points need to be exchanged for meat, limiting the amount of meat that each customer can buy, as well as Gristle himself. A man named Vandercliff convinces Gristle to sell high quality steaks to him on the black market. This requires Gristle to find substandard meat to sell to his regular customers so as to acquire the red points needed to buy the steak. He descends to horse meat, then stale meat, and finally tainted meat. This makes the townfolks sick and eventually some of them die. Gristle goes to get the money he's saved up so he and his family can go on the run. But when his son dies due to eating the tainted meat at a friend's house, his wife snaps. She kills him, chops his body up then puts it on display at his store. A strong start to what is overall a good issue; this story would end up being used as the title for a recently published book from Fantagraphics publishing various Jack Davis horror stories.

"Roped In" - Donald Morgan, President of a construction company is arrested when concrete at a hospital he was responsible for is found to be substandard, causing many deaths. Morgan is innocent, as his 3 partners were responsible so as to make more money for themselves. Unfortunately for Morgan, they've trapped him in a web of circumstantial evidence by only using substandard material on his jobs. Morgan is found guilty of manslaughter and sent to jail. The other 3 partners go on a plane trip after winning a special job. While flying between two mountains however, they are caught in a gigantic spider web. A giant spider appears which kills the 2 that head outside. The final one locks himself in the plane but goes insane, knowing that he is trapped inside by the spider. An effective story with strong artwork from George Evans. This was Evans' first story for Tales form the Crypt, and one of his earliest stories overall for EC. He was generally given tamer fare, like Jack Kamen, but this story gave him the opportunity to do a monster in the giant spider.

"Cutting Cards!" - Two gamblers, Gus Forney and Lou Crebis hate each other so much that they agree to gamble on each other's lives. They start by drawing a card; he who draws the lowest card dies. They both draw aces and decide to try russian roulette instead, but the bullet is a dud and doesn't go off. They then decide to play chop poker to a finish. The loser of each hand has to lose a limb. They chop each others fingers off as round after round goes by. By the end both are in the hospital, with all their limbs chopped off and are still gambling against each other. Not much of a plot to this story, which is more just a way to show a lot of violence. That said, the story was considered good enough to be adapted into an episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV show. The artist, Fred Peters did only a couple of stories for EC during the new trend (the others appearing around this same time) and was not that good compared to EC's usual artists.

"Squash... Anyone?" - A husband and wife, Milo and Rene, are stars at a circus, using an elephant named Emma which places its foot over Rene during performances. In reality, the two hate each other and Milo is carrying on an affair with a woman named Leeta. Leeta convinces Milo to have Emma step on Rene during a performance, which he does. Emma is considered out of control and is killed. Leeta replaces Rene in the act, with a new elephant. A year passes and the circus comes across the same town. suddenly the decayed corpses of Rene and Emma appear and kill both Milo and Leeta before falling away into a putrid slime. One of EC's better circus-themed stories, with a scary, elephant corpse-filled final page.

The Vault of Horror #12

Credits:
Cover dated April/May 1950
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Portrait in Wax!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig (hosted by the Vault Keeper)
"The Werewolf Legend" - Art by Wally Wood & Harry Harrison/Story by Gardner Fox
"Horror in the Night" - Art by Harvey Kurtzman/Story by Ivan Klapper
"Terror Train" - Art by Al Feldstein/Story by Al Feldstein

Today I cover the first issue of the Vault of Horror, which along with The Crypt of Terror #17, was the first horror comics released by EC. Vault of Horror stories originally appeared in issues 10 and 11 of War Against Crime prior to EC changing the title to the Vault of Horror with this issue.

"Portrait in Wax!" - Henry is a struggling artist with little talent but a lot of ambition who lives with Robert, who is the exact opposite, lots of talent but no ambition. Henry steals a piece of Robert's artwork and makes a lot of money selling it to an art dealer. He does it repeatedly, making a lot of money. But Robert goes to a showing of the dealer's art and discovers what Henry has done. He is going to the police, but Henry throws acid in his face, knocking him out. Henry dumps him in a vat of acid to destroy his remains. Years pass and Henry makes tons of money off Robert's work. But eventually he sells of all the artwork. Luckily he finds a new artist to make money off of when a sculptor named Jules Vendette shows him his wax statues of people who died. Henry makes lots of money opening a museum of them, claiming the work as his own. But one day while moving a statue he discovers they're not really statues, but corpses covered with wax! Jules is actually Robert, who had not actually died since the vat he was dumped in was just water. He kills Henry and makes him his latest statue. Johnny Craig's first Vault lead story (and along with Curse of the Full Moon, which came out the same month in Crypt 17, one of his first horror stories). Although Craig's art is still somewhat simple looking compared to his later stuff, he still does a good job here. This story would be somewhat redone (with much more horrific results) in Silver Threads Among the Mold from issue 27, which was the first EC story I ever read.

"The Werewolf Legend" - An Englishman named Walter Mallory finds himself transformed into a werewolf and he kills a man who comes by him. The next day he wakes up in his home and grows nervous upon hearing from his cousin Gregory that a neighbor has been torn to shreds. Walter goes to the family library where he finds some manuscripts revealing that several ancestors had been werewolves. The next full moon he awakens as a werewolf again and kills another man. Walter seeks out the police and discusses the possibility of a werewolf doing the killings with them. He asks them to watch his castle the night of the next full moon and kill the werewolf if he sees it. The next full moon Walter becomes a werewolf yet again and kills another man without being caught by the police. Upon returning to human, Walter is prepared to kill himself but is stopped by the police, who reveal that it was actually his cousin Gregory who killed those men. Gregory had hypnotized Walter into thinking that he was a werewolf, faked the manuscripts and killed 3 men who were blackmailing him. The first of numerous werewolf stories to appear in the Vault of Horror. Wally Wood worked with Harry Harrison for a number of early EC stories in the horror and sci-fi comics. The artwork on this story bears only slight resemblance to the well known style Wood later developed on his own throughout much of his years at EC. While the art is a bit uneven at times, this is a fairly strong story.

"Horror in the Night" - A man named Jim visits his brother Tom at Hawkins Tourist Cabins, the family business. Tom is a nervous wreck, telling Jim about a horrific dream he had. In the dream, a couple comes to the cabins to stay the night. Tom suddenly finds himself in the cabin, as if he was a ghost. The wife is a complete lunatic, trying to escape multiple times in the night and murdering a cat by the door. The husband is bringing her to an insane asylum, as she has been crazy ever since their baby was clawed to death by a cat. When she tries to escape yet again, he strangles her then kills himself. Jim convinces Tom that it was just a dream and not something to worry about, but soon the couple arrives for real. The dream coming to life is another common horror story trope. While it is not something I have seen referenced out there from EC historians, this story may be yet another one inspired by an anecdote from Bennet Cerf's Try and Stop Me, as that book contains an anecdote about a woman's dream coming to life much like what we see here.

"Terror Train" - A woman named Gloria is convinced that her husband Ralph is going to kill her to get the $25,000 life insurance policy he has out on her. She catches him bringing poison into the house and one night wakes up with him over her bed, a knife in hand. She flees to a train station, buys a ticket and heads aboard. Soon however she notices that Ralph is aboard as well. After fleeing from him she goes to sleep, but when she awakens she finds all her fellow passengers murdered. She jumps off the train and makes her way to an abandoned shack where Ralph is waiting for her. Ralph throws her in a coffin and buries her alive. Suddenly Gloria wakes up; everything since she awoke and found the other passengers dead has been a dream and she imagined all of it, including her paranoia about Ralph trying to kill her. Ralph is there with a crew-member and has her taken away and put in a mental institution. A fairly strong ending to what is overall a fairly good issue for its time. Having insane women in back to back stories to wrap up the issue is the one flaw, and "Horror in the Night" would have fit better if moved to another issue (perhaps flipped with the 6 page story from The Crypt of Terror issue published the same month) such that there would be more variety. This story was one of a rare number that were reprinted by EC during the new trend, and would later reappear in The Haunt of Fear #20.

The Haunt of Fear #27

Credits:
Cover dated September/October 1954
Cover by Graham Ingels

"About Face" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Carl Wessler
"Game Washed Out" - Art by George Evans/Sftory by Carl Wessler
"The Silent Treatment" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines
"Swamped - Art by Reed Crandall/Story by Jack Oleck

Today I'll be covering my first EC horror comic on this blog, one of the very last they ever published.

"About Face" - A husband, Jeff, and his wife, Amy, have twins, but Amy will only show him one of them, Penny, demanding he promise not to see the other one, Olga. Years go by and Amy keeps Olga's existence a secret from everyone, not even letting Jeff see her. Amy dies when the twins are 15 years old and Jeff pesters Penny enough that Olga leaves her room and meets him for the first time. Olga has a hideous deformed face and a dour, cruel personality as well. Jeff tries to be a good father to her and takes her out in public, but he denies Olga is his daughter when the neighbors are horrified at her appearance. This causes Olga to flip out and attack a young child. Jeff becomes convinced that Olga is evil and he and Penny will only be happy if he kills her. One night he barges into the twin's room and shoots Olga despite Penny's protests. As she falls to the ground, dead, Jeff realizes the truth, that Olga's face is on the back of Penny's head and that he's murdered her as well. This is a terrific story to start out the issue, with a great twist ending. Olga has one of the scariest appearances of any character to appear in an EC comic. The story does have some non-believable aspects (such as the fact that Penny had to keep the back of her head covered for her entire life, including all time in her father's presense) but the artwork and concept is strong enough to make you not really notice it. This story would be adapted in the final season of the Tales from the Crypt TV show and was probably the best episode of that very lackluster season. Carl Wessler, who wrote this story was the most prolific of several outside writers that joined EC in 1954. Wessler's original version of this story had Olga killed by police rather than her father, thankfully it was changed to the far superior ending in the published version.

"Game Washed Out" - In a Puritan community, a man named John Talbot carries on an affair with a woman named Becky. His wife Priscilla catches him and refuses to let him go so he murders her and weighs her body down in the nearby lake. He later goes to see Becky in broad daylight and is caught by her husband. As punishment, he is sentenced to three duckings in the lake on a stool.  Realizing its the same lake where he put his wife's corpse, he shouts out for them to stop, but his wife's corpse is able to grab ahold of him and cause him to drown. This is an alright story, but the underwater corpse ending is extremely similar to Tales from the Crypt #40's "Pearly to Dead" which was published earlier in the year and also was drawn by Evans. Warren Publishing's Vampirella magazine featured a story with a very similar ending that was probably inspired by this story in issue #28's "The Power and the Gory!".

"The Silent Treatment" - A king enjoys constant music and partying, but when it distracts him enough such that his daughter dies while trying to rescue her cat, he orders it all to cease. He then demands the entire kingdom go silent, starting with anything in the castle, but moving on to the village itself, including even menial tasks, then talking aloud, writing and even breathing. The townfolk, unable to take it anymore storm the castle and sew a metronome clock into his body that will make noise for hours unless he is absolutely still. The king stays as still as he can, but a spider crawls on him. Swiping it away, the metronome starts up again and the king, unable to take it, throws himself off a cliff. The final Grim Fairy Tale, a regular feature that appeared in the 3 horror comics (as well as a single appearance in Panic) that featured EC-style versions of classic fairy tales. This story was an original story rather than being based on something else. I consider it one of the weaker ones.

"Swamped" - This story is told from the perspective of a cabin build over the Okefenokee Swamp. The cabin was built by a ghoul, who specifically constructed it in quicksand. The ghoul frequently captures campers, hunters and other people in the swamp, eats them, then dumps their remains into the quicksand via a trapdoor in the cabin floor. Anyone who tries to go after him drowns in the quicksand. The cabin is disgusted by its creator's actions but can't do anything about it. Eventually, the enormous amount of corpses under the cabin are able to cause it to collapse, and the ghoul becomes just another corpse in the swamp. A very strong effort from Crandall, in one of his more gruesome stories. Jack Davis, who usually did the Crypt Keeper story in the Haunt of Fear is missing for the first time since issue 3. The story is pretty good too, with the unique perspective from which it is told.