The Haunt of Fear Volume 1

As the brief Introduction points out here, EC originally stood for Educational Comics, but they gave up on that pretty quickly in order to swap in “Entertaining.” In some of the ads included here demonstrate though, they were still selling their Picture Stories from the Bible series. I don’t know how popular those comics were, but I’m guessing somewhat less so than Tales from the Crypt.

This is the first EC Archives volume I’ll be looking at, but there will be many more. I love these stories, and the job Dark Horse has done in bringing them back in beautiful large-format packages. And now getting on with it, let’s dive in with The Haunt of Fear . . . #15?

The numbering had me confused, but gets explained in an instalment of “The Old Witch’s Niche.” Basically (if I have the story right) they started with #15 because there’d been a change of title from a previous magazine, The Gunfighter. Then, after issues #15-17 the U.S. Post Office (which ran these things) told them that their fourth issue (which would have been #18) had to be #4. So this collection includes issues #15-17 and then issues #4-6, in that order. Technically speaking, I guess The Haunt of Fear issues #1-3 don’t exist. Go figure.

There were three main EC horror imprints and they were entirely interchangeable as they used the same writers and artists and even crossed over a lot. At least I can’t tell any difference between them aside from their mascots: the Old Witch for The Haunt of Fear, the Vault-Keeper for The Vault of Horror, and the Crypt-Keeper for Tales from the Crypt. Even these three can be hard to distinguish, though the Old Witch, the last to be introduced, always looks sadder than the other two. But enough about our hosts.

Things begin with what would be an EC staple, which is ripping off classic horror tales. “The Wall: A Psychological Study” is a remix of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” with a hen-pecked husband walling a noisy cat up with his murdered wife. A later story, “Monster Maker,” revisits Frankenstein. Not the most original tales on offer then, but EC was pumping this stuff out on a deadline and they do at least attempt to add some new wrinkles. I’ll just comment now on a few of the stories that struck me as particularly noteworthy.

“Nightmare!”: a construction engineer keeps waking up from nightmares where he’s being buried alive. A “famous psychiatrist” named Dr. Froyd puts him on the couch and tells him these are manifestations of his feeling “buried under too much work.” Feeling cured, the engineer returns to his work site and is trapped in a frame when a bunch of cement gets poured onto him. Instead of fear he grins hysterically at what he is sure is just another dream. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! C’mon! Bring on the cement!” He dies laughing.

“Television Terror!”: a reporter investigates a haunted house on a live TV broadcast, using a portable camera with a very long extension cord. Nearly the whole story (but for a bit of framing) plays out from the camera’s point of view, with things climaxing in a suitably mysterious disappearing act. October 1950, and the found-footage genre is born. The inspiration may have been a short story by H. Russell Wakefield called “Ghost Hunt,” but that was about a DJ broadcasting his night in a haunted mansion so this was the next step in the concept’s evolution.

“Horror Beneath the Streets!”: things get very meta as EC masthead figures “Al” (artist-writer Al Goldstein) and “Bill” (publisher William Gaines) are chased into the sewers by mysterious figures who turn out to be the Keepers of the Crypt and the Vault of Horror, looking for someone to publish their creepy stories.

“The Hunchback!”: he’s not really a hunchback, but a fellow who has been concealing a murderous Siamese twin. Shades of Basket Case and Malignant. Apparently the idea goes back to a Robert Bloch story from the 1930s though called “The Mannikin.”

So enjoy! Even if the lettering is crude, the stuttering and exclamation marks are overused, and the spelling has some surprising glitches. I mean, how could the writers of such material not know how to spell “cemetery”? It’s baffling. But there’s a lively spirit of gruesome fun at work throughout, with colours that really pop off the page and stories that never drag. Even the ads are worth a grin. You could subscribe to this mag for 75 cents, which got you six issues, including delivery! And who wouldn’t want to order a “Genuine Hollywood Wolf Ring” for $3.95: “Warns the girls (or boys) that you are OUT FOR NO GOOD, and they’ll LOVE YOU EVEN MORE FOR IT!” Ah-wooooo!

Graphicalex