Tales from the Crypt Volume 1

Another EC horror comic series, very like The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror. Same editor, same stable of artists and writers, same back story of migration from being part of an earlier title (Crime Patrol, in this case) to being its own series (originally The Crypt of Terror and then Tales from the Crypt).

As with the other EC horror comics there’s a genial host in the form of the Crypt-Keeper, who along with the Vault-Keeper and the Old Witch formed a triumvirate that EC tried, unsuccessfully, to brand as the Three Ghoulunatics. There were also a lot of crossovers between the three titles, and in one case there’s even a reprint of a story. “House of Horror” appeared first in The Haunt of Fear #15 (May-June1950), where it’s credited to “Ivan Klapper.” It runs again here in Tales from the Crypt #21 (December 1950-January 1951) where Al Feldstein is named as the author. I assume Ivan Klapper was a pseudonym Feldstein used but I haven’t been able to find any source for this.

Sticking with writing credits, the flash-fiction short stories interspersed with the comics aren’t attributed to any author. In The Haunt of Fear and the The Vault of Horror writing credit is given to either Feldstein or publisher Bill Gaines. I’d assume that they were responsible here as well, but I thought these stories were really inferior in quality so I can’t say for sure.

The contents are mostly in line with what you’d expect from EC at this time. There are werewolves. A vampire. And lots of digging up corpses and burying the living. The writers also seemed to have a thing for the use of quicksand as a plot device. I wonder what happened to quicksand. You used to see it a lot in the pop culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Not so much today. Same as those mail-order chemistry experiment kits that were advertised for $1. “Safe! Harmless!” they say, but I don’t think they’d pass muster now.

One thing that I thought set these stories slightly apart is that they’re more inclined toward rational explanations for a lot of the seemingly supernatural goings-on. A villain may be trying to drive someone insane by manufacturing spooky happenings, or it may be left up in the air as to whether the horrors were all just being imagined. Also, whenever possible scientific explanations are reached for to make things seem a little less crazy. So reviving the corpse of an executed killer by giving it an electric shock? Sort of Frankenstein-ish, but you can roll with it. And the best story in this volume, “℞ . . . Death” (written by Feldstein, art by Graham Ingels) also has a pseudo-scientific explainer thrown in at the end where the prescription that a fellow has been taking turns out to be digestive enzymes that eats him alive, turning him into a puddle of black tar.

Finally, keeping with “℞ . . . Death” I was also pleased to see that it was voted the readers’ favourite story in the next issue’s Crypt-Keeper’s Corner. This led me to think that maybe they weren’t just making those polls up, which is something I’ve always been suspicious about.

Graphicalex