Comic Buzz: The EC Archives: Tales From the Crypt

THE EC ARCHIVES: TALES FROM THE CRYPT VOL. 1
By Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels

Superheroes were in decline. Comic book publishers lazily copied the popular trends of the moment. The Comics Code hadn’t yet sanitized funny books. It was 1949 and EC publisher Bill Gaines and editor Al Feldstein had a new idea: a line of horror comics based on such radio dramas as “Inner Sanctum” and “Lights Out.” Thus was born “Tales From the Crypt.” For five glorious and short years, comics were mature, bloody, and terror-ific.

While most publishers followed trends, EC started the New Trend. “Tales From the Crypt” made its debut in early 1950 (though it was titled “The Crypt of Terror” for the first three issues) and quickly acquired thousands of loyal readers. EC did something else new: they wrote mature, unsanitized stories, and as a result had a large adult readership. The wonderful thing about EC’s horror yarns was that there was no mercy, no reprieve for the characters. People died. Villains went unpunished. These were unusual themes for comics of the ’50s, especially when Superman and Batman were fast becoming square boy scouts. But the party ended too soon. Prudes like Dr. Fredric Wertham criticized EC comics’ gore and violence and proclivity toward featuring corpses rising from the grave. In 1954 Bill Gaines was called to testify before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. The Comics Code Authority was soon formed. And then it was a no-no to depict the walking dead, vampires, ghouls, torture, cannibalism, and the like in comics. Pretty much all the good stuff. EC stopped publishing “Tales From the Crypt” in 1955. The world mourned. But like many of the horror comics’ anti-heroes, “Tales From the Crypt” didn’t let death slow it down. The comic influenced such horror mavens as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, and George Romero, and spawned several movies and a TV show. And, of course, it gave us the Crypt Keeper.

“Tales From the Crypt” has been resurrected yet again. And the corpse has been cleaned up real good this time. The horror comics, last available in a soft-cover collection about a decade ago, are being rolled out in beautiful hardcover volumes by Gemstone Publishing. Restored, re-colored and in a larger format, the EC comics never looked better.

Each volume contains six complete issues and goodies. Volume one has a foreword written by director John Carpenter. But the real treats are the short essays sprinkled throughout the collection. Al Feldstein (who penned almost all the EC horror stories) writes about his “method.” Russ Cochran offers a brief history of EC comics. There are also features on the EC artists and the evolution of the “Crypt” logo. Gemstone Publishing really went all out in this collection. (“Tales From the Crypt, Volume 2″ will be available on July 30.)

EC had the best artists of the era (Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman) and in this restored collection the artwork shines like never before. The pages are vibrant and crisp and look like they were illustrated yesterday.

The stories, however, don’t always hold up, especially the ones in the first three issues. But once the comic changed its title to “Tales From the Crypt” it hit its stride. Among the gems are “House of Horror,” “RX…Death” and “The Thing From the Grave” — which has some truly chilling narration as a murdered man rises from the dead to save his wife and then returns to the grave, burying his murderer along with him.

“The EC Archives: Tales From the Crypt” is a beautiful, informative collection that restores one of the most important comics in the history of the word balloon. It’s one of those books you’ll treasure for the rest of your life…and, possibly, beyond. Heh! Heh! Heh!