Cuts from the Crypt: The 10 Grisliest EC Horror Comics
Many are the horror fans who know the name and legacy of EC Comics. During the 1950s, the New York-based comic book publishers were the purveyors of such putrid paneled literature as Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt of Fear, not to mention gritty, realistic fare like Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories.
Alarmed by the rise in juvenile delinquency across the country, the US Senate formed a subcommittee that sought to discover the possible causes behind the elevated crime rate. Though the subcommittee’s focus was all forms of popular media, comic books became its most publicized target. Following the Senate subcommittee hearings that sought to discover the influence comic books had on juvenile delinquency (spoiler alert: none), publishers banded together to clean house themselves under the flag of the Comics Code. So ended the bloody reign of the Crypt-Keeper and his fellow GhouLunatics. But EC Comics would receive its due 35 years later when an enterprising team of Hollywood producers collaborated to bring HBO’s Tales from the Crypt to the thankful masses.
But outside of the tales that were adapted for the beloved TV series, the public’s familiarity with the stories that originally earned the publisher its notoriety remains limited. What were the tales that had parents, psychiatrists, and the government crying “juvenile delinquency!”? Were they really that bad? Could they really be that gross?
Yes, they were. Yes, they could.
This list tracks the ten goriest and sickest stories released from 1950-1954 by the EC Comics crew. With everything from mutilated convicts to amorous zombies, this gathering truly represents the “traumatic 10” of the pre-Code EC books. So wrap your drool cups round your chins and read on at your own peril, kiddies. Heh heh heh!
“Swamped” (The Haunt of Fear #27)
Art by Reed Crandall
For all the jabs the Senate subcommittee and folks like Dr. Fredric Wertham receive for their short-sighted attacks on comic books, the fact is that the crime and horror titles from the EC Comic “New Trend” line-up were getting more graphic as time went on. The Crypt-Keeper began his career recycling creaky ghost stories and psychological suspense similar to the popular radio programs of the day when he made his debut in 1950. But, by the time 1954 rolled around the envelope on gore and depravity had been pushed so far that the excessiveness began elbowing out the storytelling almost completely.
Case in point: “Swamped”. The story, as it is, is simply about a ghoul that builds a shack out in the swamp, and kills and eats travelers that come his way. And that’s it. The tale has the strange flair of being narrated by the shack itself. Now, this is a motif EC Comics had used before to spice up their revenge tales. But here the shack is merely a witness to the ghoul’s ghastly crimes as well as his horrible comeuppance. For all the skeletal detritus of his victims fuse together with that special swamp magic and tear the ghoul asunder when the shack collapses into the bog. This story points the way towards the slobbering, grindhouse vibe of the comics to come from Eerie Publications in the 70s. So if you’re strictly here to see ugly monsters meet ugly deaths, “Swamped” has you covered.
“The Pit” (The Vault of Horror #40)
Art by Bernie Krigstein
Bernie Krigstein was an artist whose signature style immediately marked him as a striking talent. His long, spindly characters and angular shadows were reminiscent of German Expressionism, and his panel layout was refreshingly cinematic. In the final issue of The Vault of Horror, Krigstein got to bare his teeth (quite literally) with a tale that’s vicious from the word ‘go’.
Two husbands, owners of a cock-fighting show and dog-fighting show respectively, must not only contend with the bloodthirstiness of their professions and their audiences, but that of their wives as well. Krigstein draws them all like the animals in their gore-spattered shows: growling, spitting, and clawing at each other. When the two husbands mutually agree to rid themselves of their life’s biggest problem, they loose the wives upon each other in the killing ring.
Just in case the disemboweled pit bulls weren’t enough to turn your stomach, the story transitions from animal cruelty to straight-up human cruelty with the husbands smirking from the sidelines as their ladies tear each other apart. Just another pair of happy couples from EC Land!
“Dog Food” (Crime SuspenStories #25)
Art by Reed Crandall
A prison guard rules over his inmates with a swift baton, an iron fist, and a pack of frothing hounds eager for the kill. The guard’s sadism is such that one of the toughest criminals in the block hatches a plan to turn the dogs against their master. The guard catches wind of the plot and promptly unleashes his pets upon the convict. What the guard didn’t count on was just how determined the conspirator would be to see his plan through to the end.
Like “The Pit”, “Dog Food” capitalizes on the nasty, brutal behavior of its unrepentant villain before delivering a sicko, socko finish. But “Dog Food” earns extra icky points for being rendered in the realistic style of artist Reed Crandall. The feasibility of a human carving themselves straight through the ribs and making it to the finish line is debatable. But, Crandall leaves us reeling from the visceral impact his images create.
“Forever Ambergris” (Tales from the Crypt #44)
Art by Jack Davis
This yarn was the source of a fairly faithful adaptation for the HBO series. However, the original story gives the episode a run for its gruesome money. Here we have another tried-and-true EC template: the love triangle. A sea captain vies for a woman in a relationship with his first mate. So the captain promptly sends his mate on a mission that guarantees a contraction of the bubonic plague. The mate grows so rotted with disease that attempts to grab him only bring back chunks of stinking flesh. Then, his death comes when he falls against a railing and is promptly sliced in two!
The captain gets his wish. But an unfortunate mix-up with some ambergris—the whale vomit key to the making of perfume—means that he must now contend with another case of the plague. The final panel is about as ridiculous as it gets. Yet, it’s the ludicrous mingling of the sensual and the sickening that leaves us with the sour bite of bile on our tongues.
“Strop! You’re Killing Me!” (Tales from the Crypt #37)
Art by Bill Elder
The element of surprise is a recurring one throughout this list, and this story is no exception. Bill Elder was an artist for EC Comics that you did not expect grisliness from. His particular brand of zaniness made him a perfect fit for MAD, later MAD Magazine following the introduction of the Comics Code. But outright horror? That was rare for Elder. But if “Strop! You’re Killing Me!” is any evidence, he had a knack for creeping up on you when you least expected it.
When a new chief runs an old firefighter ragged and leaves the codger to die inside his own enflamed house, the chief receives one of the fiercest paybacks in EC history. As seen above, the new descent pole he insisted on being installed in the old-timey fire station has been sharpened to a razor’s edge by someone… or something. When the chief slides down and realizes (too late!) that the phone call he’s responding to was placed by the old codger’s spirit, the logical results ensue.
For anyone who has ever nicked themselves with a razor while shaving, you can’t help but have a full-body wince when you think about the injuries that must have been inflicted on the fire chief. Say it with me now: OUCH!
“…Only Skin Deep!” (Tales from the Crypt #38)
Art by Reed Crandall
Like “Forever Ambergris,” “…Only Skin Deep” was adapted for an episode of the HBO series. And like the original run of comics from the 50s, the show’s later seasons grew increasingly sick and smutty. As such, it takes this story and reimagines it as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre via the 90s nightclub scene. The comic book version is much more straightforward. It reads like an urban legend in the same vein as that hoary old classic, “The Hook”. Or perhaps more appropriately, “The Green Ribbon”.
The tale, as in so many examples from this list, can be boiled down to that final “gotcha” image. Truthfully, everything up until this point is rather tame. It’s a love story of two star-crossed sweethearts who meet every year at a masquerade ball before finally trying to start a life together. But it’s that relative innocence that makes the finale so shocking. Our hero needs to know what his wife’s real face looks like. The genuine romance and mystery of the preceding events explode in a moment of violence that hits you like a hammer to the head. And Reed Crandall makes sure that you never forget the face staring back at you from that bed…
“A Grim Fairy Tale” (The Vault of Horror #27)
Art by Graham Ingels
It only seems right that EC Comics would take to creating their own adaptations and original stories in the vein of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. After all, with their cast of black-hearted baddies getting swift and sanguinary punishments, what were the EC horrors but modern-day bedtime stories? This, the first in their series of “Grim Fairy Tales”, is one of their best and most ferocious.
The kingdom is having a spot of rat plague, so the villagers do their best to exterminate the little devils. When the gluttonous and corpulent queen tells the gluttonous and corpulent king to pass an edict forbidding the murder of rats (she’s the proud owner of some pet mice and thinks all rodents should be respected), the villagers get fed up with being eaten up by the furry vermin. So they decide to take matters into their own hands.
Again, the feasibility of the ending is questionable; could rats even survive being shoved down someone’s throat? But our concept of reality is overshadowed by the horror of the implication. Watching the king and queen writhe in agony as they’re eaten from the inside out can’t help but spur on our morbid imaginations.
“Foul Play” (The Haunt of Fear #19)
Art by Jack Davis
If there’s any one EC Comics horror tale that is consistently hailed as being the extreme in excessiveness, it’s this one. If you’ve read Stephen King’s joyful rehashing of the story in his seminal nonfiction work, Danse Macabre, you’ll remember that this is the one where the ball team takes their grievances out on this issue’s ne’er-do-well by appropriating his body parts as sports equipment. It’s a classic EC comeuppance that finds the punishment mirroring the crime to a painfully obvious T.
The final panel seen above, like so many of the EC Comics horrors, was the punchline to a grim joke. The story is only the necessary, tedious means to get to the gory finish. Jack Davis polishes it off with his usual cartoonishly mordant flair. But even this distancing style can’t completely wash away the vicious sight of the villain’s cratered skull staring dumbly out at us as the pitcher winds up for another throw.
“Marriage Vow” (The Haunt of Fear #26)
Art by Graham Ingels
If you thought that last one was nasty, wait till you hear this. As mentioned earlier, EC’s penchant for out-grossing the competition (and themselves) on the newsstands took them to new heights (or lows, if you prefer) towards the end of their run. Although love from beyond the grave had been explored before in their horror titles, it was more elliptical and suggestive than what arrived in this tale from The Witch’s Cauldron.
A harried husband cannot stand another night with his devoted wife. Trouble is, the husband has already killed his spouse (impaled on a fence!). But her rotting and randy reanimated cadaver insists that they maintain their marital relations at all costs. Like a sitcom from Hell, “Marriage Vow” takes us through eight agonizing pages of one man’s death march to the bedroom. The glimpses we receive from the art of “Ghastly” Graham Ingels and the furtive innuendos in the script tell us everything that we need to know. It’s no Nekromantik, but there’s enough festering fodder here to make most readers consider celibacy.
“The October Game” (Shock SuspenStories #9)
Art by Jack Kamen
Here’s the truth: in all the previously mentioned stories, the reader sees some terrible things. In this one, nothing terrible at all is shown. And there, as Hamlet once said, is the rub. Jack Kamen, like Bill Elder, was not an artist who depicted any kind of graphic violence. Although he consistently had a spot in all three of EC Comic’s horror titles, Kamen’s stories were always the softest of the bunch. They usually dealt with jilted lovers or “widdle kids”, as Al Feldstein used to call them. His characters were drawn as charming and sterile in true Leave It To Beaver fashion. Which is why he was perfect for this particular assignment.
It was one of EC’s many adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s short fiction. And it’s surely one of the best of an already-impressive roster. Kamen’s docile, domestic style was used to powerful effect here, once again presenting us with a true element of surprise. This list has divulged many details about these stories and truthfully spoiled the endings for most of them.
For “The October Game”, we’d like to urge you to seek it out for yourself. Read all eight pages of it and let us know if you expected a comic book from the 50s to go there. Chances are that in spite of what you see with your eyes from the nine other tales gathered here, you’ll be haunted more by what you see with your mind after you take a chance and play “The October Game”.
So what do you think? Did these ten stories shock you in some way? Have you read other tales from the EC Comics crypt that you think would fit the bill? Be sure to let us know on social. We’re simply dying to hear from you, kiddies! Heh heh heh!
Categorized:Editorials News
