Dates
- Cover date
- December 1952-January 1953
- Pages
- 36
Editions and covers
- Original editionSource ↗
Creators
Stories
- Lower Berth! · The Crypt of Terror · 8 pages
The Crypt Keeper relates his origin story of the meeting between his parents, a 4000 year old female Egyptian mummy and a two-headed corpse.
- This Trick'll Kill You! · The Vault of Horror! · 7 pages
A magician and his wife are visiting India looking for new acts to perform when he spies a girl with a trick rope that rises into the air when she plays a pipe and can be climbed upon. He offers to buy the rope from her but she refuses. His wife invites her back to the hotel room where the two plot to kill her and steal the rope. They kill her, but the rope suddenly has a mind of its own, much to the couple's horror.
- Castaway · 1 pages
A murderer is exiled by his crew on an uninhabited island. To survive, he goes hunting and kills a large pregnant sea turtle for food. He is later killed by the turtle's mate.
- The Funeral · The Crypt-Keeper's Grim Fairy Tale! · 6 pages
In this grim fairy tale, a young prince grows fond of his nanny until one day she appears dead. The king attempts to console his heart-broken son by offering him candy, cake and a pony at the funeral for his nanny. The boy peeks in on her as she is lying in state and sees her move. It turns out she suffers from cataleptic fits and reassures the prince that she will never leave him. The boy thinks of all the nice things that he won't be getting due to the cancellation of the funeral and so brings a candlestick down upon her head.
- None But the Lonely Heart! · The Witch's Cauldron! · 7 pages
A man who marries homely wealthy women and murders them for their money receives a lonely-hearts letter from a woman who tells him that she lives in a large stone house and enclosures a photograph of a lovely woman whom she admits the picture displays two years ago, not having a more recent snapshot. Since she is so beautiful, he decides that it's time to wind up his racket and settle down. She accepts his proposal and he dashes out to meet her.....with stunning results.
Reprinted in
Tales from the Crypt (1979), Tales from the Crypt (1990), Tales from the Crypt (1994), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (2012), EC Classics (1985), Tales from the Crypt: Graphic Novel (2007), Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt (2012), Choke Gasp! The Best of 75 Years of EC Comics (2019), The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt (2021)