Dates
- Cover date
- August-September 1954
- Pages
- 36
Editions and covers
- Original editionSource ↗
Creators
Stories
- Are You a Red Dupe? · 1 pages
This editorial illustrated page purports that the Communists are the ones trying to destroy the comic magazine industry, citing the Soviet "Daily Worker" newspaper and Dr. Frederick Wertham.
- Four-Way Split · The Crypt of Terror · 8 pages
An air freight business partner who used to man a bombsite during the war kills his partner by dropping him out of the plane directly where four states meet, knowing he will go free as they squabble over the jurisdiction of the crime. The corpse comes back and gives him a taste of four different execution methods with the last one being final.
- Cold War · The Vault of Horror! · 7 pages
Norman King meets and begins wooing a beautiful girl named Maria. The fact she is married doesn't phase Norman one bit, so when he decides to kill her husband and marry her anyway, the husband tells Norman a strange but true story about Maria and why he shouldn't be involved with her. You see she, like him, is a zombie.
- Inside Story · 1 pages
Fitch, a purse thief, is on the run from several policemen after muffing a job, and chances upon some kids playing around and taking turns shutting up people in an old icebox. He figures this is the way to avoid capture, so he makes a deal with one of the kids to pay him $5 for hiding him briefly in the icebox. He tears the bill in half and gives the kid one half and promises him the rest when he reopens the door for him. Unfortunately for Fitch, the police scare the kids off, leaving Fitch to suffocate to death in the icebox.
- Clots My Line · 6 pages
A television show about guessing the guest's occupation brings on a manufacturer of red ink. As the panel asks more questions of the guest, they begin to grow annoyed with the host, as the answers seem to dance around the idea that the guest may be a vampire. The host assures the panel that the man has a legitimate occupation, but they feel the host has double-crossed them. The host is delighted he has stumped the panel and reveals to the guest what he's won, a coffin, which surprises the guest. The panel descend upon him and drain his blood, relieved that he's not one of them.
- Accidents and Old Lace · The Witch's Cauldron! · 7 pages
An art dealer murders a man in order to inspire three old sisters who create beautiful tapestries upon witnessing violent deaths of people. When he finds them not working, as they claim to be uninspired, he becomes frustrated with them and admits that he murdered the man before he sent his car smashing into the wall. Angry with him for tricking them, they say murder isn't fair; it has to be an accident, like when they pushed father under the train, and the next man into the path of a car, they dismember the art dealer and weave his body parts into a tapestry.
Reprinted in
Tales from the Crypt (1979), Tales from the Crypt (1991), Tales from the Crypt (1994), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (2012), EC Lives! (1972)