Greetings boils and ghouls! Today we are going to tiptoe through the tombstones of Tales' past. So fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy fright!
More than any other thing I have dreamt about, EC Comics is the most reoccuring. The dream ususally starts out with me at my house or at another location where I am aware there is a comic book store in the area. I walk, drive my car or sometimes take my bike to the store. Once I enter, Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Shock SuspenseStories are all waiting for me on the shelves. Some with covers I recognize from my past collecting them. Others I've never seen before. What issue is this?!
The walls of my subconscious are plastered with the covers of these comics. The very thing to start me on my long day's journey into the horror genre. All going back to Tales From the Crypt #5.
The television adaptation would already be up and running by the time I laid my hands on my first EC Comic. At the time, I didn't have HBO. Luckily, Fox would air reruns. Edited for content of course. Thus leaving me wanting the HBO version increasingly more.
Then there was the merchandising. I had already owned all of the Russ Cochran reprints of Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Shock SuspenStories, Crime SuspenStories. Even it's science fiction runs with Weird Science and Weird Fantasy and it's war story run with Two Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat.
What the show gifted us fans was collectability in other media. Though not as thoroughly as other franchises that spun off merchandise. The complete set of trading cards would eventually find their way into my hands. A toy manufacturer has yet to make any worthwhile figurine of the Crypt Keeper that meets the level of detail they give to Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers. The pinball machine remained a dream. Yet the thing that remained a holy grail was to find some sort of replica of the book the Crypt Keeper used on the show. It lead me to go so far as to staple miniature cut outs of the comic book covers. The way the book unfolded to each piece of art specifically designed for that episode of the show varied from what you got from a cover of one of the EC Comics. Both accomplished their goal in reflecting the story. I eventually let it go in terms of thinking there was such a thing that compiled all of the cover art from the show.
If I was to ever get a tattoo, the Crypt Keeper would be the first one I'd get. More than any other icon from the horror genre, he is the one I most associate with it.
-Luke
20. Creep Course
As Published In: The Haunt of Fear #23
19. Split Personality
As Published In: Vault of Horror #30 (#19)
18. Top Billing
As Published In: Vault of Horror #39 (#28)
17. The Undertaking Parlor
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #39 (#23)
16. And All Through the House
As Published In: Vault of Horror #35 (#24)
15. Two For the Show
As Published In: Crime SuspenStories #17
14. None But the Lonely Heart
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #33 (#17)
13. The Ventriliquist's Dummy
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #28 (#12)
12. Abra Cadaver
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #37 (#21)
11. The New Arrival
As Published In: The Haunt of Fear #25
10. Cutting Cards
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #32 (#16)
9. House of Horror
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #21 (#5)
8. Death of Some Salesmen
As Published In: The Haunt of Fear #15
7. Carrion Death
As Published In: Shock SuspenStories #9
6. Korman's Kalamity
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #31 (#15)
5. People Who Live In Brass Hearses
As Published In: Vault of Horror #27 (#16)
4. Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone
As Published In: The Haunt of Fear #21
3. What's Cookin'
As Published In: The Haunt of Fear #12
2. Forever Ambergris
As Published In: Tales From the Crypt #44 (#28)
1. Television Terror
As Published In: The Haunt of Fear #17
Just missed the cut: Dead Wait, Strung Along, Yellow, Split Second
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