Ryan B does Faced With Horror

Along with horror titles such as The Vault of Horror, The Crypt of Terror, and The Haunt of Fear, EC Comics was also responsible for being the leading publisher of crime comics in the early 1950's. Sure there had been crime stories on the news stands before, in pulp novels aimed more at adult readers than kids. Books like The Shadow and The Spider were heavy on words and not much on pictures, with a serious, more realistic tone. They featured masked avengers solving mysteries and were akin more to what would later be superhero tales more so than horror comics. EC changed that by having their crime comics such as Two-Fisted Tales and Crime SuspenStories deal with bad things happening to bad people. There were no werewolves or vampires here, but there were adulterous spouses and axe weilding madmen and were just as taboo and envelope pushing as anything the Crypt-Keeper could come up with.

So let's take a look at one of these nasty little noirs. It's a story of crime and vanity from one of the earliest issues of Crime SuspenStories called...

Faced With Horror. 

Ryan B does The Roots Of Evil

So in 1951 when EC Comics launched their very first horror comics, thus giving birth TO the horror comic, and starting the "new trend", DC, like so many other publishers, decided to jumped on the horror bandwagon. The result was The House Of Mystery.

Unlike many of the other followers, however, DC actually knew what they were doing. After all, this is the company whose initials stand for Detective Comics, so they should at least know how to do a good mystery and suspense story, right? Unfortunately, when the comics code authority cropped up and started putting the kibosh on horror/suspense/crime comics, DC decided to yield to them rather than die a premature death like EC did.

Thus The House Of Mystery morphed from a classic horror book into a superhero book with moderately creepy undertones. Tales like the serialized, Dial H For Hero, became the regular in HOM's pages and it seemed like it was in a downward spiral. That is until old EC alumni, Joe Orlando, took over as editor in 1968. He decided to breath new death into the book and return it to it's sinister roots. He also introduced a host to The House (something that every self respecting horror anthology needs).

This mysterious figure was Cain, the proverbial "first killer" who layed his brother low. Cain took over as "able" caretaker (get it?) in issue 175, but it's the issue after that (176 for all you delinquents who flunked math) that we'll be looking at today. Remember I mentioned about The House Of Mystery being taken back to it's roots? Well that's exactly the same subject that today's story is about. It's a gnarled bit of deadwood Cain calls...

The Roots Of Evil.

Ryan B does Beauty And The Beast

Today's story straddles the line between horror comic and hero comic in a way that only a Batman book could. I've always thought that The Joker's maniacal personality was just perfect for a horror host. I mean, a crazed clown with horrifically comical weapons like acid squirting flowers and 1,000 volt joy buzzers who can spout puns as good as the GhouLunatics and the Creepy family combined? He was meant for such a job.

DC must have heard my swears because in 2009 they created a series of comics called Joker's Asylum in which old Mr. J would act as psychotic story teller for each issue. The fact that Batman's rogues gallery is filled with nothing but schizos, monsters, and malcontents meant that The Joker had an almost unlimited source for creepy characters to fill his tales, which range from crime stories, to horror stories, to demented love stories like the one we're looking at today. It features one of the bat's most feral foes, Killer Croc, and has the apt, if unoriginal title of...



Beauty And The Beast.

Ryan B does Jenifer

Witch? Demon? Succubis? Alien?

Is she an innocent victim, or an evil genius?

Some are repulsed by and frightened of her, while others find themselves drawn to her, spellbound.

What, or who is...

Jenifer?

Ryan B's Top 5 Comic Book Witches

"I put a spell on yooou, because your miiine."

And now that you are no doubt playing that song inside your own head, I suggest you also grab a cup of brew and hold on to your broomstick, because here comes a countdown of my top five bewitching women of comic bookdom.

Here comes...

Ryan B's Top 5 Comic Book Witches!

Ryan B does Jokes From The Crypt

Today's entry is going to be a little bit different. In an attempt to live up to my Comic Book Crud credo of not only reviewing stories from horror comics, but also "media related to horror comics" I thought it was finally time that I broke from the routine and did just that.

Back in 1992 HBO's Tales From The Crypt series was at the height of it's popularity, which of course led to a wave of merchandising cashing in on the brand name including, but not limited to, reprints of the original EC comic books from which the episodes were based. Kids of the nineties who only knew the live action Crypt-Keeper as a moldering old skeleton got their first glimpse of the original pungeon master as well as his cohorts, The Old Witch and The Vault-Keeper in the pages of these very books. No doubt taking advantage of this new found familiarity, children's book publisher, Random House, released a small paperback book of jokes around this time, told by the three GhouLunatics themselves. It was appropriately titled...

Jokes From The Crypt.