Ryan B does All Hallows

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome back to Comic Book Crud you horror comic fiends and delinquents. I am that hoodlum that your parents warned you not to play with, Ryan B.

 

Today we will be continuing the theme of Halloween that we started last time with The October Game and will be enjoying all throughout the month of October.

 

 

You all remember what it was like to trick or treat, right? Many of you still may even be doing it to spite being in your late twenties. You go to a house, ring the bell, say "trick or treat" threateningly to whoever answers, have goodies dropped into your sack, then you say "thank you" and walk away so you can go get the eggs and toilet paper and repay the goon for giving you a box of dental floss.

 

Yes, it's one of the greatest joys of childhood, and the subject of tonight's story. It's a fantastic piece of midnight madness from Twisted Tales #1. Written by the master, Bruce Jones, and drawn by the talented Tim Conrad, this is a tale that could only happen on...

 

Abel's Fables

From The House of Secrets #121

Ryan B does The October Game

 

 

 

 

 

Howdy there, my fellow delinquents. It's your old pal Ryan B here once again to present to you another story from one of my uncle's moldy old muck mags.

 

Since the season of the witch (October) is upon us now and Halloween is right around the CORONER, I thought it would be only too appropriate for me to give you all a little treat. Or is it a trick? You'll have to read it to find out.

 

It's a story from EC Comics' SHOCK SuspenStories #9 and it's adapted by editor Al Feldstein from a short story by none other than Ray Bradbury himself. The art is by EC veteran, Jack Kamen, and it'll no doubt put you in just the right mood for this holiday season.

 

Now, if you're ready, prepare to play the game...

 

Ryan B does World For A Witch

 

 

 

Hiya, kids, welcome to Comic Book Crud!

 I’m your (sort of) host, Ryan B.

 

For those of you who are new to this blog, let me tell you a little bit about what we do here. You see, from up in my mama’s dark and dusty attic, me and my buddy, Tom…

 

Look through my dead uncle’s old comic book trunk and pick out the best, the worst, and the somewhat in between stories that his moldy horror comics have to offer. I then present them to YOU accompanied by my own commentary and opinions, because… it’s my blog. But I don’t have all the fun. If a particular story we’ve picked has been adapted to another medium like television, or film, then Tom will do his own little write up of that version in a segment we call, Adaptation Analysis. Pretty cool, right?

So now that you cats are down with the format, let’s keep this blog rolling…

So far, we’ve already paid a visit to DC’s The House of Mystery. Cain the able caretaker treated us to a piece of wormwood called Roots of Evil and it pretty much stunk up the place. Something about a killer tree and a goon with thick glasses and a C.H.U.D face. Anyway, it wasn’t great, so now let’s try Cain’s brother, Abel’s place across the street.

Direct from The House of Secrets, this enchanting bit of Dickensian doom is called…

World For A Witch

Ryan B does Majority Of One

 

 

So, when I did my first review of a story from Twisted Tales, I picked a bit of a stinker. This may have given some of you new to horror comics the idea that this book or maybe Bruce Jones specifically, is not so great. Well, that’s not true. My review of Jenifer should have been enough to show you that Bruce Jones is a genius and one of, if not THE best, in his field. Now I want to show you one of his best, most classic stories from Twisted Tales (which, on the whole, was a consistently great book all around). No, it’s not the infamous Banjo Lessons, although we’ll no doubt get to that one eventually. No, this is a little story about not fitting in called…

Majority Of One.

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.