Description: TALES FROM THE CRYPT - individual base card from the set issued by Cardz in 1993 Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from June 10, 1989 to July 19, 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO for seven seasons with a total of 93 episodes. The title is based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name and most of the content originated in that comic or the other EC Comics of the time (The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, and Two-Fisted Tales). The show was produced by HBO. Tales from the Crypt was an American bi-monthly horror comic anthology series published by EC Comics from 1950 to 1955, producing 27 issues (the first issue with the title was #20, previously having been International Comics (#1-#5); International Crime Patrol (#6); Crime Patrol (#7-#16) and The Crypt of Terror (#17-#19) for a total of 46 issues in the series). Along with its sister titles, The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt was popular, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s comic books came under attack from parents, clergymen, schoolteachers and others who believed the books contributed to illiteracy and juvenile delinquency. In April and June 1954, highly publicized congressional subcommittee hearings on the effects of comic books upon children left the industry shaken. With the subsequent imposition of a highly restrictive Comics Code, EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines cancelled Tales from the Crypt and its two companion horror titles, along with the company's remaining crime and science fiction series in September 1954. All EC titles have been reprinted at various times since their demise, and stories from the horror series have been adapted for television and film. Horror comics emerged as a distinct comic book genre after World War II when young adult males lost interest in caped crimebusters, and returning GIs wanted titillating sex and violence in their reading. One-shot Eerie (1947) is generally considered the first true horror comic, with its cover depicting a dagger-wielding, red-eyed ghoul threatening a rope-bound, scantily clad, voluptuous young woman beneath a full moon. In 1948, Adventures Into the Unknown became the first regularly published horror title, enjoying a nearly two decade life-span. In 1950, EC publisher Gaines and his editor Al Feldstein discovered they shared similar tastes in horror and began experimenting with horror tales in their crime titles. Tales from the Crypt traces its origin to a Feldstein story, "Return from the Grave!", in EC's Crime Patrol (#15, December 1949/January 1950) with the Crypt-Keeper making his debut as host. Issue #16 featured more horror tales than crime stories, and, with issue #17, the title changed from Crime Patrol to The Crypt of Terror. Due to an attempt to save money on second-class postage permits, the numbering did not change with the title and continued as The Crypt of Terror for the next two issues. Tales from the Crypt debuted with issue #20 (October/November 1950), producing a total of 27 issues (excluding the initial three issues, #17-19, published as The Crypt of Terror), before ceasing publication with its February/March 1955 issue (#46). Demise In 1954, Gaines and Feldstein intended to add a fourth book to their horror publications by reactivating an earlier title, The Crypt of Terror. They were stopped dead in their tracks, however. Following the publication of Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, horror and other violent comics had come under scrutiny by parents, schoolteachers, clergymen, psychologists, and others who viewed the material as dangerous to the well-being of children and a significant contributor to the juvenile delinquency crisis in America. Matters came to a head in April and June 1954 with a highly publicized Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Hearings targeted violent comic books—which fared poorly in the proceedings. While the committee stopped short of blaming the comics industry for juvenile delinquency, they did suggest it tone down the product. Publishers were left reeling. The industry deftly avoided outside censorship by creating the self-regulatory Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) and a Comics Code Authority (CCA) that placed severe restrictions on violent comic book genres. Publishers were forbidden from using the words "terror" and "horror" in titles, for example, and forbidden from depicting zombies, werewolves, and other gruesome characters and outré horror fiction trappings. Gaines was fed up; he believed his titles were being specifically targeted and realized they were doomed to future failure. He threw in the towel, canceling Tales from the Crypt and its companion titles in September 1954. Since an issue of The Crypt of Terror had already been produced, it was published as the final issue of Tales from the Crypt, February/March 1955. Reprints Tales from the Crypt has been reprinted on numerous occasions. Ballantine Books reprinted selected Crypt stories in a series of paperback EC anthologies in 1964-66. The magazine was fully collected in a series of five black-and-white hardbacks by publisher Russ Cochran as part of The Complete EC Library in 1979. Cochran (in association with Gladstone Publishing and solo) reprinted a handful of single color issues in 1990/91. Between September 1992 and December 1999, Cochran and Gemstone Publishing reprinted the full 30 individual issues. This complete run was later rebound, with covers included, in a series of six softcover EC Annuals. In 2007, Cochran and Gemstone began to publish hardcover, re-colored volumes of Tales from the Crypt as part of the EC Archives series. Three volumes (of a projected five) were published before Gemstone's financial troubles left the project in limbo. The project was then revived under a new publisher, Dark Horse Comics, which has resumed it with the release of Tales from the Crypt Volume 4 in October 2013 and Tales from the Crypt Volume 5 in November 2014. Revival In 2007, Papercutz, an independent comics publisher managed by former Marvel Comics editor Jim Salicrup, began running a new series of original Tales from the Crypt comics. The new version was announced at the year's New York Comic Con. The first issue was published in June 2007, with a cover drawn by Kyle Baker. All three of EC Comics' horror hosts (The GhouLunatics) appear in the issue, drawn by Rick Parker (artist of Marvel/MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head Comic Book). Contributors to subsequent issues have included well-known horror talents Joe R. Lansdale and his brother John L. Lansdale, Don McGregor, husband and wife team James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook, Mort Todd, and Chris Noeth. The new version has a smaller digest size with a graphic novel style book binding. Controversy erupted in 2008 when Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was featured on a cover attacking the horror hosts with a hockey stick, published with a letter from William Gaines' daughter Cathy Gaines Mifsud commenting on censorship. As of today, there have been a total of 13 issues (9 graphic novels) published by Papercutz, with the last issue being published September 28, 2010. In 2016, Super Genius Comics would relaunch Tales from the Crypt for two issues. Production Creative team Early front covers were created by Feldstein, Johnny Craig and Wally Wood, with the remaining covers (1952–55) by Jack Davis. The contributing interior artists were Craig, Feldstein, Wood, Davis, George Evans, Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Williamson, Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, Bernard Krigstein, Will Elder, Fred Peters and Howard Larsen. Jack Davis took over the art for the Crypt-Keeper stories with (#24, June/July, 1951), and continued as the title's lead artist for the rest of the run. Feldstein devised the Crypt-Keeper's origin story "Lower Berth!" (#33) which was illustrated by Davis. Issue #38 was one of two covers from EC's horror comics censored prior to publication. While The Vault of Horror cover for issue #32 was restored in Russ Cochran's EC Library reprints, the Tales from the Crypt cover remained censored. "Kamen's Kalamity" (#31) starred many members of the EC staff, including Gaines, Feldstein and the story's artist, Kamen. Ingels, Davis and Craig also made cameo appearances in the story in single panels which they drew themselves. Influences and adaptations As with the other EC comics edited by Feldstein, the stories in this comic were primarily based on Gaines using existing horror stories and films to develop "springboards" from which he and Feldstein could launch new stories. Specific story influences that have been identified include the following: "Death Must Come" (issue 17): Ralph Murphy's The Man in Half Moon Street "The Maestro's Hand" (issue 18): Robert Florey's The Beast with Five Fingers "The Thing from the Sea" (issue 20): F. Marion Crawford's "The Upper Berth" "Rx Death" (issue 20): Arthur Machen's "The Novel of the White Powder" "Impending Doom" (issue 20): W. F. Harvey's "August Heat" "Reflection of Death" (issue 23): H. P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider" "The Living Death" (issue 24): Edgar Allan Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" "Judy, You're Not Yourself Tonight" (issue 25): H. P. Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep" "Loved to Death" (issue 25): John Collier's "The Chaser" "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" (issue 34): H. P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider" "Last Laugh" (issue 38): David H. Keller's "The Doorbell" "Shadow of Death" (issue 39): Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr After their unauthorized adaptation of one of Ray Bradbury's stories in another magazine, Bradbury contacted EC about their plagiarism of his work. They reached an agreement for EC to do authorized versions of Bradbury's short fiction. These official adaptations include: "There Was an Old Woman" (issue 34) "The Handler" (issue 36) The Crypt-Keeper Although EC's horror stable consisted of three separate magazines, there was little beyond their titles to distinguish them. Each magazine had its titular host, but the hosting duties for any one issue were typically shared with the hosts of the other two. Thus, a single issue of Tales from the Crypt would contain two stories told by the Crypt-Keeper, one by the Vault-Keeper (of The Vault of Horror) and one by the Old Witch (of The Haunt of Fear). The professional rivalry among these three GhouLunatics was often played for comic effect. The Crypt-Keeper was the primary host of Tales from the Crypt. He was introduced to the public in Crime Patrol #15, and he continued with that magazine through its changes in title and format. He was a frightening presence in those early issues, a sinister hermit sitting framed in the lightless crypt's half-open door, his face all but hidden by the double curtain of his long white hair. But he soon evolved into a more comedic horror host, delivering an irreverent and pun-filled commentary to lighten the horrific tone of the stories he introduced. The Crypt-Keeper's duties were not limited to hosting. He would occasionally appear as a character as well, and these appearances give the reader a glimpse of his biography. "The Lower Berth" (Tales from the Crypt #33) gives an account of the circumstances surrounding his birth. "While the Cat's Away" (The Vault of Horror #34) conducts a tour of his house above and below ground. "Horror beneath the Streets" (The Haunt of Fear #17) tells how he and his fellow GhouLunatics got their EC publishing contracts. The Crypt-Keeper also served as the host of EC's 3-D comic book, Three Dimensional Tales from the Crypt of Terror. Media adaptations The 1972 film from Amicus Productions features five stories from various EC comics. "Reflection of Death" (#23) and "Blind Alleys" (#46) were adapted for the film, the others were adapted from The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror. A second Amicus film, The Vault of Horror, also used stories from Tales from the Crypt and Shock SuspenStories (despite its title, it did not use any stories published in the Vault of Horror comic). An homage film entitled Creepshow followed, paying tribute to the tone, look, and feel of Tales from the Crypt and other EC comics, without directly adapting any of the stories. In 1989, the book was adapted into the HBO TV series Tales from the Crypt, which features John Kassir as the Cryptkeeper and included comic book covers designed to look like the original 1950s covers by Mike Vosburg with at least one drawn by Shawn McManus. The following tales were used in HBO's Tales from the Crypt television series: "The Man Who Was Death" (issue #17), "Mute Witness to Murder" (#18), "Fatal Caper" (#20), "The Thing From The Grave" (#22), "Last Respects" (#23), "Judy, You're Not Yourself Today" (#25), "Loved to Death" (#25), "Well Cooked Hams" (#27), "The Ventriloquist's Dummy" (#28), "Korman's Kalamity" (re-titling of "Kamen's Kalamity", issue #31), "Cutting Cards" (#32), "Lower Berth" (#33), "None But The Lonely Heart" (#33), "Oil's Well That Ends Well" (#34), "Curiosity Killed" (#36), "Only Skin Deep" (#38), "Mournin' Mess" (#38), "Undertaking Palor" (#39), "Food For Thought" (#40), "Operation Friendship" (#41), "Cold War" (#43), "Forever Ambergris" (#44), "The Switch" (#45) and "Blind Alleys" (#46). Other episodes were based on other entries in the EC Comics line: The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories and Two-Fisted Tales. Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from June 10, 1989 to July 19, 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO for seven seasons with a total of 93 episodes. The title is based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name and most of the content originated in that comic or the other EC Comics of the time (The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, and Two-Fisted Tales). The show was produced by HBO. Because it was aired on HBO, a premium cable television channel, it was one of the few anthology series to be allowed to have full freedom from censorship by network standards and practices. As a result, HBO allowed the series to include content that had not appeared in most television series up to that time, such as graphic violence, profanity, sexual activity, and nudity. The series is subsequently edited for such content when broadcast in syndication or on basic cable. While the series began production in the United States, in the final season filming moved to Britain, resulting in episodes which revolved around British characters. Each episode begins with a tracking shot leading to the front door of The Cryptkeeper's decrepit mansion. Once inside, the camera pans down from the foyer to the hallways and stairways, and finally descends into the basement. The show's host, The Cryptkeeper, then pops out from his coffin, cackling wildly; finally, green slime pours down over the screen as the main title appears. The Cryptkeeper is an animated corpse, as opposed to the original comics in which he was a living human being. The wisecracking Cryptkeeper (performed by puppeteers like Van Snowden, Mike Elizalde, Frank Charles Lutkiss, Patty Maloney, Anton Rupprecht, Shaun Smith, David Stinnent, Mike Trcic, and Brock Winkless, and voiced by John Kassir) would then introduce the episode with intentionally hackneyed puns (e.g. his frequent greeting to viewers: "Hello, Boils and Ghouls" or "Hello, Kiddies"). Each episode was self-contained, and was bookended by an outro sequence again involving the Crypt Keeper. Comic book cover art was created by Mike Vosburg and Shawn McManus. Famous Faces A variety of famous faces have starred in episodes of Tales from the Crypt. This includes Academy Award winning actors and A-list celebrities that we know and love today. Here are some of the most famous people to have starred in episodes: Anthony Michael Hall Arnold Schwarzenegger Benicio Del Toro Brad Pitt Brooke Shields Cheech Marin Christopher Reeve Corey Feldman Dan Aykroyd Daniel Craig Demi Moore Ewan McGregor Hank Azaria Iggy Pop Isaac Hayes Joe Pesci John Lithgow John Stamos Judd Nelson Kirk Douglas Malcolm McDowell Martin Sheen Meat Loaf Michael J. Fox Robert Patrick Sandra Bullock Slash Steve Buscemi Tim Curry Tom Hanks Whoopi Goldberg Vincent Spano Albums Soundtrack In 1991, Big Screen Records released a soundtrack album featuring assorted music from the series. The album includes the theme music, suites from 11 episodes and an original song titled "Crypt Jam" performed by The Cryptkeeper (John Kassir). A music video for "Crypt Jam" was filmed and is available as an extra on the Region 1 Season 3 DVD. Track Title Composer Length 01 Tales from the Crypt (Main Title) Danny Elfman 2:27 02 Three's a Crowd Jan Hammer 3:50 03 Cutting Cards James Horner 3:45 04 Loved to Death Jimmy Webb 3:19 05 Dead Wait David Mansfield 4:04 06 Undertaking Palor Nicholas Pike 3:10 07 Carrion Death Bruce Broughton 3:32 08 Ventriloquist's Dummy Miles Goodman 3:32 09 The Thing from the Grave David Newman 2:53 10 The Man Who Was Death Ry Cooder 4:22 11 Reluctant Vampire Cliff Eidelman 3:50 12 Deadline Steve Bartek 3:32 13 The Crypt Jam Chuckii Booker 4:30 Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas In 1994, a Christmas album, Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas, was released by The Right Stuff, a subsidiary of Capitol Records. Most of the songs are spoofs of holiday standards performed by The Cryptkeeper, such as "Juggle Bills" (Jingle Bells), "We Wish You'd Bury the Missus" (We Wish You a Merry Christmas) and "Deck the Halls with Parts of Charlie" (Deck the Halls), with narration and a few original songs mixed in. The CD booklet includes a black and white reprint of the comic "And All Through the House". Track Title Length 01 Intro to Album 0:51 02 Deck the Halls with Parts of Charlie 1:55 03 Juggle Bills 3:17 04 We Wish You'd Bury the Missus 2:20 05 Moe Teitlebaum 2:32 06 A Christmas Card for the Cryptkeeper 0:51 07 Christmas Rap 3:22 08 Intro to Cryptkeeper's Family Christmas 0:32 09 Cryptkeeper's Family Christmas 2:03 10 'Twas the Fright Before Christmas 3:55 11 Twelve Days of Cryptmas 3:42 12 Intro to Revenge of the Cryptkeeper 0:24 13 Revenge of the Cryptkeeper 2:18 14 Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas 2:21 15 Should Old Cadavers Be Forgot 3:38 Monsters of Metal In 2000, Capitol Records released another album titled Tales from the Crypt: Monsters of Metal. This album is a compilation of horror-themed songs from popular heavy metal bands with wraparound narration by the Cryptkeeper (John Kassir). Track Title Artist Length 01 The Cryptkeeper Intro #1 John Kassir 0:30 02 Heaven and Hell Black Sabbath 6:54 03 Creepy Feelings Armored Saint 5:21 04 Five Magics Megadeth 5:41 05 The Cryptkeeper Intro #2 John Kassir 0:14 06 Cemetery Gates (Demon Knight) Pantera 5:47 07 Eyes of a Stranger Queensrÿche 4:40 08 Hallucinating Apartment 26 3:40 09 The Cryptkeeper Intro #3 John Kassir 0:35 10 Dead Inside Arch Enemy 4:11 11 Beyond the Realms of Death Judas Priest 6:53 12 Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck Prong 4:12 13 The Cryptkeeper Intro #4 John Kassir 0:16 14 Don't Talk to Strangers Dio 4:52 15 Bordello of Blood Anthrax 4:12 16 The Bell Witch Mercyful Fate 4:34 17 The Cryptkeeper Intro #5 John Kassir 0:21 18 Wolverine Blues Entombed 2:10 19 Hollow Ground The Haunted 4:10 20 Beyond the Black Metal Church 6:22 21 The Cryptkeeper Ending John Kassir 0:46 In 1993, Tales from the Crypt was adapted into a Saturday morning cartoon series entitled Tales from the Cryptkeeper, based on the series (albeit with none of the violence or other questionable content that was in the original series), with Kassir as the Cryptkeeper again; it ran from September 18, 1993 to December 4, 1999. In 1994, Ace Novelty released a board game based on Tales from the Cryptkeeper called Tales from the Cryptkeeper: Search for the lost Tales In late 1993, a pinball machine titled Tales from the Crypt was produced under license by Data East. In 1996, a Saturday morning game show called Secrets of the Cryptkeeper's Haunted House ran from September 14 to August 1997, with Kassir once again in the role of the Cryptkeeper as announcer. Two films by Universal Studios, Demon Knight (1995) and Bordello of Blood (1996), were based on the series, neither of which was particularly successful with critics. A third film, Ritual, was slated for theatrical release in 2001, but was only distributed internationally (without the Tales from the Crypt connection) until 2006 when it was released on DVD in the United States, with the Cryptkeeper segments restored. Unlike the 1970s-era Amicus films, these films were not based on stories from any of the EC comics. The Frighteners was intended to be another film in the series, but executive producer Robert Zemeckis decided to release it as a standalone film. In early 2016, it was announced M. Night Shyamalan is producing a reboot of the 1989 TV series as part of TNT's new horror block. In June 2017, it was announced that the plans for the reboot have been shelved due to licensing issues. The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was established by the United States Senate in 1953 to investigate the problem of juvenile delinquency. Background The subcommittee was a unit of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and was created by a motion of Senator Robert Hendrickson, a Republican from New Jersey. Its initial budget was $44,000. The first members of the subcommittee consisted of Senator Hendrickson, and Senators Estes Kefauver (Democrat from Tennessee), Thomas C. Hennings, Jr. (Democrat from Missouri), and William Langer (Republican from North Dakota). Senator Hendrickson was initially the chair of the committee but was later replaced as chair by Senator Kefauver. 1954 comic book hearings The public hearings took place on April 21, 22, and June 4, 1954, in New York. They focused on particularly graphic "crime and horror" comic books of the day, and their potential impact on juvenile delinquency. When publisher William Gaines contended that he sold only comic books of good taste, Kefauver entered into evidence one of Gaines' comics (Crime SuspenStories #22 [April-May 1954]), which showed a dismembered woman's head on its cover. The exchange between Gaines and Kefauver led to a front-page story in The New York Times the following day. Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser asked: "Then you think a child cannot in any way, shape, or manner, be hurt by anything that the child reads or sees?" William Gaines responded: "I do not believe so." Beaser: "There would be no limit, actually, to what you'd put in the magazines?" Gaines: "Only within the bounds of good taste." Sen. Kefauver: "Here is your May issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman's head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that's in good taste?" Gaines: "Yes sir, I do — for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding her head a little higher so that blood could be seen dripping from it and moving the body a little further over so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody." Kefauver (doubtful): "You've got blood coming out of her mouth." Gaines: "A little." What none of the senators knew was that Gaines had already cleaned up the cover of this issue. Artist Johnny Craig's first draft included those very elements which Gaines had said were in "bad taste" and had him clean it up before publication. Because of the unfavorable press coverage resulting from the hearings, the comic book industry adopted the Comics Code Authority, a self-regulatory ratings code that was initially adopted by nearly all comic publishers and continued to be used by some comics until 2011. In the immediate aftermath of the hearings, several publishers were forced to revamp their schedules and drastically censor or even cancel many popular long-standing comic series. Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to the demise of many titles and the toning down of others. Black-and-white horror-comics magazines, which did not fall under the Code, flourished from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s from a variety of publishers. Mainstream American color comic books experienced a horror resurgence in the 1970s, following a loosening of the Code. While the genre has had greater and lesser periods of popularity, it occupies a firm niche in comics as of the 2010s. Precursors to horror comics include detective and crime comics that incorporated horror motifs into their graphics, and early superhero stories that sometimes included the likes of ghouls and vampires. Individual horror stories appeared as early as 1940. The first dedicated horror comic books appear to be Gilberton Publications' Classic Comics #13 (August 1943), with its full-length adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Avon Publications' anthology Eerie #1 (January 1947), the first horror comic with original content. The first horror-comics series is the anthology Adventures into the Unknown, premiering in 1948 from American Comics Group, initially under the imprint B&I Publishing. In the early 20th-century, pulp magazines developed the horror subgenre "weird menace", which featured sadistic villains and graphic scenes of torture and brutality. The first such title, Popular Publications' Dime Mystery, began as a straight crime fiction magazine but evolved by 1933 under the influence of Grand Guignol theater. Other publishers eventually joined in, though Popular dominated the field with Dime Mystery, Horror Stories, and Terror Tales. While most weird-menace stories were resolved with rational explanations, some involved the supernatural. After the fledgling medium of comic books became established by the late 1930s, horror-fiction elements began appearing in superhero stories, with vampires, misshapen creatures, mad scientists and other tropes that bore the influence of the Universal horror films of the 1930s and other sources. In 1935, National Periodicals published the first story of Doctor Occult by Jerry Siegel (script) and Joe Shuster (Art) in New Fun Comics # 6, where he confronts Vampire Master. In Detective Comics # 31-32, Batman fights a vampire. By the mid-1940s, some detective and crime comics had incorporated horror motifs such as spiders and eyeballs into their graphics, and occasionally featured stories adapted from the literary horror tales of Edgar Allan Poe or other writers, or stories from the pulps and radio programs. The single-issue Harvey Comics anthologies Front Page Comic Book (1945), bearing a cover with a knife-wielding, skeletal ghoul, and Strange Story (July 1946), introduced writer-artist Bob Powell's character the Man in Black, an early comic-book example of the type of omniscient-observer host used in such contemporary supernatural and suspense radio dramas as Inner Sanctum, Suspense, and The Whistler. As cultural historian David Hajdu notes, comic-book horror: ...had its roots in the pulps, where narratives of young women assaulted by 'weird menaces' ... had filled magazines such as Terror Tales and Horror Stories for years. Variations on gothic fright had also appeared in several comics—Suspense Comics (which began in 1943), Yellowjacket (which included eight horror stories, billed as "Tales of Terror", in its run of ten issues, beginning in 1944), and Eerie (which had one issue published in 1947). Early American horror comics Issue #7 (December 1940) of publisher Prize Comics' flagship title, Prize Comics, introduced writer-artist Dick Briefer's eight-page feature "New Adventures of Frankenstein", an updated version of novelist Mary Shelley's much-adapted Frankenstein monster. Called "America's first ongoing comic book series to fall squarely within the horror genre" by historian Don Markstein, and "[t]he first real horror series" by horror-comics historian Lawrence Watt-Evans, the feature ran through Prize Comics #52 (April 1945) before becoming a humor series and then being revived in horrific form in the series Frankenstein #18-33 (March 1952 - November 1954). Gilberton Publications' 60-page Classic Comics #12 (June 1943) adapted Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as a backup feature to Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" in a package titled Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman. The next issue, Classic Comics #13 (August 1943), adapted Robert Louis Stevenson's horror novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as the full-length story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, making it the earliest known dedicated horror comic book. Historian Ron Goulart, making no mention of those earlier literary adaptations, identifies Avon Publications' Eerie #1, dated January 1947 and sold in late 1946, as "the first out-and-out horror comic book". Its cover featured a red-eyed, pointy-eared fiend threatening a rope-bound, beautiful young woman in a scanty red evening gown, set amid a moonlit ruin. The anthology offered six primarily occult stories involving the likes of a ghost and a zombie. While all but one writer are unknown — Edward Bellin, who teamed with young artist Joe Kubert on the nine-page "The Man-Eating Lizards" — the artists include George Roussos and Fred Kida. After this first issue, the title went dormant, but reappeared in 1951 as Eerie, beginning with a new #1 and running 17 issues (1951 - September 1954). Goulart identifies the long-running Adventures into the Unknown (Fall 1948 - August 1967), from American Comics Group, initially under the imprint B&I Publishing, as "the first continuing-series horror comic". The first two issues, which included art by Fred Guardineer and others, featured horror stories of ghosts, werewolves, haunted houses, killer puppets and other supernatural beings and locales. The premiere included a seven-page, abridged adaptation of Horace Walpole's seminal gothic novel The Castle of Otranto, by an unknown writer and artist Al Ulmer. Following the postwar crime comics vogue spearheaded by publisher Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay, which by 1948 was selling over a million copies a month, came romance comics, which by 1949 outsold all other genres, and horror comics. The same month in which Adventures into the Unknown premiered, the comic-book company EC, which would become the most prominent horror-comics publisher of the 1950s, published its first horror story, "Zombie Terror", by the then relatively unknown writer and artist Johnny Craig, in the superhero comic Moon Girl #5. Almost simultaneously,Trans-World Publications issued its one-and-only comic, the one-shot Mysterious Traveler Comics #1 (November 1948), based on the Mutual Broadcasting Network's radio show of that name and including amid its crime and science-fiction stories a reprint of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptation "The Tell Tale Heart", reprinted from Charlton Comics' Yellowjacket Comics #6. Street and Smith also published two issues of "Ghost Breakers" in late 1948. (ibid GCDB) The floodgates began to open the following year with the first horror comic from the 1950s' most prolific horror-comics publisher, Atlas Comics, the decade's forerunner of Marvel Comics. While horror had been an element in 1940s superhero stories from the original predecessor company, Timely Comics, through the war years, "when zombies, vampires, werewolves, and even pythonmen were to be found working for the Nazis and the Japanese", the publisher entered the horror arena full-tilt with Amazing Mysteries #32 (May 1949), continuing the numbering of the defunct superhero series Sub-Mariner Comics, followed by the superhero anthology Marvel Mystery Comics becoming the horror series Marvel Tales with #93 (August 1949) and the final two issues of Captain America Comics becoming the mostly horror-fiction Captain America's Weird Tales #74-75 (October 1949 & February 1950) — the latter of which did not contain Captain America at all. Harvey Comics followed suit with its costumed-crimefighter comic Black Cat by reformatting it as the horror comic Black Cat Mystery with issue #30 (August 1951). EC Comics and the horror boom Horror comics briefly flourished from this point until the industry's self-imposed censorship board, the Comics Code Authority, was instituted in late 1954. The most influential and enduring horror-comics anthologies of this period, beginning 1950, were the 91 issues of EC Comics' three series: The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror and The Crypt of Terror, renamed Tales from the Crypt. In 1947, publisher William Gaines had inherited what was then Educational Comics upon the death of his father, Maxwell Gaines. Three years later, Gaines and editor Al Feldstein introduced horror in two of the company's crime comics to test the waters. Finding them successful, the publisher quickly turned them and a Western series into EC's triumvirate of horror. Additionally, the superhero comic Moon Girl, which had become the romance comic A Moon...a Girl...Romance, became the primarily science fiction anthology Weird Fantasy. For the next four years, sardonic horror hosts the Old Witch, the Vault Keeper and the Crypt Keeper introduced stories drawn by such top artists and soon-to-be-famous newcomers as Johnny Craig, Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Graham Ingels (who signed his work "Ghastly"), Jack Kamen, Bernard Krigstein, Harvey Kurtzman, and Wally Wood. Feldstein did most of the early scripting, writing a story a day with twist endings and poetic justice taken to absurd extremes. EC's success immediately spawned a host of imitators, such as Ziff-Davis' and P.L. Publishing's Weird Adventures, St. John Publications' Weird Horrors, Key Publications' Weird Chills, Weird Mysteries and Weird Tales of the Future, Comic Media's Weird Terror, Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers, and Star Publications' Ghostly Weird Stories. Others included Quality Comics' Web of Evil, Ace Comics' Web of Mystery, Premier Magazines' Horror from the Tomb Harvey Comics' Tomb of Terror, Witches Tales, and Chamber of Chills Magazine, Avon Comics', Witchcraft, Ajax-Farrell Publications' Fantastic Fears, Fawcett Publications' Worlds of Fear and This Magazine Is Haunted, Charlton Comics' The Thing, and a slew from Atlas Comics, including Adventures into Weird Worlds,Adventures into Terror, Menace, Journey into Mystery, and Strange Tales. Indeed, from 1949 through comics cover-dated March 1955, Atlas released 399 issues of 18 horror titles, ACG released 123 issues of five horror titles, and Ace Comics, 98 issues of five titles — each more than EC's output. Backlash In the late 1940s, comic books – particularly crime comics – had become the target of mounting public criticism for their content and their potentially harmful effects on children, with "accusations from several fronts [that] charged comic books with contributing to the rising rates of juvenile delinquency." Many city and county ordinances had banned some publications, though these were effectively overturned with a March 29, 1948, United States Supreme Court ruling that a 64-year-old New York State law outlawing publications with "pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime" was unconstitutional. Regardless, the uproar increased upon the publication of two articles: "Horror in the Nursery" by Judith Crist, in the March 25, 1948, issue Collier's Weekly, based upon the symposium "Psychopathology of Comic Books" held a week earlier by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham; and Wertham's own features "The Comics ... Very Funny!" in the May 29, 1948, issue of The Saturday Review of Literature, and a March 19, 1948 symposium called "Psychopathology of Comic Books" which stated that comic books were "abnormally sexually aggressive" and led to crime. In response to public pressure and bad press, an industry trade group, the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers (ACMP) was formed with the intent of prodding the industry to police itself. The Association proved ineffective as few publishers joined and those who did exercised little restraint over the content of their titles. Seduction of the Innocent In 1954, Dr. Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a tome that claimed horror, crime and other comics were a direct cause of juvenile delinquency. Wertham asserted, largely based on undocumented anecdotes, that reading violent comic books encouraged violent behavior in children. Wertham painted a picture of a large and pervasive industry, shrouded in secrecy and masterminded by a few, that operated upon the innocent and defenseless minds of the young. He further suggested the industry strong-armed vendors into accepting their publications and forced artists and writers into producing the content against their will. Wertham alleged comics stimulated deviant sexual behavior. He noted female breasts in comics protruded in a provocative way and special attention was lavished upon the female genital region. A cover by Matt Baker from Phantom Lady was reprinted in the book with the caption, "Sexual stimulation by combining 'headlights' with the sadist's dream of tying up a woman". Boys interviewed by Wertham said they used comic book images for masturbation purposes, and one young comics reader confessed he wanted to be a sex maniac. Wertham contended comics promoted homosexuality by pointing to the Batman–Robin relationship and calling it a homosexual wish dream of two men living together. He observed that Robin was often pictured standing with his legs spread and the genital region evident. Most alarming, Wertham contended that comic books turned children into deceitful little beings, reading funny-animal comics in front of their parents but turning to horror comics the moment their parents left the room. Wertham warned of suspicious stores and their clandestine back rooms where second hand comics of the worst sort were peddled to children. The language used evoked images of children prowling about gambling dens and whorehouses, and anxious parents felt helpless in the face of such a powerful force as the comics industry. Excerpts from the book were published in Ladies' Home Journal and Reader's Digest, lending respectability and credibility to Wertham's arguments. A 14-page portfolio of panels and covers from across the entire comic book industry displayed murder, torture and sexual titillation for the reader's consideration. The most widely discussed art was that from "Foul Play", a horror story from EC about a dishonest baseball player whose head and intestines are used by his teammates in a game. Seduction of the Innocent sparked a firestorm of controversy and created alarm in parents, teachers and others interested in the welfare of children; the concerned were galvanized into campaigning for censorship. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency Public criticism brought matters to a head. In 1954, anti-crime crusader Estes Kefauver led the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Dr. Wertham insisted upon appearing before the committee. He first presented a long list of his credentials, and then, in his clipped German accent, spoke with authority on the pernicious influence of comic books upon children. His passionate testimony at the hearings impressed the gathering. Kefauver suggested crime comics indoctrinated children in a way similar to Nazi propaganda. Wertham noted Hitler was a beginner compared to the comics industry. Publisher William Gaines appeared before the committee and vigorously defended his product and the industry. He took full responsibility for the horror genre, claiming he was the first to publish such comics. He insisted that delinquency was the result of the real environment and not fictional reading materials. His defiant demeanor left the committee (which felt the industry was indefensible), astonished. He had prepared a statement that read in part, "It would be just as difficult to explain the harmless thrill of a horror story to Dr. Wertham as it would be to explain the sublimity of love to a frigid old maid." Crime Suspenstories, issue 22, April/May 1954, was entered into evidence. The exchange between Gaines and Kefauver led to a front-page story in The New York Times: He was asked by Senator Estes Kefauver, Democrat of Tennessee, if he considered in "good taste" the cover of his Shock SuspenStories, which depicted an axe-wielding man holding aloft the severed head of a blond woman. Mr. Gaines replied: 'Yes, I do—for the cover of a horror comic.' Though the committee's final report did not blame comics for crime, it recommended that the comics industry tone down its content voluntarily. The creation of the Comics Code By 1953, nearly a quarter of all comic books published were horror titles. In the immediate aftermath of the hearings, however, several publishers were forced to revamp their schedules and drastically censor or even cancel many long-standing comic series. In September 1954, the Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) and its Comics Code Authority (CCA) was formed. The Code had many stipulations that made it difficult for horror comics to continue publication, since any that didn't adhere to the Code's guidelines would likely not find distribution. The Code forbade the explicit presentation of "unique details and methods of crime...Scenes of excessive violence...brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gun play, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime...all scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism...Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, or torture". Perseverance As a result of the Congressional hearings, DC Comics shifted its ongoing horror titles, House of Mystery (1951–1987) and House of Secrets (1956–1966), toward the suspense and mystery genres, often with a science fiction bent. In fact, from 1964–1968, House of Mystery became a mostly superhero title, featuring J'onn J'onzz, the Manhunter from Mars and, later, Dial H for Hero. Similarly, during this period Marvel Comics produced the titles Strange Tales (1951–1968) and Journey into Mystery (1952–1966). The publishers Gilberton, Dell Comics, and Gold Key Comics did not become signatories to the Comics Code, relying on their reputations as publishers of wholesome comic books. Classics Illustrated had adapted such horror novels as Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in comic book form, and quickly issued reprints with new, less gruesome covers. Dell began publishing the licensed TV series comic book Twilight Zone in 1961 and publishing a Dracula title in 1962 (though only the first issue was horror related; the subsequent issues were part of the super-hero genre revival), followed in 1963 by the new series "Ghost Stories." Gold Key, in addition to releasing Boris Karloff Thriller, based on the TV series Thriller (and retitled Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery after the show went off the air), bought the Twilight Zone license from Dell in 1962. In 1965 Gold Key put out three licensed horror-themed comics, two based on the TV horror-comedies The Addams Family and The Munsters, and the other titled Ripley's Believe it or Not!, which had three different subtitles: "True Ghost Stories," "True War Stories" (#1 and #5), and "True Demons & Monsters" (#7, #10, #19, #22, #25, #26, and #29). Warren Publishing continued the horror tradition in the mid-1960s, bypassing the Comics Code Authority restrictions by publishing magazine-sized black-and-white horror comics. Under the direction of line editor Archie Goodwin, Warren debuted the horror anthologies Creepy (1964–1983) and Eerie (1966–1983), followed by Vampirella, an anthology with a lead feature starring a sexy young female vampire. The low-rent Warren imitator Eerie Publications also jumped into the black-and-white horror magazine business, mixing new material with reprints from pre-Comics Code horror comics, most notably in its flagship title Weird (1966–1981), as well as the magazines Tales of Voodoo (1968–1974), Horror Tales (1969–1979), Tales from the Tomb (1969–1975), and Terror Tales (1969–1979). Stanley Publications also published a line of black-and-white horror magazines from 1966–1971, including the titles Shock and Chilling Tales of Horror. Resurgence A number of supernatural mystery / suspense titles were introduced in the latter half of the 1960s, including Charlton Comics' Ghostly Tales, The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, and Ghost Manor; and Marvel Comics' Chamber of Darkness/Monsters on the Prowl and Tower of Shadows/Creatures on the Loose. At DC Comics, new House of Mystery editor Joe Orlando returned the title to its horror roots with issue #175 (July/August 1968), a similar transformation was made to House of Secrets and The Unexpected (formerly "Tales of the Unexpected"), with the company debuting a new title, The Witching Hour. In 1971, the Comics Code Authority relaxed some of its longstanding rules regarding horror comics, which opened the door to more possibilities in the genre: Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with, walking dead or torture shall not be used. Vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled in the classic tradition such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high-caliber literary works written by Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle, and other respected authors whose works are read in schools around the world. Following this, Marvel returned to publishing true horror by first introducing a scientifically created, vampire-like character, Morbius, the Living Vampire, followed by the introduction of Dracula in Tomb of Dracula. This opened the floodgates for more horror titles, such as the anthology Supernatural Thrillers, Werewolf by Night, and two series in which Satan or a Satan-like lord of Hell figured, Ghost Rider and the feature "Son of Satan." In addition, following Warren Publishing's longtime lead, Marvel's parent company in 1971 began a black-and-white magazine imprint, which published a number of horror titles, including Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Vampire Tales, Tales of the Zombie, Haunt of Horror, and Masters of Terror. Additionally, Skywald Publications offered the black-and-white horror-comics magazines Nightmare, Psycho, and Scream. DC during this time continued to publish its existing supernatural fiction and added new horror series such as Ghosts, The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love (later titled Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion), Secrets of Haunted House, Secrets of Sinister House, Swamp Thing, Weird Mystery Tales, Weird War Tales, and Tales of Ghost Castle. Charlton continued in this vein as well, with Ghostly Haunts, Haunted, Midnight Tales, Haunted Love, and Scary Tales. Underground cartoonists, many of them strongly influenced by 1950s EC Comics like Tales from the Crypt, also tried their hands at horror. Titles like Skull (Rip Off Press/Last Gasp, 1970–1972), Bogeyman (Company & Sons/San Francisco Comic Book Company, 1969), Fantagor (Richard Corben, 1970), Insect Fear (Print Mint, 1970), Up From The Deep (Rip Off Press, 1971), Death Rattle (Kitchen Sink Press, 1972), Gory Stories (Shroud, 1972), Deviant Slice (Print Mint, 1972) and Two-Fisted Zombies (Last Gasp, 1973) appeared in the early 1970s. By the mid-1970s, the horror comics boomlet slowed and various titles were cancelled. Only a few DC titles persevered by the end of the decade, the long-running Gold Key mystery comic series ceased during the early 1980s, and predominantly reprint Charlton series managed to survive past mid-decade. DC's traditional titles sputtered out during the early 1980s, and its transformed anthology "Elvira's House of Mystery" was the final title to be produced, lasting only a dozen issues. As these and Warren publications disappeared, new titles from the 1980s onward would all be in new formats (i.e. glossy paper, not code-approved) or sporadically produced by small independent companies. 1980s and 1990s Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, independent publishers produced a number of successful horror comics franchises. FantaCo Enterprises and Millennium Publications boasted lineups almost exclusively devoted to horror, vampire, and zombie comics. For instance, 1985 saw the revival of Kitchen Sink's Death Rattle, followed a year later by the debut of FantaCo's horror anthology Gore Shriek, edited by Stephen R. Bissette, who also contributed stories to each issue. Bissette also edited the acclaimed anthology Taboo, which ran from 1988 to 1995. In 1982, Pacific Comics produced two series that, while admittedly inspired by the EC Comics of the 1950s, foresaw the form that horror comics would take in the coming decades. Printed in color on high-quality paper stock despite a higher cover price, the series Twisted Tales and Alien Worlds were short-lived and hard-pressed to keep to a regular production schedule, but offered some of the most explicitly brutal and sexual stories yet to be widely distributed in a mainstream ("non-underground") format. Both series eventually moved to Eclipse Comics, which also produced similar titles such as The Twisted Tales of Bruce Jones and Alien Encounters (which they inherited from Fantaco). Later horror titles from DC's Vertigo line had more in common with these Pacific/Eclipse efforts, and more success, than DC's sporadic efforts to revive or maintain the traditional horror comic title (e.g. Elvira's House of Mystery). In 1982, DC Comics revived the Swamp Thing series, attempting to capitalize on the summer 1982 release of the Wes Craven film of the same name. In 1984, Briton Alan Moore took over the writing chores on the title, and when Karen Berger became editor, she gave Moore free rein to revamp the title and the character as he saw fit. Moore reconfigured Swamp Thing's origin to make him a true monster as opposed to a human transformed into a monster. Moore's (and artists Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben's) Swamp Thing was a critical and commercial success, and in 1988 spun off the ongoing series Hellblazer, starring occult detective John Constantine. In 1993 DC introduced its mature-readers Vertigo line, which folded in a number of popular horror titles, including Hellblazer and Swamp Thing. One of Vertigo's early successes was Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which reworked a number of DC's old horror characters and added fantasy to the mix. A number of other horror titles carried on at Vertigo, like Deadman, House of Mystery and Haunted Tank, or were given a horror spin or an update like Kid Eternity and Jonah Hex. In the mid-1990s Harris Publications also revived Vampirella, and Marvel, after mostly taking the '80s off, published its "Midnight Sons" line of horror comics that included such series as a revived Ghost Rider, Nightstalkers, Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins and Midnight Sons Unlimited. Modern horror comics North America In addition to its long-running titles carried over from the 1990s, Vertigo published more conventional horror, like vampires in Bite Club (beginning in 2004), and Vamps. In addition, from 1999–2001 they published their own horror anthology, Flinch. At Image Comics, Robert Kirkman has created The Walking Dead. Steve Niles predominantly writes horror comics, and his 30 Days of Night has spawned a range of mini-series released by IDW Publishing. At Dark Horse, Mike Mignola has been working on Hellboy, and has created a large fictional universe with spin-off titles like BPRD and Lobster Johnson. In the 2000s and 2010s, Marvel produced Blade and the Marvel Zombies franchise. Marvel's adult imprint MAX, introduced in 2001, has also provided a venue for reinterpretations of Marvel horror characters where more violence can be used, leading to the Dead of Night miniseries based on Devil-Slayer, Werewolf by Night and Man-Thing, as well as a reworking of Zombie and Hellstorm: Son of Satan. Richard Corben has also been writing Haunt of Horror, a number of series based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. Europe Great Britain In the post-World War II period, horror comics arrived in Britain, largely based on reprints of American material. This led to protests similar to those in the States. In 1955, the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act was introduced, which led to the horror reprints disappearing from news agents' shelves. In the early 1970s there were a couple of horror comics — IPC's Shiver and Shake and Monster Fun — but these were also humour titles pitched at younger children. It was only during the boom in British comics in the late 1970s and early 1980s that there were horror comics pitched at older boys and girls —IPC/Fleetway's Scream! and Misty, respectively. Whether it was because of fears over the content, or the difficult financial times in the mid-1980s, Scream! stopped publishing in 1985, with only two of its stories being merged with the Eagle. Lord Horror also was published. After the comic industry bust in the mid 1990s, the only mainstream venue was 2000 AD, which featured stories like Chiaroscuro and Cradlegrave, as well as those drawing on the Cthulhu Mythos, like Necronauts and Caballistics, Inc.. The British small press also publishes horror comics, like the anthology Something Wicked. In 2008, the London Horror Comic launched, becoming the first full-colour UK horror comic to be shipped worldwide through Diamond Comic Distributors. Italy Italian horror comic series Dylan Dog has achieved great success, both in its homeland and abroad. From the late 1960s till the 1990s, Italy also saw a number of erotic-horror publications usually featuring heroines, such as Jacula, Sukia, Yra (all vampiresses), Ulula (a werewoman) and others. Some of these publications like Wallestein the Monster were briefly published in English. Japan Just like Gekiga, horror manga started to appear in the lending libraries (Kashihonya) of the late 1950s and early 1960s and expanded into the mainstream through the works of artists like Shigeru Mizuki (GeGeGe no Kitaro), Jirō Tsunoda (Kyōfu Shimbun), Kazuo Umezu (The Drifting Classroom) and Shin'ichi Koga (Eko Eko Azarak). While most of them published in shōnen magazines and often with scary, yet sympathetic protagonists leading through tales about ghosts and demons, Umezu for instance got his start in shōjo magazines, where psychological depth was the main focus, a famous title being Hebi Shōjo. The subculture also continued publishing horror manga. Hideshi Hino created lots of stories for the alternative magazine Garo and for the publisher Hibari Shobō, which specialized in horror manga in the 1970s. Suehiro Maruo followed the traditions of the Ero guro movement of the 1920s and included extreme depictions of gore in his works. Horror stayed a niche in mainstream manga. There was no magazine specialized solely on horror comics until the 1980s, when Asahi Sonorama founded Halloween magazine in 1986 due to the recent success of artists like Ryōko Takashina in mainstream shōjo magazines like Ribon. Junji Itō became the most famous contributor to the magazine with his Tomie series. Similar publications like Horror M (Bunkasha), also mainly targeted at women, started to appear. Magazines like Nemuki (Asahi Sonorama), Susperia Mystery (Akita Shoten) and Apple Mystery (Shufu to Seikatsusha) were also founded as part of this movement, but concentrated on more subtle and less graphic depictions of horror. Artists drawing for those magazine like Ichiko Ima (Hyakkiyakō Shō), Matsuri Akino (Pet Shop of Horrors) and Narumi Kakinouchi (Vampire Princess Miyu) became famous. Horror webcomics Horror comics are also published on the web, with horror webcomics that include the pioneering work of Eric Monster Millikin, an anthology webtoon, Tales of the Unusual and Zuda comics High Moon. Other media Comics have formed part of the media franchise for popular horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Army of Darkness. They have also been adapted from horror video games, like Silent Hill. Horror comics have also been sources for horror films, such as 30 Days of Night, Hellboy and Blade, and, from horror manga, such films as Uzumaki (2000), Z ~Zed~ (2014) and two 1980s movies directed by comics creator Hideshi Hino adapted from his manga Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood and Guinea Pig: Mermaid in a Manhole. Robert Kirkman's comic-book series The Walking Dead was adapted in 2010 into an ongoing TV series on the AMC cable network. Some horror films and television programs have had comic-book sequels, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, as well as prequels or interstitial stories, such as Saw: Rebirth and 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, respectively.
Price: 5.99 GBP
Location: Hexham
End Time: 2024-11-13T00:58:54.000Z
Shipping Cost: 10.1 GBP
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return postage will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
After receiving the item, your buyer should cancel the purchase within: 60 days
Size of Card: 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches
Metric Dimensions of Card: 89 mm by 64 mm
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Year Manufactured: 1993
Features: Individual Base Card
Subject Type: Comics
Manufacturer: Cardz
Genre: Cult HBO TV Show, Cult Horror Comic from EC Comics, Good Girl Art, Puppetry, Horror Anthology, Hackneyed Humour, The Cryptkeeper, Bad Puns, Gallows Humour, Horror
Set: Tales From The Crypt
Franchise: Tales From The Crypt
Graded: No
