EC Comics Return From The Dead in the 21st Century

 In 2022 to tie in to the Shudder ongoing Creepshow TV series, Image comics released a five issue mini series. The first new Creepshow comic to be widely released since the original movie comic book adaptation in 1982. Creepshow was George Romero and Steven Kings loving homage to the EC horror comics they grew up with and were inspired by. The most well known and remembered being Tales From The Crypt, in no small part due to the 90s TV series that itself was inspired by the Creepshow movie. 

Image released another five issues as volume 2 in 2023 with a third volume due in Autumn 2024. With the red box around the title on the cover and horror host The Creep introducing each tale inside it felt like a modern return to EC. 

Maybe due to Creepshows success, Oni Press have acquired the license to produce official EC comics. Though rather than reviving established titles such as Tales From The Crypt or Weird Science, they have instead created all new EC titles. The first two being Epitaphs From The Abyss for horror and Cruel Universe for their sci-fi tales. This helps to establish them as something original and somewhat avoid too many comparisons to the classic EC titles which were some of the best comics ever produced and a very hard act to follow or replicate. 

Oni Press are soon to include two more EC titles, Shiver Suspenstories and Cruel Kingdom in the vein of the classic EC titles Shock Suspenstories and Weird Fantasy. 

Oni Press have been proud to announce they are the first return to EC in 70 years though this is not quite true. In 2007, Papercutz had the rights to produce EC comics and published Tales From The Crypt Volume 2 which lasted 13 issues. Then almost a decade later in 2016 Papercutz released a volume 3 of Tales under their Super Genius imprint. This volume was aimed at a slightly older audience than volume 2 which was an ages 10 and up comic. Volume 3 only lasted two issues though from December 2016 to January 2017. 

So really it's been 7 not 70 years since new EC comics were published. But I guess a 7 year gap doesn't sound so impressive. 

As an interesting coincidence, Tales From The Crypt issue 1 and Creepshow issue 1 both show their respective horror hosts rising from the grave to signify their returns after such long absences. 

H.P Lovecraft Cool Air Comic Adaptations

Cool Air is a short story written by H.P Lovecraft in 1926, originally published in the March 1928 issue of Tales of Magic and Mystery. It tells the tale of a man who moves into a New York apartment block and meets a fellow tenant who is obsessed with defying death and preserves himself though increasingly low temperatures. Though his efforts come gruesomely unstuck when the power goes out....

                                      

Berni Wrightson adapted H.P Lovecraft's Cool Air into a comic strip eventually collected by Pacific Comics in issue 2 of Berni Wrightson, Master of the Macabre. Wrightsons art work brings the story to beautiful and gruesome life. Invoking the style of Ghastly Graham Ingels of EC fame.

EC had themselves adapted the story in Vault of Horror issue 17, renaming it Baby It's Cold Inside and giving it a more contemporary setting.

 

Weird Science visits Alien Worlds as Mars Attacks

 

The cover of Weird Science issue 17 was homaged by Eclipse Comics Alien Encounters issue 8 with a touch of the Mars Attacks trading cards style added.

 

Mars Attacks itself would homage the same EC cover in issue 3 of the First Born series published by IDW.

 

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror issue 11

Tales From The Crypt issue 41 homaged in Bart Simpsons Treehouse of Horror issue 11.

Halloween EC Comic Covers

 A homage to Tales From The Crypt 36 by https://www.instagram.com/dvglzv

 Gripping Tales of Horror by https://www.instagram.com/caseybooth/

Tales of Halloween by https://www.instagram.com/theaterofcreeps/

Tales From The Crypt British Edition

In 1954 the UK saw it's own short lived run of EC comic reprints. Two issues of Tales From The Crypt, one issue of The Haunt of Fear and supposedly one issue of The Vault of Horror though I have yet to find any images of Vault. Much like in american, horror comics in the UK were used as an easy target to blame for children behaving badly so that parents didn't have to face any hard truths about their own parenting ability. As always the government were quick to jump on the bandwagon so that they could appear to be fixing a complex problem but not having to actually do anything other than censoring harmless comic books with no evidence to back up any of the accusations against such material. EC comics were quickly banned in the UK and the few issues that were produced have become rather rare and almost forgotten.

Ghostbusters EC Comics Homages

IDW homaged EC with their Mars Attacks comics and continue the trend with the cover of Ghostbusters Get Real issue 2. Inspired by The Vault of Horror issue 25.

The Real Ghostbusters animated series also gave a nod to EC with a Weird Science style comic book cover featuring in the episode Mr Sandman, Dream me a Dream. 

Mars Attacks EC Comics Homages

IDW homaged EC comics Weird Science covers, in particular Wally Woods art work with their Mars Attacks First Born covers. Appropriate as Wally Wood helped design the Martian for Mars Attacks and EC comics were an influence in the creation of the original Mars Attacks Topps cards.

Tales From The Crypt and EC Comics

After it's murder at the hands of hysterical parents whipped into a frenzy by Fredric Wertham in his attempt to market and cash grab with his book Seduction of the Innocent, Tales From The Crypt and EC comics have risen from the grave multiple times in the decades since.

In the 1970s it was brought to the big screen by Amicus films in Tales From The Crypt and The Vault Of Horror. Then in the late 80s it became a popular TV series on HBO lasting 7 seasons, with an 8th released in the form of audio dramas by seeing ear theatre. The series also spun off into an animated show with John Kassir reprising his role as the voice of the Crypt Keeper which he also lent to the live action series and audio dramas.

The animated series led to the release of an action figure line, though curiously the action figure of the Crypt Keeper was based on the live action design where as the rest of the figures were in the animated style.

The comics themselves have been reprinted multiple times in the 70s and 90s as well as in various hardback collections. Most recently by Dark Horse Comics.

A brand new Tales From the Crypt comic series begun in 2007 published by Papercutz. This lasted until 2010 then went on hiatus until 2016 when two more issues were released under the Super Genius imprint of Papercutz. Though the series seems to have returned to the grave once again for the time being.