The Howling EC Inspiration

 Many classic horror movies and creators have told of their love of EC comics in childhood and how it influenced and inspired them in their writing and directing of horror in adulthood. Steven King, George Romero and John Carpenter in particular. However EC's influence can be seen in many other films of the 80s era. The Howling for instance features a blink and you'll miss it reference to EC on the wall of Eddie Quists apartment. Amongst the art and magazine covers he has stuck to his wall is a comic cover with art work homaging issue 29 of Tales From The Crypt. Though strangely they chose to make the cover a vampire hunter staking a Vampire rather than using or homaging one of the many Werewolf covers EC published. 

The Real Ghostbusters Frightful Four

When people think of the Frightful Four, they tend to think of the supervillain group who would oppose the Fantastic Four in Marvel comics. Howeverthere is another Frightful Four from Marvel. Marvel UK's The Real Ghostbusters issue 118 introduced readers to a group of ghosts based on the classic universal monsters but wearing uniforms similar to the Ghostbusters. This quartet were sent to capture and punish the Ghostbusters for their crimes against the spirit world. Basically, Ghostbuster Busters. The team consisted of Frank (the Frankenstein monster), Arnold the Werewolf, Wilbur the Mummy and Vigor the Vampire the leader of the group. Their first appearance was in a text only story but in their second outing in issue 136 they would get a full comic strip story.

Tales From the Crypt issue 35

Tales From the Crypt issue 35 by EC comics. Later reprinted in issue 2 of the Gladstone series.
The main story featured on the cover ‘By the fright of the silvery moon’ is a werewolf tale which was also loosely adapted for the Tales from the Crypt audio series. Being a fan of Werewolves, this has always been my favorite EC cover.
The second story features vampires and was adapted on screen for the Amicus Vault of Horror film in the 70s.
After a text story called ‘The Rack’ and another comic strip titled ‘Busted Marriage’ the last tale, ‘This Wraps It Up’ centers on a group of archaeologists encountering a Mummy. It was fun to have an issue featuring three classic monsters all in good stories.