You Can’t Keep a Good Crypt Keeper Down

by June Pulliam

05/14/2007

The EC Archives Tales from the Crypt: Terror, Volume One. Ed. Al Feldstein, Wally Wood, Johnny Craig, Graham Ingals and Jack Kamen. Timonium, MD: Gemstone Publishing, 2007. 212 p.

The jacket of this hardcover reproduction of EC’s Tales from the Crypt claims that it includes the first six issues of this influential comic,. In reality, however, the volume contains so much more. In between the high quality reproductions of the original comic (far superior, by the way, to the originals) are tales of Tales of the Crypt—stories of the artists and writers who made it all possible, and even an essay on the evolution of comic book color which explains why the color in this reproduction is of better quality than what was manufactured in the 1940s and 50s. As a scholar and a cultural critic, I am thrilled to see Tales from the Crypt reproduced in its entirety in such a durable, high quality format. However, Gemstone Publishing did omit one important bit of information from its reproduction—the sad story of how the Comics Code Authority effectively put an end to Tales from the Crypt and its sister publications Crime SuspensStories and The Vault of Horror.

In 1954, Dr. Fredric Werthem’s book The Seduction of the Innocent laid blame on the comic book industry for juvenile crime due to published descriptions of sex, violence, and other “morbid” themes such as injuries to the eye, werewolfism and voodoo. Werthem’s arguments about the pernicious influence of comics has a disturbingly contemporary ring to them. Some of his more ridiculous claims included an assertion that Batman and Robin were really homosexual lovers, and Wonder Woman was a lesbian. This puts one in mind of Jerry Fawell’s minion’s claims that Ernie and Bert are more than roommates, and that Telletubby Tinkie Winkie is gay because he is purple, has a triangle on his head, and carries a purse.

Werthem’s outrageous claims nevertheless gained an audience in the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. While the committee ultimately did not see the connection between delinquency and violent imagery in comics, it nevertheless suggested that the comic book industry tone done its content. As the House Un-American Activities Committee had been in full swing for nearly a decade when the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency made its suggestion, the comic publishers interpreted the Committee's findings as a veiled threat indicating that they must do something to police themselves lest the government do it for them. Hence, the Comics Code of Authority was created in 1954 by the comic book industry. Modeled on the 1930 Hollywood production code, the CCA forbade depictions of excessive violence, specifically banning the representation of vampires, werewolves, ghouls and zombies, as well as forbidding words such as “crime,” “horror” and “terror” in comic book titles. These provisions spelled the end of EC’s Tales of the Crypt, as well as Crime SuspensStories and The Vault of Horror.

Thus Gemstone’s reissuing of Tales of the Crypt is particularly important in this light. For me, this was the first time I had seen the original Tales of the Crypt comics, and I was particularly struck by the comics’ relative innocence. Their level of violence and gore would certainly earn them only a “G” rating today, when many of our children see on Fox News mangled Iraqi bodies and Saddam Hussein swinging from the gallows, or first learned about oral sex via Kenneth Starr’s public probing of Bill Clinton’s sexual shenanigans.

Another fine quality of Gemstone’s reproduction is the size of the print. I could actually read these comics without my glasses, something that I certainly could not have done perusing the originals, which are much smaller. I am glad to see that Gemstone Publishing has already issued or has in the works a number of reproductions of these historically important comics, including Weird Science, Shock Suspenstories, Crime Suspenstories, and Vault of Horror. These are books that every comic aficionado, as well as every public and university library, should have in their collections.