Haunt of Fear #27

(September-October 1954)

About Face (Table of Contents: 1)

The Witch's Cauldron! / comic story / 8 pages (report information)

Script

Carl Wessler

Pencils

Graham Ingels (signed as Ghastly)

Inks

Graham Ingels (signed as Ghastly)

Colors

Marie Severin

Letters

Jim Wroten

First Line of Dialogue or Text

Somber time... and the livin' is E.C.

Genre

horror-suspense

Characters

The Old Witch (host); Jeff Lorimer; Amy Lorimer (Jeff's wife, death); Mrs. Emerson; Penelope "Penny" Lorimer (death); Olga Lorimer (siamese twin, death); unnamed doctor

Synopsis

A father thinks he has twins, a beautiful girl and a deformed girl. When he shoots the hateful, vindictive monstrosity to free himself and his beautiful daughter from her presence, he realizes that his wife had given birth to a Siamese infant with two heads joined at the back of the skull and hidden the secret from him.

Reprints

• in Les Chefs-d'œuvre de la bande dessinée (Planète, 1967 series) (1967)
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1985 series) #5 (1985)
• in Iskalde Grøss (Semic, 1982 series) #1/1990 (uke 4 1990)
which is reprinted
• in Iskalde Grøss pocket (Hjemmet / Egmont, 1998 series) #5 ([mars] 1998)
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1991 series) #5 (March 1992)
• in Skræk (Semic Interpresse, 1994 series) #6 (1. december 1994)
• in Haunt of Fear (Gemstone, 1994 series) #27 (May 1999)
• in The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (Fantagraphics, 2012 series) #29 - Accidents and Old Lace and Other Stories (January 2021) [Reprinted in black and white.]

Indexer Notes

Story takes place in September, 1886.

Game Washed Out! (Table of Contents: 2)

The Vault of Horror! / comic story / 7 pages (report information)

Script

Carl Wessler

Pencils

George Evans (signed)

Inks

George Evans (signed)

Colors

Marie Severin

Letters

Jim Wroten

First Line of Dialogue or Text

Well, duck into the much of the Vault of Horrow, hidiots and... oops!

Genre

horror-suspense

Characters

The Vault-Keeper (host); Priscilla Talbot (John's wife, death, returns from the dead); Becky Ames; Calvin Ames (Becky's husband); Percy Blair; John Talbot (villain, death)

Synopsis

A man in a Puritan colony kills his wife and dumps her body with a weight attached into a pond in order to solicit another man's wife to run away with him. He is caught kissing her and so is sentenced to three dunkings in the pond, where on the third dunk, the dead wife loops the coil of rope over him and pulls him off the chair while he drowns.

Reprints

• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1985 series) #5 (1985)
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1991 series) #5 (March 1992)
• in Iskalde Grøss (Semic, 1982 series) #2/1993 (uke 15 1993)
• in Haunt of Fear (Gemstone, 1994 series) #27 (May 1999)
• in The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (Fantagraphics, 2012 series) #30 - A Slight Case of Murder and Other Stories (April 2021) [Reprinted in black and white.]

Indexer Notes

The visages of the Vault-Keeper on pages 1 and 7 are photostats by Johnny Craig from the story, "Werewolf Concerto".

Easy Dough (Table of Contents: 3)

text story / 1 page (report information)

Script

Al Feldstein ?

Letters

typeset

First Line of Dialogue or Text

This'd be a real cooky of a job, Bootsy Dolin snickered...

Reprints

• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1985 series) #5 (1985)
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1991 series) #5 (March 1992)
• in Haunt of Fear (Gemstone, 1994 series) #27 (May 1999)

A Special Editorial (Table of Contents: 4)

text article / 1 page (report information)

Script

Al Feldstein

Letters

typeset

Reprints

• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1985 series) #5 (1985)

Indexer Notes

Request for fans to write the Senate Subcommitte on Juvenile Delinquency.

The Silent Treatment (Table of Contents: 5)

The Old Witch's Grim Fairy Tale! / comic story / 6 pages (report information)

Script

Al Feldstein (co-plot, script); Bill Gaines (co-plot)

Pencils

Jack Kamen

Inks

Jack Kamen

Colors

Marie Severin

Letters

Jim Wroten

First Line of Dialogue or Text

And now for a long-lost department of my reeking restaurant, the Haunt of Fear!

Genre

horror-suspense

Characters

The Old Witch (host)

Synopsis

In this grim fairy tale a remorseful king demands silence after his boisterous merry-making prevents him from hearing his daughter's shouts for help leading to her death. Eventually his demands on the peasants get so absurd he orders them to stop breathing because of the racket he claims to hear they make. They revolt, and one of them sews a sensitive metronome into the king's body that goes off with the slightest disturbance, and when the still-lying king brushes away an insect, the sound so bothers him he throws himself off a cliff.

Reprints

• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1985 series) #5 (1985)
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1991 series) #5 (March 1992)
• in Iskalde Grøss (Semic, 1982 series) #1/1994 (uke 8 1994)
• in Haunt of Fear (Gemstone, 1994 series) #27 (May 1999)

Indexer Notes

Script credit from Tales of Terror: The EC Companion.

Swamped (Table of Contents: 6)

The Crypt of Terror / comic story / 7 pages (report information)

Script

Jack Oleck ?

Pencils

Reed Crandall

Inks

Reed Crandall

Colors

Marie Severin

Letters

Jim Wroten

First Line of Dialogue or Text

Heh, heh! And now that those other two Ghoulunatics have curdled your blood...

Genre

horror-suspense

Characters

The Crypt-Keeper (host)

Synopsis

This story is told by a shack in the swamp whose occupant is an idiot cannibal. He disposes of his victims beneath the rotting supports of the shack and eventually it collapses bringing him down into the bog to join his victims.

Reprints

• in EC Horror Library of the 1950's (Nostalgia Press, 1970 series) (1970)
• in Der beste Horror aller Zeiten (BSV - Williams, 1973 series) (1973)
• in Nacht der vampiers (Classics/Williams, 1973 series) (1973)
• in Den store skrækbog (Williams, 1974 series) ([1974])
• in Horreur - une anthologie en bandes dessinées (Williams France, 1974 series) (2e trimestre 1974)
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1985 series) #5 (1985)
• in Iskalde Grøss (Semic, 1982 series) #2 [1988] (uke 11 1988)
which is reprinted
• in Nemi (Hjemmet / Egmont, 2003 series) #37 ([mai] 2006) [bearbeidet oversettelse]
• in Haunt of Fear (Russ Cochran, 1991 series) #5 (March 1992)
• in Skræk (Semic Interpresse, 1994 series) #6 (1. december 1994)
• in Haunt of Fear (Gemstone, 1994 series) #27 (May 1999)
• in The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (Fantagraphics, 2012 series) #35 - The Bitter End and Other Stories (January 2024) [Reprinted in black and white.]