Haunt of Fear #15 [1]
(May-June 1950)

EC, 1950 Series
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Volume
?
Price
0.10 USD
Pages
36
Indicia Frequency
?
On-sale Date
1950-01-24
Indicia / Colophon Publisher
Fables Publishing Co. Inc.
Brand
EC An Entertaining Comic
Editing
Bill Gaines (credited as William M. Gaines) (editor)

Issue Notes

The on-sale date is the publication date reported in the U. S. Copyright Office filing.

[no title indexed] (Table of Contents)

The Haunt of Fear / cover / 1 page (report information)

Pencils
Johnny Craig (signed)
Inks
Johnny Craig (signed)
Colors
? (see notes)
Letters
?
Genre
horror-suspense
Characters
The Old Witch
Reprints

Indexer Notes

Colors were previously attributed to Marie Severin, but it is unlikely that Severin had begun coloring at EC when this issue was colored (Cassell 2012, 33–34 and 171).
_________
Reference:

Cassell, Dewey, with Aaron Sultan. 2012. Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics. Raleigh: TwoMorrows Publishing.

Cover Thumbnail for Haunt of Fear (EC, 1950 series) #15 [1]
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The Wall: A Psychological Study (Table of Contents: 1)

The Haunt of Fear / comic story / 8 pages (report information)

Script
Johnny Craig (signed)
Pencils
Johnny Craig (signed)
Inks
Johnny Craig (signed)
Colors
? (see notes)
Letters
Jim Wroten
Genre
horror-suspense
Characters
Clara Harper (Neal's wife, death); Neal Harper (villain); Snooky (a cat)
Synopsis
Clara is always harping to Neal about tending to the cat's needs, even if they supersede those of him as her husband. When Neal accidently kills Clara instead of Snooky, he decides to wall up his wife's body in the cellar. Unfortunately, Neal's conscience and the cat get the best of him!
Reprints

Indexer Notes

A story similar to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" with a few themes from "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado" mixed in.

Letterer credit per Russ Cochran and added by Craig Delich 2013-12-8. Feldstein reports that Wroten used a K & E Lettering Stylus to do all the lettering with.

Script credit from Tales of Terror: The EC Companion.

Colors were previously attributed to Marie Severin (see Indexer Notes for this issue’s cover, above).

House of Horror (Table of Contents: 2)

comic story / 6 pages (report information)

Script
Ivan Klapper
Pencils
Harvey Kurtzman
Inks
Harvey Kurtzman
Colors
Harvey Kurtzman ? (see notes)
Letters
Ben Oda
Genre
horror-suspense
Characters
Les Wilton; Henderson (death?); Waters (death?); Arling (death?)
Synopsis
Three college freshmen pledgees disappear one night as part of the Gamma Delta Fraternity hazing at a local haunted house, the Palmer Place. Les Wilton goes in after them, but when he doesn't make a re-appearance, people going into the home looking for him find him: having aged fifty years!
Reprints
Keywords
Old Palmer Place

Indexer Notes

The EC Archives: The Haunt of Fear, Volume 1 (2011) lists the writer as Ivan Klapper.

Klapper also wrote a few early stories in The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, as well as some of the early one page text features. He later became a consultant for the 1959-1961 ABC-TV paranormal TV drama, "One Step Beyond."

The story appears to have drawn its inspiration from a fraternity initiation anecdote from Bennett Cerf's "Try and Stop Me," also a favorite source of plot inspiration for Bill Gaines.

Kurtzman recounts that it was this story that got him the EX account.

Writer credit revised from Al Feldstein to Ivan Klapper and letterer credit revised from Jim Wroten to Ben Oda by Craig Delich.

Marie Severin’s statement that “[Harvey] Kurtzman colored his own art, especially on covers...” (1995) suggests that Kurtzman colored stories that he drew, albeit perhaps less consistently than he colored his cover art.
_________
References:

Cassell, Dewey, with Aaron Sultan. 2012. “The Artists of EC Comics” (reprinting Severin 1995). In Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics. 46–47. Raleigh: TwoMorrows Publishing.

Severin, Marie (John Province, transcriber [uncredited]). 1995. “Mostly About Color.” In CFA-APA 36, January.

Out of the Grave (Table of Contents: 3)

text story / 2 pages (report information)

Script
Al Feldstein
Letters
typeset
Genre
horror-suspense
Characters
Marie; The Thing [Jim] (the walking dead); unnamed man (villain, death)
Synopsis
Having already killed her friend Jim and buried him, the un-named man tied Marie to the chair and set the cabin on fire, all to get her inheritance. But Jim was not content to allow the girl he once cared for and promised to protect die in the fire, so he rose from the grave to exact his revenge on her tormentor!
Reprints

Indexer Notes

Adapted in Tales from the Crypt reprints as full 8-page story sequence re-titled as "The Thing from the Grave."

The Mad Magician (Table of Contents: 4)

The Haunt of Fear / comic story / 7 pages (report information)

Script
Gardner Fox
Pencils
Harry Harrison (signed as Harrison)
Inks
Wally Wood (signed as Wood)
Colors
? (see notes)
Letters
Jim Wroten
Genre
horror-suspense
Characters
Jim Crane (reporter); Alice Crane (Jim's wife); Czar (Boris' dog); Caesar (Boris' dog); Boris Petaja (villain, magician, death)
Synopsis
Skilled in the tricks of ancient and modern magic, a mad magician decides to perform the ultimate trick of all time: to saw a man in half and then put him back together again. What he doesn't know is that a trick of fate will turn the tables on the magician.
Reprints

Indexer Notes

Letterer credit per Russ Cochran and added by Craig Delich 2013-12-8. Feldstein reports that Wroten used a K & E Lettering Stylus to do all the lettering with.

Colors were previously attributed to Marie Severin (see Indexer Notes for this issue’s cover, above).

The Thing in the Swamp! (Table of Contents: 5)

A Scientific SuspenStory / comic story / 7 pages (report information)

Script
Al Feldstein (signed as Feldstein)
Pencils
Al Feldstein (signed as Feldstein)
Inks
Al Feldstein (signed as Feldstein)
Colors
? (see notes)
Letters
Jim Wroten
Genre
horror-suspense
Characters
Sam (death?); unnamed partner of Sam (death?); Robert Colby (Marie's fiancee); Professor Carl Ward (scientist, death); Marie Ward (Ward's daughter, death)
Synopsis
Two men are making their way through the Okefenokee Swamp when an old man warns them not to continue on. When questioned, the man recounts the story of three people, two of them scientists, who came to the swamp to conduct an experiment, which they felt failed. When the mixture they made was thrown into the swamp, a strange blob-like creature was born, which killed the scientist and his daughter. The old man warns them of extreme danger if they continue, and the fact that the old man was the fiancee of the scientist's daughter doesn't sway them one bit!
Reprints
Keywords
Okefenokee Swamp

Indexer Notes

Splash page and last panel altered to The Old Witch in Vault of Horror reprints, although character was still in green robe like the Vault-Keeper. The Old Witch usually had a red robe.

A Blob-type story.

Letterer credit per Russ Cochran and added by Craig Delich 2013-12-8. Feldstein reports that Wroten used a K & E Lettering Stylus to do all the lettering with.

Colors were previously attributed to Marie Severin (see Indexer Notes for this issue’s cover, above).

Editing
Issue at my.comics.org
Related Scans
Series Information
Table of Contents
  1. 0. [no title indexed]
    The Haunt of Fear
  2. 1. The Wall: A Psychological Study
    The Haunt of Fear
  3. 2. House of Horror
  4. 3. Out of the Grave
  5. 4. The Mad Magician
    The Haunt of Fear
  6. 5. The Thing in the Swamp!
    A Scientific SuspenStory
This issue was modified by, among others
  • David B
  • Bill Borre
  • Chris Boyko
  • Craig Delich
  • Katy Hayhurst
  • Jerry Hillegas (R.I.P.)
  • Michael Hoskin
  • R. S. Martin
  • Mike Nielsen
  • Jason Sacks
  • Jim Stangas
  • Richard Thomson
  • Jim Van Dore
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