| Issue | #30 |
| Published | April-May 1953 |
| Cover Price | 0.10 USD |
| Pages | 36 |
| Editing | Al Feldstein; William M. Gaines (managing editior) |
| Notes | The cover title was taken from the 3rd story, from which the cover was based. |
| Characters | The Vault-Keeper (inset); The Crypt-Keeper (inset); The Old Witch (inset) |
| Genre | horror |
| Pencils | Johnny Craig (signed) |
| Inks | Johnny Craig (signed) |
| Notes | The cover title was taken from the 3rd story, from which the cover was based. |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4; in Vault of Horror (Gemstone, 1994 series) #19 (April 1997) |
| Synopsis | House ad for MAD #4 [with a cover by Harvey Kurtzman] surrounded by the Severin art. |
| Pencils | John Severin [as J. Severin] (signed) |
| Inks | John Severin [as J. Severin] (signed) |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4 |
| Characters | The Vault-Keeper (host); Ed King |
| Synopsis | Ed King was a charity racketeer out to milk the gullible. However, he couldn't get into the Blair Sister's home to milk them of their millions because they never opened their door to anyone. Then he saw a treed cat and one of the sisters trying to reach it, so he did the "manly thing" and rescued the cat and they invited him in. Learning they equally shared their wealth, he began to compliment them both, and they BOTH fell for him. Ed saw his chance....he would pretend to be twins, and each would bilk the young gals out of their money. It worked perfectly.....first marrying one of the girls and then marrying the other, and using excuses to be away a week at a time in order to be with his other wife. Then, he made his mistake....while sunning under a lamp, the sash of his robe rested on his back, leaving a wide strip of white. Because the sisters continually talked with one another, they discovered what was going on, and decided to deal with this bigamist. They took an axe and split him right down the middle....so each would have "half a husband"! |
| Genre | horror |
| Script | Johnny Craig |
| Pencils | Johnny Craig (signed) |
| Inks | Johnny Craig (signed) |
| Colors | Marie Severin |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4; in Vault of Horror (Gemstone, 1994 series) #19 (April 1997) |
| Characters | The Crypt-Keeper (host); Danny Hughes |
| Synopsis | Seven women had been murdered and the Police were baffled by the doughnut-shaped wounds all over their bodies, blood drained and traces of sea brine on their skin and clothing. Danny Hughes, crime reporter, was on the scene and mocked the Police for not having a suspect, who he thought was a vampire. Heading back to the office, Danny made his usual moves on the secretary, Pat, as he drove her home. Later, he sees a strange figure on the street, but pays no nevermind about him. The next day there was another murder....of Pat, the secretary, and Danny was blamed since he was the last to see her alive. At the station they began to grill him......until a call came in of another attack where the girl managed to get away, so he was released. Danny raced to the scene and interviewed the girl.....and she described the strange guy Danny had seen the previous night after dropping off Pat at her home. That evening, Danny spots the weird figure again and follows him to the City Aquarium, where he enters.....then he spots it: an empty fish-tank.....for an octopus! Now Danny knew what killed the young girls, and, as he whirled about, he came face-to-face with the creature, which grabbed him and began sucking the blood from his body! |
| Genre | horror |
| Script | Al Feldstein |
| Pencils | Jack Davis (signed) |
| Inks | Jack Davis (signed) |
| Colors | Marie Severin |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4; in Vault of Horror (Gemstone, 1994 series) #19 (April 1997) |
| Synopsis | He could hear the Police chasing him as he ran inside the building, clutching the gems in his hand and looking for a hiding place. He entered a large circular room with glass enclosures all around him....then he spotted something moving behind one of the glass walls. He saw fish....so he decided to hop into the water and go under to elude the Police. It worked....until he felt a horrible pain in one leg, and looked up to see the sign hanging above the tank: PIRANHA! Quickly he was surrounded, as he felt himself being torn to shreads! |
| Genre | horror |
| Pencils | ? (spot illo) |
| Inks | ? (spot illo) |
| Letters | typeset |
| Notes | The text story is found on the inner halves of the two pages, and EC houses ads are found to either side. One promotes Weird Fantasy #18 [], while the other side promotes, with covers, the Complete Old and New Testaments from the Picture Stories From the Bible series, Picture Stories From Science #2 and Picture Stories From World History #2. |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4 |
| Synopsis | VK starts off his column by complaining that dealers are shipping unopened cartons of EC mags to the distributor, so he asks readers to ask their dealers for EC mags. Letters are printed from Audrey Abernathy, Hazel Wilson, George Salaita, Gary Schooley, Paul George, Michael Pecker, Frank Ray Stansbury, Carol Plumb andBill Lean. Then he lists more additions to the "Horror Hit Parade" tune list, pushes the EC Tales of Terror #3 mag and subscriptions. |
| Letters | typeset |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4 |
| Characters | The Vault-Keeper (host) |
| Synopsis | Three medical students were riding the subway over to Coney Island to relax on the beach, and decided to play a joke before they got off: leaving a human hand and arm hanging from one of the overhead straps. The reaction made them howl. Later, on the beach, as the tide began to come in, there was someone buried in the sand with the legs showing who didn't move. One of the crowd came up and tried to rouse the person.....and pulls the legs only from the sand! Again, they howled in mirth. Later, they passed a photographer and decided to have a gag picture taken in front of a cut-out board that one put their head throuygh. After it was taken, the head remained until the photographer came over and touched it....and it fell to the ground and rolled away, shocking everyone around. The med students roared with laughter! Later in the day, as they returned to the medical school campus, they seriously began to wonder what would happen when it was discovered parts of a cadaver was missing. So they returned to the campus morgue to get the remaining body parts and dispose of them, not noticing a pile of coiled-up intestines that were moving toward them. The next morning, when the Police came to the college to investigate the "body part gags" of the day before, they found the three boys dead in the corpse refrigerator room......coils of intestines wrapped around their necks! |
| Genre | horror |
| Script | Al Feldstein |
| Pencils | George Evans (signed) |
| Inks | George Evans (signed) |
| Colors | Marie Severin |
| Notes | In this story are cariactures of Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein in the first panel on page 2 and in many others throughout the story. |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4; in Vault of Horror (Gemstone, 1994 series) #19 (April 1997) |
| Characters | The Old Witch (host); Judson Slack; Horton Cox; Averill Minton; Ambrose Baldwin |
| Synopsis | Judson sat at his desk reading an anonomous letter telling him that his wife Eleanor was having an illicit affair with one Andrew Cookson. Later he confronted her about it and she said that she didn't. Not believeing her, he stomped out, only to come back the next morning to get his clothes, and discovered her corpse next to a revolver.....and to discover she was telling the truth. Another individual, Horton Cox, read an anonomous letter telling him that a trusted employee of his stole $10,000 from him, so Horton confronted the man, who denied it. As Horton reached for the phone to call the Police, the employee leapt out the window to his death, only to find out later the man was innocent. Elsewhre, Averill Minton, bank President, was informed that depositers were withdrawing all their money from his bank, all due to anonomous letters each had received saying Minton had been embezzling bank funds. Distraught, he killed himself. Elsewhere, Ambrose Baldwin walked into the candy store to get a bottle of ink from the owner, Mr. Poppin. This disagreeable old man was despised by all in town, especially so by Poppin. As Baldwin walked into the front door of his home, he decided to get even with the man....by writing an anonomous letter to the City Health Commissioner, asking him to investigate the candy store as the rotten, rat-infested place that it was [not]. When confronted, Poppin and the commissioner began to realize that all these recent events were connected by these anonomous letters, and Poppin knew the answer, for he had given Baldwin a bottle of disappearing ink....and the letter sent to the commissioner had now become blank. The men headed over to Baldwin's home and confronted him.....with pens filled with lye, and they kept injecting him with these "poison pens" until all that was left of Ambrose Baldwin was a puddle of putrid flesh, dissolved by the lye! |
| Genre | horror |
| Script | Al Feldstein |
| Pencils | Graham Ingels [as Ghastly] (signed) |
| Inks | Graham Ingels [as Ghastly] (signed) |
| Colors | Marie Severin |
| Reprinted | in Vault of Horror, The (Russ Cochran, 1982 series) #4; in Vault of Horror (Gemstone, 1994 series) #19 (April 1997) |