EC Reader's Reviews > The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt Volume 1

Best. Comics. Ever. Don't believe anyone giving less than five stars to the volume 1 of each of the horror (and sci-fi and war) titles. There is a TON of great stuff that happens only in these precious first issues that isn't quite as immediate or striking as later issues, but if I had to have only a few archives (and I have over 40), it would be these, starting with this one in particular.
The two most important artist-writers (Feldstein and Kurtzman) stopped drawing stories after the first year to focus on writing full time for the other artists, so these (and the sci-fi) are some of the last, and most expressive, comics stories drawn by either of these two titans. They both did covers and other smaller contributions, but the visual style of each of these lies invisibly underneath all the EC stories they wrote, which is to say nearly all of the classic material, and to fans of the stories themselves, having read and re-read them, there is a purity and electricity here that remains exciting, alluring, even intoxicating.
Feldstein, who wrote over 600 stories in these five years, kicks things off with "Death Must Come", which is less detailed visually and narratively than his work immediately before this and reflects the strain of, well, changing pop culture. It's not bad, but not as memorable as it would be remade, like the rest of the first issue. His next, "The Maestro's Hand" is, appropriately, a masterpiece, with a plot that just gets crazier (and better) as it goes. "The Ghost Ship", "The Thing From The Sea" and "A Shocking Way to Die" are all bathed in his inimitable woodcut-like visual style that feels like something from another century. "The Thing From The Grave", deservedly the cover story of this volume, is perhaps his most archetypal classic, setting the tone for the entire genre of story we now call 'zombie' (which is different from the 'zombie' of then, but don't worry: they're here too).
Harvey Kurtzman, who hated horror comics, nevertheless turns in two winners with "Madness in Manderville" and especially "House of Horror", which feels like the first telling of an urban legend. (They would inspire his first story in MAD when he invented that legendary comic a year later).
The third artist writer, Craig, is still riding the surge of ambition that marked his work since he debuted in Crime Patrol and Saddle Justice, and he remains the most consistent thread of the EC story as a whole. His "Mute Witness To Murder" and "Cave Man" provide a different sort of intelligence that breaks up the storytelling sensibilities in a welcome way. "Zombie", of the Haitian voodoo kind, is also nice work, and amongst the better of the several of these he did.
Then Ingels. The most striking artist of all EC horror jumps into the spotlight with his first four scary stories. In this volume, it's "The Hungry Grave" (Vault of Horror has "Doctor of Horror" and "Rats Have Sharp Teeth", Haunt has "The Killer In the Coffin"), and his visual style in these is at an all time high. These stories in particular have a jaw-droppingly gorgeous use of heavy, heavy blacks and shadows, so much that I wonder if he was asked to pull back a little. Best of all, the panels are broken into irregular shapes, something Ingels had been doing more and more at EC up to that point. This work leaps off the page, announcing the arrival of a major artist who would raise the bar for everyone at the label, or drawing horror anywhere, to meet over the coming years.
As Feldstein got gained more clout as a writer, he unfortunately began to constrict his artists by forcing them to conform to his rigid brick-panel style, but for the first volume Ingels gets his way and the drawings are some of this revolutionary artists most charged and essential. His other stories are good, too.
When I was new to EC, not long ago at all, I underrated these first issues and I think the star ratings of other readers reflect that (both on the volume 1 and 5's, which are all under-rated IMHO). Make no mistake: this is the cream of comics golden age, and definitely a lot better than volume 4, which is totally overrated possibly because of how damn expensive it is (though it does have a prettier, less iconic cover). Devour these undying tales again, and again, and again....