Chris Marshall of Collected Comics Library compares Gemstone's EC Archives The Vault of Horror with GC's EC Archives The Vault of Horror.



Chris calls EC's GhouLunatics "witches", but the Vault-Keeper was a ghoul and the Crypt-Keeper was the son of a living mummy and a two-headed corpse. Another EC horror host was Drusilla, drawn by Johnny Craig as the Vault-Keeper's companion in the Vault, but she made so few appearances we never knew if she had supernatural abilities.

A bafflement about "A Stitch in Time!" is that Craig said he scripted the story but also said he was unfamiliar with the Triangle Factory fire. Yet the story parallels events of the fire. My notes for the EC Archives Vault of Horror cover the influence of Ray Bradbury, Weird Tales and other sources. Here's are excerpts:

The Triangle fire reportedly began in a scrap bin, the focus of the final pages in the story. The sweatshop owner is named Lasch, and the Triangle fire took place in the ten-story Asch Building place at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place. In the last panel, the Vault-Keeper’s concluding pun is a direct reference: “…don’t asch Lasch.” Although polished in both script and art, the story has an obvious flaw, since the fire begins for no apparent reason other than to heighten the finale with flames. What started this fire? We are never told.

“The Jellyfish!” in The Vault of Horror 19 was suggested by Bradbury’s “Skeleton”. The idea for “Skeleton” came to Bradbury when a “strangely sore larynx” prompted him to visit his family doctor, who said, “That’s all perfectly normal. You’ve just never bothered to feel the tissues, muscles, or tendons in your neck or, for that matter, your body. Consider the medulla oblongata.” Recalling the incident, Bradbury wrote, “Consider the medulla oblongata! Migawd, I could hardly pronounce it! I went home feeling my bones—my kneecaps, my floating ribs, my elbows, all those hidden Gothic symbols of darkness—and wrote 'Skeleton'.” It was published in the September 1945 issue of Weird Tales and reprinted in Dark Carnival.

Joe Mugnaini's illustration for Ray Bradbury's "Skeleton" in The October Country. Mugnaini did the Ballantine edition cover and interiors.