Comic: "Tales from the Crypt #20"
Published by: Other
Written by: William Gaines, Al Feldstein
Artist: Various

Reviewer: Dr. Boogie
Posted: 9/30/2008

Plot: The Crypt Keeper spins you four blood-curdling tales to fill you with dread, along with a series of corny, horror-themed jokes, with words that are EMPHASIZED to make sure that SCARES and PUNS alike are properly NOTICED by you, the humble READER!!!

Review: You might remember the Tales from the Crypt show from the early 90s, but how about the actual comic it was based on? Granted, it didn’t see too much play between the show and its original run in the 1950s, but how can you forget the very comic that introduced the oh-so-memorable Crypt Keeper?

Though this one is given the number 20, it’s really only the first to run under the name Tales from the Crypt. In the previous issues, the format was pretty much the same: the story is told with the Crypt Keeper providing the intro and outro. The only real difference was that they ran under the name “Crypt of Terror”.

In terms of actual terror, the four tales lack a little bit of the punch they must’ve had during the comic’s original run. Even so, the classic pulp artwork helps to draw out the horror, with looks of terror splayed across the faces of square-jawed, uniformly clean-cut young bucks, along with their emotionally-fragile female companions.

At one point, concerned parents (a group more terrifying than any crypt tale) contended that comics like this were promoting illiteracy. It seems hard to believe, given how much actual writing appears in the tales themselves, not to mention the short stories that run between them. Oh well, gotta find something to pin society’s troubles on.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)