Haunt of Fear (The EC Archives) Hardcover – January 1, 2012

Love the EC legacy.

When Gemstone publishing owner ran into financial problems one of Gemstone's more popular lines, the EC Archives, was an unfortunate casualty. Four years later, long time EC aficionados, Russ Cochran and Grant Geissman, joined forces to continue the series right where it left off. Along with the 2nd volume of Vault of Horror, the third EC horror title gets the archive treatment with Haunt of Fear Volume 1.The format is almost precisely that of the earlier Gemstone volumes. The only discernible differences are: 1.) a GC Press rather than Gemstone logo on the spine, 2.) a slightly thinner stock used for the laminated covers, and most seriously 3.) scanned covers of the original covers instead of fully restored. The reason for the latter is unclear but the effect is by no means unattractive. It has also been pointed out that the new volumes are slightly shorter than the Gemstone ones but that is due to the laminated covers; the page size appears to be identical.The contents, both artistic and literary, are superb. Since this volume collects some of the earliest issues of EC's "New Trend" line it takes a few issues to round into the high quality stories EC was famous for. There are some scripting oddities like Gardner Fox's work on some stories. These are not quite up to the standards of the later Gaines and Feldstein stories. The artwork takes a while to settle into a groove as well. Feldstein does a few stories early on and I was amazed to learn that Harry Harrison (the later science fiction author) started out as an artist teamed with Wally Wood. The Harrison/Wood combo has a story before Wood went solo.This volume to my knowledge can only be had from Russ Cochran's website. Other outlets, including Amazon, are having trouble getting them.I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I hope response is enthusiastic enough for other volumes to follow.

I mean, who is really going to pay $500.00 for a collection of old comic books?! I'd just love to meet the person who does! Are these sellers being realistic?And the publishers too! Why do they even bother making these books if they're only going to produce a limited number of copies? It's as if they do it deliberately in order to have some excuse to charge outrageous prices for them!If these goofballs want to really charge $500 for something worth about $30.00 at most in this economy, then all I have to say is that these sellers/publishers can keep these books and... they know just what they can do with them!!!

I started reading EC comics in 1950, loved them at the time & still do! i was extremely disappointed when they folded in 1955 after a year of trying different genres, leaving Mad as the only survivor.