Shock SuspenStories #6
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeShock SuspenStories #6 (December 1952) closes out the first year of EC's groundbreaking anthology with what many historians regard as the title's most potent single-issue concentration of social-commentary storytelling: Wally Wood's cover and lead story 'Under Cover!' constitute a direct, barely-veiled condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan at a moment when almost no mainstream American publication was willing to engage the subject head-on. As Steven Spielberg noted in his foreword to the EC Archives collection, this was where Gaines 'confronted controversial topics head on,' giving the lie to later critics who dismissed EC as mere sensationalism. The issue is also a showcase for the full range of EC's pre-Code talent, packing a social-horror story, a darkly ironic crime yarn, a science-fiction tale, and a Gothic horror piece into thirty-six pages—each by a different member of EC's celebrated artist stable.
"Dead Right!" from Shock SuspenStories #6 (1952) delivers a chilling twist on fate and greed, spun by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein with sharp, unsettling precision. Jack Kamen’s stark art and Marie Severin’s bold coloring heighten the tension as a woman’s ill-fated marriage unravels in a deadly game of chance. Wally Wood’s haunting cover perfectly captures the story’s grim irony.
In "Dead Right!" from Shock SuspenStories #6, a woman takes a fortune teller’s warning seriously when she’s told the man she finds repulsive will inherit $25,000 and die soon—so she marries him, only to learn too late that the fortune was a twisted twist of fate. Written by a mysterious hand and illustrated with chilling precision, this 1952 tale spins a deadly game of chance where love, greed, and a fatal prediction collide.
In "Sugar 'N Spice 'N..." from Shock SuspenStories #6 (1952), a brother and sister venture into the overgrown yard of the reclusive "Old Crab" to retrieve their lost ball—only to be met with a warning that lingers long after they leave. When Halloween night brings a reckless prank, their childhood dare takes a terrifying turn, blurring the line between mischief and something far darker.
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Shock SuspenStories was conceived in early 1952 by publisher Bill Gaines and editor-writer Al Feldstein as a genre 'sampler' that would carry what they called the 'Shock SuspenStory'—a second-slot tale in each issue dedicated to frank social commentary. By issue #6 that format was fully realized: all stories were co-plotted in story conferences between Gaines and Feldstein, then scripted by Feldstein, with all original coloring handled by Marie Severin. The 'Under Cover!' story drew on Roald Dahl's 'Beware of the Dog' as a structural springboard, while 'Dead Right!' was inspired by John Collier's short story 'In the Cards!'—a practice consistent with EC's documented habit of using existing prose fiction as narrative launchpads.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Cover and interior story 'Under Cover!' penciled and inked by Wally Wood—a thinly veiled attack on the KKK, rendered as 'the Black Vigilante Society,' in which a reporter witnesses the group's murder of a young woman and must fight for his life to expose them.
- Interior artists for the four stories are Wally Wood ('Under Cover!'), Jack Kamen ('Dead Right!'), Joe Orlando ('Not So Tough'), and Graham Ingels ('Sugar 'N Spice 'N…'); original coloring throughout by Marie Severin.
- All stories were co-plotted by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein and scripted by Feldstein; 'Dead Right!' is documented as inspired by John Collier's short story 'In the Cards!,' while 'Under Cover!' drew on Roald Dahl's 'Beware of the Dog.'
- 'Dead Right!'—a fortune-teller crime-irony story featuring characters Madame Vorna and Cathy Finch Marno—was adapted as the Season 2 premiere of HBO's Tales from the Crypt (aired April 21, 1990, directed by Howard Deutch, starring Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor); the IMDB and Tales from the Crypt wiki both credit Shock SuspenStories #6 as the episode's primary source.
- 'Sugar 'N Spice 'N…,' drawn by Graham Ingels, is a contemporary horror retelling of 'Hansel and Gretel' in which two children who prank a woman on Halloween face fatal consequences.
- The issue has been reprinted across multiple formats: in the Russ Cochran Complete EC Library hardbacks (1981), Cochran/Gemstone single-issue reprints (1992–1996), the EC Archives hardcover Volume 1 (Gemstone, 2006; Dark Horse reprint, 2015), the Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library series (various volumes, 2012–2023), a Spanish-language edition by Diábolo Ediciones (2023), and is included in The Best of 75 Years of EC Comics (Dark Horse, 2019).
- Issue #6 is explicitly cited by Wikipedia's Shock SuspenStories article as one of the series' landmark entries for its treatment of vigilantism ('Under Cover!'), placing it alongside other socially conscious issues that addressed racism, mob hysteria, police corruption, drug addiction, and rape across the series' run.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in E.C. Classic Reprint #8 (1974), Shock Suspenstories #1 (1981), Les Meilleures Histoires de... #[3] (1983), EC Classics #4 (1985), Gysertimen #4 (1987), Iskalde Grøss #3/1991 (1991), Iskalde Grøss #3/1993 (1993), Shock Suspenstories #6 (1993), Shock SuspenStories Annual #2 (1994), EC Archives: Shock SuspenStories #1 (2006), EC Sampler - Free Comic Book Day #[nn] (2008), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #2 (2012), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #7 (2014), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #14 (2015), Choke Gasp! The Best of 75 Years of EC Comics #[nn] (2019), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #34 (2023), Verta ja väristyksiä #[nn] (2023), Shock Suspenstories #1 (2023), Artisan Edition #[16] (2024)
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