The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #14

In "Contract For Death," a desperate man signs a bizarre agreement with a doctor to forgo suicide—for a month—in exchange for $5,000. With the money in hand, he embraces life with reckless abandon, only to find himself entangled in a new romance that threatens to unravel the fragile deal. As the clock ticks down, both men face escalating consequences neither anticipated.

In "Premium Overdue!", a sharp-witted woman with a penchant for risk takes a dangerous gamble when she convinces her husband to take out a double-indemnity policy—only to have him meet a sudden end on a lonely country road. After faking an accident and collecting the payout, she finds herself entangled with a new man whose own insurance policy soon becomes a ticking time bomb. As fate mirrors her past, the line between clever escape and inevitable reckoning begins to blur.

In the isolated silence of a snowbound mountain retreat, a group of hunters finds themselves trapped after a sudden blizzard cuts off escape. When their host is found dead, suspicion turns among the survivors—each convinced another is responsible. As the days pass and the storm rages, they’re summoned to the family mansion for a final test, where the truth of who committed the murder may finally be revealed.

Betty’s hatred for her husband Bert has festered into a cold, calculated plan—faking fainting spells over months, waiting for the perfect moment to strike when Bert’s brother is nearby. When the murder is finally done, her escape from justice leads not to freedom, but to a chilling new reality inside Harvey’s hospital.

In "Revenge!", a young woman trapped in a marriage of convenience finds herself entangled in a dangerous game when her secret lover threatens to expose their shared crime. With her husband left paralyzed and her lover demanding more money, the tension escalates as fear and desperation take hold.

In "A Trace of Murder!", Felix Morley is obsessed with eliminating his nagging wife, Emma, so he can be with his younger lover, Helen. After learning that certain poisons leave no trace, he puts his plan into motion—only to make a fatal slip when he confesses his crime to Helen, who turns him in. When police investigate, a mix-up at the cemetery—where two headstones have been switched—throws Felix into a web of confusion and suspicion he never saw coming.

In "Medicine!", a tense domestic drama unfolds when Nora, newly married to surgeon Luther, grows increasingly uneasy about his reliance on daily medication and the nurse who reminds him to take it. As she grapples with jealousy and isolation, Nora makes a desperate decision that puts her in a life-or-death situation—especially when a car accident leaves her stranded and dependent on her husband’s care, just as he’s about to take his next dose.

In "Lady Killer," Ralph’s plan to escape his marriage unravels when his wife Mildred isn’t home to kill, forcing him to wait in their house while memories of his affair with Jeanne surface. After returning to Jeanne’s apartment, he finds her dying—Mildred, seeking revenge, has killed her. Now on death row, Ralph faces execution for Jeanne’s murder, unaware that his own wife’s death is the only crime he’s truly guilty of.

In "Kickback!", Freda Higgins, newly married to the wealthy Oscar Higgins, grows weary of caring for him after a heart attack leaves him paralyzed. She devises a plan to fake her own entrapment in the cellar, stockpiling canned goods for three weeks, and letting her husband starve—only to be cleared of suspicion when he dies. But when her new boyfriend Rick accidentally locks himself in the same cellar without provisions, the grim irony of her scheme begins to unfold.

In "One Man's Poison!", a marriage strained by constant conflict reaches a deadly tipping point when Mary devises a plan to kill her husband John by poisoning him with spoiled beans—carefully testing the dose on herself to ensure the timing is right. But as she waits for the perfect moment, a chilling twist unfolds when her own glass of wine, meant to mark her victory, carries a poison of its own.

In "Snooze to Me!", Herbert Chase returns home late to confront his wife Nancy, who suspects he's having an affair. Tensions rise when she threatens to end their marriage, then changes her mind and tries to stage a suicide to win him back—only for her maid Edith and Herbert to turn the tables in a chilling twist.

In "Hear No Evil!", Fred Reardon, a wealthy man deaf since birth, finds himself at the center of a dangerous game when Rita Waldon Reardon, a woman with her own agenda, begins pursuing him. As Fred's business associate Vance Tobin and Rita conspire to eliminate him for his fortune, a sudden car accident awakens Fred’s hearing—just in time to hear the plot against his life. The story unfolds with chilling precision, turning silence into a weapon and trust into a trap.

In "Forty Whacks!", a young woman named Fanny, trapped by her parents’ suffocating control, takes a desperate turn when she discovers an old hatchet in the attic. When the bodies are found, she claims innocence—insisting the weapon itself was responsible. As a detective investigates, a chilling connection surfaces: the same hatchet once belonged to Lizzie Borden. Now, as the past echoes in the present, a mother and father realize too late that the hatchet’s legacy may not be done.

In "The Perfect Place!", Ernest Jenkins seeks a quiet country home to fuel his writing—but his true intentions are far from literary. As he prepares to bury his wife in the basement, a sudden visit from the sheriff, armed with a warrant based on a prior confession, threatens to unravel his plan. With secrets buried beneath the floorboards and a new romance on the horizon, Ernest’s perfect escape may be his greatest mistake.

In "Beauty And The Beach!", two men, John Milton and Percy Fullman, reach breaking point when their wives—Mary Milton and Ginger Fullman—prioritize modeling gigs and beauty contests over their marriages. As their frustration boils over, each man takes a terrifyingly literal approach to controlling their wives’ appearances, with one encasing his in plastic and the other trapping his beneath a brutal array of sun lamps.

In the aftermath of World War II, Eddie’s machine shop faces closure—until a new government contract for atomic bomb fuse casings offers a lifeline. But when a chance encounter in Los Angeles sparks a dangerous affair, Eddie’s life spirals into a desperate cover-up. With his wife Louise now a secret buried in the desert, he must outrun the very radiation that could expose him—especially when a prospector’s Geiger counter starts picking up an unexpected signal.

In "Piecemeal," Sidney, a naturalist, finds himself caught in a chilling web spun by his wife Sally and her lover, his younger brother Eric. As tensions simmer beneath a quiet domestic surface, Sidney’s final act before a planned overdose takes a grotesque turn—transforming their backyard pool into a grotesque sanctuary with a massive shark.

In "One for the Money...", a man’s financial ruin leads to a devastating betrayal and a tragic end, leaving Anita adrift and searching for a new beginning. She returns to the place where she once found him, drawn by chance and longing, only to be offered a strange new role as a live-in companion by an elderly woman. When she arrives at the house, she must navigate a tense encounter with the woman’s son, a man haunted by past heartbreak and driven by a quiet, simmering need for retribution.