The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #21

In "Derelict Ship," Captain Kaye and his crew investigate a long-abandoned rocket, the Y-75, drifting through space for over two decades. Inside, they find the remains of a crew far larger than the ship’s capacity, prompting them to uncover the truth through the vessel’s haunting log. The recording reveals a desperate tale of exile, mutiny, and a captain’s final, unforgiving choice.

Emperor Yuan’s fascination with power takes a chilling turn when he learns a humble villager has mastered the art of flight. Horrified by the threat of such knowledge spreading, he orders the man’s execution—before the sky itself might rise against him.

In "Prairie Schooner," the Crypt-Keeper presents a chilling tale of isolation and obsession, as old seaman Ezra, abruptly cut off from the sea he's known his whole life, takes refuge with his longtime friend Milly in a remote Kansas farmhouse. Trapped between worlds, Ezra's unraveling mind transforms the house into a makeshift ship, forcing Milly into a terrifying role as his sole crew—until the prairie itself becomes a merciless sea.

In "The Monster from the Fourth Dimension," a quiet farm life is upended when a strange, floating blob appears, devouring a cow with terrifying ease. As the creature returns again and again, a desperate farmer enlists his scientist brother, who theorizes the being comes from a dimension beyond our own. Together, they build a device to send it back—only to face a cost that no one could have foreseen.

In "Slave Ship," a brutal voyage across the Atlantic ends not in chains of bondage, but in a terrifying cosmic twist: a slave ship bound for America, its 44 captives already broken by the journey, is intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard. The captain, Jorkin, desperate to avoid detection, orders the slaves drowned—only for the ship to be halted mid-ocean by a mysterious silvery craft. The crew is paralyzed, then taken aboard an alien vessel, where they learn, too late, that they’ve become the cargo on a new kind of slave ship, far beyond the reach of Earth.

In "Monotony," a weary bank clerk named Mr. Gans finds unexpected purpose delivering cash to the reclusive, irritable Mrs. Courtright. As their odd routine deepens into a fragile connection, his growing unease turns to desperation when he begins siphoning her funds—only to spiral into guilt and fear after her passing. The story unfolds with quiet dread, probing the weight of loneliness and the quiet tragedies hidden in routine.

In "Pipe Dream," the Vault-Keeper introduces a chilling tale of consequence and obsession, as Chen Chu Yang returns to an opium den seeking escape—only to find his dreams manifesting in terrifying, irreversible ways. Each smoke-laden vision brings him fleeting power and illusion, but the line between dream and reality blurs with deadly results, leaving him haunted by a daughter’s fate and a truth he can no longer outrun.

In "The Pioneer," Professor Alec Lathem, once a respected educator, becomes obsessed with space flight after a dangerous accident during a classroom experiment. After being warned off by Dean Miller, he retreats to a remote barn, where he builds a revolutionary rocket engine—only to be arrested for the murder of the nearby farmer, Hiram Jenkins. As the authorities prepare to carry out a grim sentence, Lathem, delusional and convinced he's a hero destined for the stars, believes he's being readied for a final test flight.

In "You, Murderer," a man haunted by betrayal and loneliness finds himself ensnared in a twisted game of control and revenge, as a hypnotist selects him to carry out a killing—his own mind now a weapon in another’s hands. The story unfolds with chilling intimacy, exploring the fragile line between consent and compulsion, all through the voice of a man whose choices are no longer his own.

In "The Bath," the Crypt-Keeper introduces a chilling tale of vengeance set in the shadow of a silver mine, where a servant's quiet fury boils over in a grotesque act of retribution—filling a bath with piranha after a cruel master's betrayal. The story unfolds with a slow, suffocating dread, as the past comes to drown the present.

In "More Blessed to Give...", a long-married couple reaches a breaking point, each deciding the only way to end their union is by eliminating the other. As they each set elaborate traps—she with a poisoned wine bottle, he with a bomb hidden in their anniversary cake—what begins as a quiet act of betrayal spirals into a tragic, mutually assured destruction. The story unfolds with chilling precision, exploring the dark edge of love and the devastating cost of resentment.

In "Bellyful," a crew member named Donalds suffers intense stomach pain during a mission, prompting the ship’s doctor to promise tests upon landing on an alien world. What begins as a medical mystery spirals into a grotesque revelation when the crew is swallowed whole by a colossal alien—and the truth about Donalds’s condition is far more horrifying than anyone could have imagined.

In the damp, twisting depths of the Catacombs, Pietro Miuta and Gino Alcari make a desperate bid for freedom—only for betrayal to turn the shadows against them. With the weight of stolen silver and the cold silence of the dead all around, Pietro’s escape becomes a labyrinth of his own making, and the darkness begins to whisper back. The Vault-Keeper’s voice echoes through the silence, a reminder that some secrets are meant to stay buried.

In "Key Chain," a desperate man schemes to steal from a wealthy collector, setting a trap with a master key he never expected to need. After breaking into a locksmith shop to craft his tool, he accidentally knocks over every key on the rack—locking himself in and spending the night frantically testing them all. When found the next morning, he’s disoriented and shaken, unaware that the door he was trying to open had been inoperable for years.

In the aftermath of World War II, a fugitive former camp commander flees across Europe and into America, haunted by the memory of a single inmate who vowed revenge. Years later, his terror crystallizes when he encounters that man face to face on a train, the weight of his past finally catching up to him.

In "The Purge," King Horace is summoned to the cell of a haunted noblewoman, Alicia, who claims she was possessed by the devil and now seeks to be cleansed. With time running short and the stakes deadly, the King turns to his court wizard, who must perform a perilous ritual in seven days—or face execution.

In "Murder Dream," the Crypt-Keeper introduces a chilling tale of identity and obsession, where a killer’s dreams blur the line between reality and madness. Haunted by visions of his own crimes, he slips into the mind of his victim—only to find himself driven back to the scene of the original murder, compelled to finish what he started.

In "The Pit!", two couples—Felix and Lila Johnson, and Aaron and Beatrice Scott—find their lives entangled in a grim game of rivalry and spectacle. When tensions flare over their respective fights, the husbands devise a brutal solution: pit the women against each other in a deadly arena. The Vault-Keeper narrates this descent into dark entertainment, where pride and cruelty collide.

In the Bag is a taut, unsettling tale of paranoia and mistaken identity, where a policeman’s growing dread spirals into a city-wide hunt after he sees a man with a bag stained with something red. When he shoots a man who matches the description, the horror deepens—not because he’s killed the suspect, but because the man he killed was completely innocent.

In "Just Her Speed," a man driven by two years of vengeance tracks down the man who stole his girlfriend and his money, only to find the truth tangled in lies and unexpected twists. As he confronts Marty, the past unravels in a moment that blurs loyalty, betrayal, and the fateful timing of a passing trooper.

In "Numbskull," the Vault-Keeper recounts the grim tale of a sadistic animal trapper in Africa, whose cruelty ultimately turns against him when he falls into one of his own pit traps. As scavengers and insects gather, the story unfolds with chilling inevitability, revealing the price of unchecked brutality.

In "Mau Mau!", former big game hunter McBan finds himself sidelined when his latest client lets an educated Kikuyu named Limuru choose the safari crew, sparking McBan’s resentment. He retaliates by selecting a mechanic no one trusts, but as the group ventures into the jungle, a series of strange accidents unfold—though the true source of the tension lies deeper than anyone suspects.

In the quiet tension of a war-torn airbase, a new recruit named Lane learns the strange, solemn duty of the squadron’s mascot: a dog who waits on the runway, motionless, as planes take flight and return. His stillness becomes a silent measure of fate—each moment he stays put a quiet promise that someone, somewhere, will come home.

In the midst of war, Captain Warren finds unexpected solace in the care of his nurse, a quiet bond forming as he recovers from injury. When she is killed in a brutal air raid orchestrated by the merciless Rustow's Circus, Warren’s grief ignites a fierce resolve—demanding to return to the front, not for glory, but for vengeance. With no ammunition left and the enemy’s plane in sight, he makes a final, desperate choice that echoes beyond the battlefield.

In "Marbles," the crew of the X-17 rockets toward Mars, their excitement mounting as the distant planets shimmer like marbles in the void. But when astronaut McGraw reports that Mars has shrunk to the size of a rubber ball—and that Enkers retrieved it from outside the ship—the command center reels, convinced the crew has lost their minds.

In "Fulfillment," a couple of tourist explorers crash-land on a distant world they name Millus III, only to find themselves unwittingly revered as divine beings by the planet’s inhabitants. As their ship becomes a sacred relic in a society that worships it as the god Ra, the tourists remain unaware of the profound impact they’ve had—until their rescue and departure leave the people of Egypt mourning the loss of their deity.

Buddy Wilson has never believed in luck—yet he carries a worn teddy bear named Happy as a keepsake. When he entrusts the fraying bear to a Red Cross volunteer for repair, he’s unaware that his friend Pete Richards secretly sends along his own lucky charm to accompany him on a dangerous flight. The outcome will change everything, but Buddy doesn’t yet know how.

In "The Ultimate Weapon," Gurt, a conqueror who has subdued countless worlds across a dozen solar systems, sets his sights on Earth—unlike any planet he’s faced before, silent and unafraid. As his crew prepares to invade, the true test of his ambition begins, not in battle, but in the quiet defiance of a world that refuses to react.

In "So Much More," a young man named Danny grapples with resentment toward Mr. Lawrence, fueled by a longstanding rift over money between their families. When Danny finally confronts the man, a quiet moment of truth reveals a deeper story he never knew—leaving him with only regret in its wake.

In the skies over the Western Front, Lieutenant Walt Muller, a top ace with a reputation for courage, finds himself haunted by a mysterious German pilot known only as the Red Eagle. As the war rages and the stakes rise, his growing unease deepens—until a shocking revelation forces him to confront a truth buried in the smoke of battle.

In "One Way Hero," a young boy dreams of following in his older brother Mart’s footsteps as a spaceman, inspired by Mart’s career until a bout of space fright ends it. Though Mart’s journey in the stars is over, Johnny finds a surprising connection to that dream—working as a cargo loader in a spaceman’s uniform, stepping into a role that feels like a step toward the stars.