The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #7

In "Hook, Line, and Stinker!", Bernice, tired of her fiancé Stanley’s endless fishing trips and the endless row of mounted fish she’s had to maintain, decides to follow him one Saturday morning—only to uncover a shocking betrayal. What begins as a quiet journey to the lake soon turns into a darkly twisted plan when Bernice realizes Stanley’s affections are elsewhere, and she resolves to make him the final trophy in her collection.

In "A Little Stranger!", a female vampire and a male werewolf forge a forbidden bond, hunting together across the hill country while meeting only once a month when his curse ebbs. As they search for a way to be together forever, the villagers hunt them down—shooting the werewolf with silver and staking the vampire before burying them in the devil’s graveyard. But when the earth splits open beneath the moon’s glow, they rise again, newly married, their love sealed in a mausoleum that becomes their eternal home. Almost a year later, their union bears a strange and ancient child.

In "Squash...Anyone?", a disgraced elephant trainer finds himself entangled in a deadly game of deceit and retribution after orchestrating a staged tragedy to eliminate his wife. When the couple returns to the town where it all began, the past rises with a vengeance — and the dead are not easily silenced.

In "A Grim Fairy Tale!", a kingdom plagued by rats reaches a breaking point when the townspeople slaughter nearly every one—only to be shocked when the Queen, horrified that the rats are related to her beloved pet mice, declares rat-killing a crime. As the furious populace turns on the royal couple, the story spirals into a dark, visceral reckoning, where vengeance takes a grotesque and unforgettable form.

In "Chatter-Boxed!", a man prone to sudden cataleptic episodes takes extreme precautions to avoid being buried alive—no embalming, a phone in his coffin, and a desperate hope for rescue. When an accident triggers a fit and he’s presumed dead, he awakens to a terrifying reality: trapped in a sealed coffin with dwindling air, his frantic calls to loved ones and doctors go unanswered. With time running out, he makes one final, desperate attempt to reach the operator—only to find the entire phone system overwhelmed by a single, fateful date.

In "Private Performance," a thief breaks into a wealthy woman’s home, only to stumble upon a chilling scene: her husband, in a rage, kills her. Now hunted himself, he flees to the basement, where he discovers the man’s true identity—once a famed magician whose stage act involved plunging swords into a box. The story unfolds with tense dread, as the thief realizes the deadly truth behind the performance.

In "None But the Lonely Heart!", a man whose grim profession revolves around marrying and killing wealthy women for their fortune receives a lonely-hearts letter from a mysterious woman who lives in a large stone house. Intrigued by her photo of a strikingly beautiful woman—taken two years prior, she admits—he sees a chance to finally leave his dark past behind. When she accepts his proposal, he hurries to meet her, unaware of the chilling truth waiting in the shadows of her estate.

In the eerie stillness of a forgotten rail yard, Norton is haunted by the ghost of his brother Henry—his rotting torso standing before him, a grim reminder of a murder long buried. Once a plan to collect a double indemnity payout, the crime has come back to claim them all, and the past won’t stay dead. With the weight of guilt and the cold certainty of retribution, Norton faces the truth that some debts can never be paid.

In "Sugar 'N Spice 'N...", a brother and sister dare each other to prank the reclusive old woman they call "The Old Crab," after she once returned their lost ball with a chilling warning. Their Halloween mischief takes a dark turn when the woman’s quiet yard becomes a place of unsettling consequence, and the line between childhood prank and something far more dangerous begins to blur.

In "Nobody There!", a man's obsession with immortality drives him to extreme measures, orchestrating a series of gruesome surgeries that transplant his head onto increasingly younger bodies. As the doctor performing the operations grows older and burdened by guilt, the line between creator and creation begins to blur—until one final act leaves a head alone on a cold surgical table, abandoned and unsure of what comes next.

In "Hail and Heart-y!", Anna’s frustration with her husband Ben’s laziness reaches a boiling point when she learns he’s never actually been ill. Tired of relying on a kind neighbor to keep up with chores, she takes a chillingly practical approach to making Ben useful—permanently. With a cold resolve, she disposes of him in the furnace, then uses his ashes to salt the icy sidewalk, turning his absence into a quiet act of domestic control.

In "Pickled Pints!", Cal and Warren run a grim little side hustle, paying homeless men to donate blood—then reselling it for a tidy profit. When their supply dwindles after one of their donors dies, they take a risky turn, luring in a new subject who seems just a bit too heavy to be ordinary. But when the man wakes up on the table with blazing red eyes, their scheme takes a terrifying turn they never saw coming.

In the thick, humid heart of the Louisiana bayou, a reclusive man uses his isolated mansion to lure travelers, feeding his brother’s gruesome appetites. After a particularly grisly night, the swamp itself seems to stir—three grotesque corpses, stitched from mismatched limbs, rise from the quicksand to reclaim what was taken.

In "This Wraps It Up!", three archaeologists stumble upon the long-lost tomb of Egypt’s fifth Pharaoh, brimming with treasure. When one of them, Munson, insists on turning it over to the museum, his companions plot to use the mummy’s eerie presence to scare him into a fatal heart attack. But when Munson dies from fright, the surviving conspirator makes a fatal mistake—pulling a gun on the mummy, only to realize too late that the ancient ruler has awakened.

In "Notes to You!", four strangers find their lives unraveling after receiving cryptic, menacing letters that trigger escalating disasters. As the survivors piece together the chilling pattern, they uncover a twisted connection tied to a mysterious ink and a man who may have known more than he let on. When the final letter vanishes, the truth becomes a weapon—and the next note might be the last.

In "Pipe Down!", a young woman's marriage to an older man obsessed with pipes and poetry quickly turns suffocating, leading her to conspire with a younger man to stage a fatal accident. After the husband’s death, she adopts a monkey born on the same day—only to find that the creature settles into his old chair with a pipe and a book of poetry, as if nothing has changed.

In "The Handler," a mortician whose quiet profession masks a darker obsession begins to exact twisted revenge on the silent, closed-casket dead he believes have wronged him. When one corpse—still breathing beneath the surface—overhears his atrocities, it calls upon the buried to rise and end his desecrations. The graves answer, and the dead reclaim their own.

In "One Good Turn...", a woman returns home from her daily rounds with a radiant smile, eager to share the joy she’s brought to others—each of whom, she reveals, was brought peace through her quiet, final act. Her husband, long confined to bed, listens in silence as she speaks of the happiness she’s given, unaware that her latest act of kindness has just claimed him. When detectives arrive, they find the house still, the air thick with the aftermath of a love that ended in poison—and a woman who finally feels truly needed.

In "Sucker Bait!", a grieving chemist devises a desperate plan to stop a vampire by lacing his blood with a radioactive isotope, hoping his brother can use a Geiger counter to track the creature after he’s drained. But when the brother arrives at the scene, the true nature of his own hunger begins to surface—just as the instrument starts to click.

In "The Rover Boys!", a disgraced doctor exacts a twisted revenge by transferring the minds of the five medical board members who revoked his license into the bodies of dogs, turning them into a bizarre money-making act. But when the dogs find a way to turn the tables, the doctor’s fate takes a shocking turn—his own mind is sent into the body of a horse, and he’s forced to flee through the streets, hunted by the very creatures he once controlled.

In "Funereal Disease!", a grieving man with a secret obsession travels to a remote estate to finally afford the funeral his parents never had—only to find himself entangled in a deadly game of debt and deception. When his employer, a desperate man named Niles Fairchild, demands the last of his savings, the consequences turn gruesome, and the dead begin to settle old scores in ways no one could foresee.

In "Thump Fun!", a young man convinced he’s living out Poe’s "Tell-Tale Heart" becomes obsessed with a phantom heartbeat echoing through his home—until police uncover the truth behind the sound. When the youngest brother confesses to killing his older sibling for inheritance and hiding the body in the cellar, the grim discovery that the corpse is missing its heart sends shockwaves through the investigation.

In "Mournin' Mess," a curious reporter investigates the Grateful Hoboes, Outcasts, and Unwanteds' Layaways Society after learning they’ve buried their 1000th derelict. What seems like a charitable burial service for the forgotten soon feels off—especially when the cemetery’s size defies logic. As the reporter digs deeper, he uncovers a chilling secret: the society’s members are not human, but ghouls, and their "pleasant burial" service hides a far darker purpose.

In "Strung Along!", a once-famous puppeteer named Tony finds his life unraveling after a heart condition forces him into retirement. Once devoted to his craft and married to Nora, his world collapses when she reveals she only married him for his wealth. As his final act of love, he gives her a farewell kiss—only to be found dead the next day, his body beside hers, her limbs reassembled with strings tied to the marionettes he once brought to life.

In "An Off-Color Heir," a young woman haunted by the eerie atmosphere of her husband’s Louisiana plantation home stumbles upon a hidden door and a chilling secret tied to a blue-bearded man and a bottle of black ink—revealing a past that refuses to stay buried. The story unfolds with quiet dread, weaving a tale of love, obsession, and a legacy painted in blood.