Vault of Horror #12
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeVault of Horror #12 is the genuine first issue of EC Comics' flagship horror anthology — the title that, alongside Crypt of Terror #17, launched EC's entire 'New Trend' horror line and helped define the pre-Code horror comic as a genre. By converting the crime title War Against Crime into an anthology of twist-ending macabre tales anchored by the sardonic Vault-Keeper host, Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein established the template — moral-retribution plots, graphic irony, and a cackling framing character — that would be imitated across the industry for decades. The issue's creative roster reads like a who's-who of the medium's Golden Age, and its story 'Horror in the Night' was later adapted for the long-running HBO series Tales from the Crypt, cementing the book's reach across multiple generations and media. The Superior edition is a Canadian reprint of this inaugural issue, produced by Superior Publishers who held licensed rights to repackage EC's output for the Canadian market under the wartime and postwar import restrictions that kept American comics out of Canada.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 22 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
In 1950, publisher William M. Gaines and editor Al Feldstein discovered a shared enthusiasm for macabre fiction and began testing horror stories within EC's existing crime title War Against Crime; strong reader response to those experiments prompted the full rebrand starting with issue #12. The numbering was deliberately retained — rather than resetting to #1 — as a cost-saving measure to preserve EC's existing second-class postal permit, a common industry practice of the era. Superior Publishers of Toronto acquired rights to repackage EC Comics beginning in 1949 and continued issuing Canadian reprints of EC horror titles well into the mid-1950s, even after American import restrictions were lifted in 1951; the Superior Vault of Horror #12 is dated circa June 1950 by the Grand Comics Database, trailing the EC original by a matter of weeks.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Effective first issue of The Vault of Horror: the title continued numbering from War Against Crime #1–11, making #12 the inaugural horror issue (cover date April/May 1950; on-sale January 9, 1950 per the GCD).
- Ties with Crypt of Terror #17 as EC's first dedicated horror comic, both released simultaneously in April 1950.
- Cover and lead story 'Portrait in Wax' by writer-artist Johnny Craig, inspired by Michael Curtiz's film The Mystery of the Wax Museum; Craig provided all 29 covers for the series' entire run.
- Story 'The Werewolf Legend': script by Gardner Fox, pencils by Harry Harrison (later famous as the science-fiction novelist behind The Stainless Steel Rat and the source novel for Soylent Green), with inks by a young Wally Wood.
- Story 'Horror in the Night': pencils and inks by Harvey Kurtzman — the first EC story by Kurtzman to appear in print, two years before he would launch MAD Magazine; Kurtzman reportedly colored his own artwork on stories he illustrated.
- The Vault-Keeper — the skeletal, pun-spouting host character — serves as the issue's framing device and went on to become one of EC's three signature 'GhouLunatics' alongside the Crypt-Keeper and the Old Witch.
- The Superior (Canada) edition is a licensed Canadian reprint, published circa June 1950 by Superior Publishers of Toronto, who held EC reprint rights from 1949 through the mid-1950s.
- Stories from this issue and the broader series have been reprinted in the Russ Cochran Complete EC Library hardcovers (early 1980s), Gemstone EC Archives (2007), and Dark Horse EC Archives (2021); 'Horror in the Night' from this issue was adapted for HBO's Tales from the Crypt television series (1989–1996).
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints Vault of Horror #12 (1950)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.