Number 775


Gothic Ghastly


Brrrrr. On a hot July day there's a chill running down my spine. It's from looking at the original "Ghastly" Graham Ingels artwork for "A Sucker For A Spider," published in Tales From the Crypt #29, 1952.

Yes, I know this is a formula EC Comics story, where the murderer is ironically dispatched the same way as his victim. But what lifts it above the ordinary plot is the art, which is deep in the gothic tradition of dark shadows, an old house, overgrown vegetation. It adds to the creepiness if you're afraid of spiders.

...and you are afraid of spiders, aren't you...?

I got these scans from Heritage Auctions, Original art shows close up how Ingels did his atmospheric work. Consider the large, scary spiders in several panels. Or page 5, panel 4, with a cinematic shadow cast through a doorway. On the last page white paint is used effectively to render the terrifying image of a man bound up by the web of a giant spider.

It's all just so...Ghastly.