Tales from the Crypt #33 - CBCS 5.5

E.C  Comics - Dec. 1952 / Jan. 1953

Key Issue Notes
Origin of the Crypt Keeper

I'm a big time horror movie fan. Not so much of the movies that are coming out now, but more of the slasher horror movies of the 80's. Besides being traumatized by the original Nightmare on Elm Street when I was a little kid, there are two main reasons that I love horror. One is seeing Evil Dead 2 for the first time, and the second is the HBO show Tales from the Crypt that was based off the comics of the same name. But anyway, I keep repeating myself here. I'm sure by know you probably all know that I like these kinds of movies and T.V. shows, so I'll move on.

Ok, since I've already talked about the first appearance of the Crypt Keeper, I decided it would be the perfect time for me to dig into my box of goodies and share one of my comics with you, and it's also keeping with my October horror theme as well.

This is my copy of Tales from the Crypt #33, and this comic holds the origin of the Crypt Keeper. See, everyone gets an origin story, even creepy undead storytellers that live in dark, eerie basements.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of this comic, or talk about the origin of this character, but rather tell you the story of how and why I decided to buy it instead. As I stated in the beginning, I liked the HBO show, and when I learned of this comic and it's key issue goodness, I immediately started hunting for a copy.

Now, copies of this comic don't come up too often. They are more plentiful than the first appearance of good ol CK, but not by much. Usually the copies that I found were either too expensive, or in dirt condition that I didn't want it. It had to be a decent looking copy that wasn't way overpriced.

So, as I was cruising through eBay one day, I found a raw copy that I thought looked pretty nice from the pictures that were available. I don't exactly remember what the seller was asking for it. I want to say it was $250, but that could be wrong. I did my normal research, i.e. checking the price guide and GoCollect, and decided that $175 was the highest I was willing to go and made an offer. Buying raw copies online is always a gamble and I didn't want to overpay if the grade was lower than I thought I might have been. So, with no counteroffers from the seller, I ended up snagging this comic for $175. I felt like I got a pretty good deal, and I'm assuming the seller got what he wanted from the sale, so all parties left happy.

Baby Crypt Keeper

Now, CBCS had recently opened their doors for business, and I'd already sent in my sample book to try them out. You can read about that comic here. So, I sent this in with my next batch of books to be graded. I try to send in more than one book for grading because it helps to save money on shipping charges. It does take a while for me to get enough books to send in, so I usually only have one or two shipments for grading each year. It took a while, like it usually does with grading companies, but I finally got it back.

Overall, I'm happy with the 5.5 F- that this book got, and it was a little higher of a grade than I was expecting it to be, but only by a half grade or so. I think I made a good investment decision by buying this book at the price I did. There is no sales information that I could find for this grade, but recently a 5.0 VF/F copy sold on eBay for $370.

Since I like these old horror comics, especially the old EC Comics, this is one of those books that's a part of history and I'm very proud to own a copy. Needless to say, this will be staying in my collection for quite a while.

Find a copy here
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Crime Patrol #15

E. C. Comics - Dec. 1949 / Jan. 1950

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of the Crypt Keeper
First Crypt of Terror

In keeping with the October horror theme, next on the list of key issue comics is this gem of a comic. This historic comic introduced the first horror story to the E.C. line of comics, which would be what they were to become known for all these years later.

This comics holds the first appearance of the Crypt Keeper, who was made popular by the HBO show Tales from the Crypt that ran from 1989 to 1996. I have to admit, this was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up. The mixture of laughs and gore really caught my attention.

If you've been keeping up with entertainment news, then you've seen that M. Night Shyamalan is going to reboot the series for TNT. I wonder how much of the gore and language that they can get away with on a cable network like TNT. However, I've noticed that it's gotten pretty gruesome on some shows like The Walking Dead.

In earlier interviews with Shyamalan, he had the idea of creating a season long story line for the show, kind of like what American Horror Story does, but recently it seems he's going for more of a direct reboot of the original series, Crypt Keeper and all. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I, personally, am having mixed feelings about it.

Enough about that, let's talk about this comic. As I'm sure you've all noticed, this is not a horror comic, but a true crime comic. In the beginning, EC decided that it would be a good idea to try out the idea of introducing a horror related story in these books to see if they would sell. As it turns out, that was a very good idea.

We are introduced to the Crypt Keeper and his Crypt of Terror in a short seven page story called Return From the Grave. In this short story, two executives are trying to swindle a company from a poor business owner. The business owner is so poor and down on his luck that the two executives convince him that he should commit suicide and make it look like and accident, so his family can collect on his life insurance policy.

A short time later, the two execs get a phone call. Apparently the old man took their advice and jumped in front of a truck. Now that the two executives own the old mans company, they get a call for a large order of perfume. The factory that makes the perfume doesn't have the formula for it so the now the two panicked men try to find it.

They find out that the formulas are in the pocket of the suit that the old man was buried in, so the two start digging, and find the coffin empty, except a small piece of paper with a note scribbled on it. The note said "I have discovered how you have stolen money from me for the last three years driving me to suicide. I have risen from my grave... and will not return until I have taken my revenge!" I don't want to spoil the ending, but in true EC style, the two executives get their just deserts.

I've gotta tell ya, it wasn't easy to find a copy of this story to read. Not only that, It's also a hard comic to find. As on now, there have only been 40 copies graded by CGC. It's kind of a mixed bag of high to low grades, but surprisingly there are five, that's right, I said five 9.8 NM/M copies. I'm assuming that these are going to be the Gaines File Copies. Don't worry, If you don't know about the Gaines File Copy pedigree, I will be writing about it very soon.

Values for Crime Patrol #15 on GoCollect

High grade copies of this comic are expensive, but they're not Action Comics #1 expensive. It's not going to cost you millions of dollars to add this to your collection. It may not even cost you tens of thousands. There was a CGC 9.8 NM/M Gaines File Copy that sold at Heritage Auctions for only $7468.75. Yeah, that's a lot of money, but for a piece of history like this, I think they got it at a bargain. However, There was a 9.6 NM+ Gaines File Copy that sold at Heritage a few years earlier in 2010 for $13,800. So, does that mean that interest in this comic is going down? Not likely. With comics like this, they hit the market so rarely that it can drive the price up or down, depending on how many people are interested at that particular time. The more people that know about the auction, the higher the price will go, and the less, the lower it will probably go.

The information of the two other sales that I was able to get from GoCollect don't really tell me where this comic is headed in terms of value. There was one sale for a CGC 7.5 VF- that sold for a penny shy of $1,850 in April 2015, and a low grade 2.0 G that ended up selling for $412.05 in June of the same year.

Like I said, it's hard to say where the values of this comic are going. I can tell you that there has been no change in value in Overstreet over the last two years. Horror comics are a genre that aren't collected by the masses like superhero comics are. Values will slowly rise within this small community of collectors. Since I'm a fan of horror comics, I have this one on my want list, but being able to afford a copy is a whole different story.

Find a copy here
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