The orgin of the Tales from the Crypt comic books started with one man. Bill Gaines. He was born in 1922. After his father's injury he reluctantly took over his dad's comic book publishing business, EC Comics. During his reign, he discovered that EC (standing for Educational Comics), were more popular with adults than the kids it was itended for. This proved not to be good for the comic book and EC Comics was going more and more into the financial hole. Bill realized he was going to have to do something rather quickly.
At that time, the young adult comic book market was rather unventured (with the exception of Archie in 1941), and Bill decided this was the way to go. He met up with comic book artist Al Feldstein with the intent to produc the first "real" teenage comic of EC, Going Steady With Peggy. The project was later scraped. The success of the Archie comics brought dozens of clones and therefore it was likely that Going Steady With Peggy was dead in the water before the boat was set afloat.
Still attempting to revive the dying EC Comics, Bill tried to look for a direction that wasn't yet being saturated. EC at the time opted for wholesome comic books (comic books about the Bible, etc.). It seemed that for the company to shake its "cutsie" image, something drastic would have to be done. Bill changed the name of Educational Comics to Entertaining Comics and took a rougher edge with te stories. Comic books about crime and westerns were being produced with some success. EC copied these books and became a little more competative. However, this success was not going to last long as most imitations die when the trend dies. So Bill decided to take a new twist. Horror.
Bill and he comic book artist, Al Feldstein brainstormed the idea. The idea for a sarcastic but sinister Crypt Keeper who narrated the storiwas born. The Crypt Keeper was test-drove in EC Comics Crime Control Issue #15 in a story called "Return to the Grave." The issue was a success and therefore Issue #16 "The Spectre in the Castle, he made a cameo appearance. Other horror caracters made cameo appearances in EC's Books such as the Vault Keeper (a character similar to the Crypt Keeper). Both of these characters were such a success that they became the stars of their own comic books: The Crypt of Terror and The Vault of Horror. A third title in the Horror genre was also released by EC Comics entitled The Haunt of Fear
The books became a success, by EC Comics standards. They were surely not posing any threat to DC Comics or Marvel, but they were holding their own, and for the first time in a long time, actually making a profit. Soon, the four more comic books were added to the mix Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, Weird Science, and Weird Fantasy. Weird Science and Weird Fantasy were not revered by many, but EC kept them because the few fans they had were very loyal. Also, though the horror comics were doing much more volume, the two sci-fi comics were much better written and were probably EC's best work.
EC had three highly recognizeble characters from their horror series: The Old Witch, The Vault Keeper, and The Cryptkeeper. These three characters were the only constants throughout the books because they were indeed the narrators. They were dubbed as the "GhouLunatics". Though all three of the characters were revered, the Cryptkeeper was by far the favorite. It was brainstormed that the three TGhouLunatics should be incoporated into a new comic book....but the CryptKeeper be the ring leader. Thus the Tales from the Crypt comic was born.....
THE ORGIN OF THE CRYPT COMIC BOOK