white pgs, QES Certified: Criteria met: Preferred staple placement + perfect staple area + deep color strike (blue, yellow brown & red) + flawless spine
Johnny Craig story, cvr/art; 1st app of the Old Witch; 2nd issue; vampire cvr, shrunken head panels
Gaines File Copy
Highest Graded
Featuring four tales of frightful fiendishness. Haunt of Fear #16 is a classic EC scare-fest, created by the same litany of comic book legends that were responsible for the majority of the publisher’s beloved output in the clean-cut, upright, and uptight 1950s. It comes as no surprise that these little tales of murder that showcased the basest of human motivations and spared no expense in the depiction of torments and tortures would cause a ruckus among the pearl-clutching crowd, and end up making history. Vampires, mummies, and shrunken heads are on the menu in this issue, served up by Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Al Feldstein, Gardner Fox, Graham Ingels.
Topping the census with one other copy at an NM/M grade, this exquisite comic is a sight for sore eyes, the well-deserved QES certification is earned by the white pages, beaming bright yellows, deep, moody shadows, and impossibly perfect binding, with corners that could slice a tomato. Gaines File Copies are well known as the gold standard when it comes to EC books, but this copy rises above even that lofty designation, it boggles the mind that a comic of this age can remain in a state of suspended animation as if it were just pressed moments ago.


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