SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES 1-18 COMPLETE SERIES - EC 1952-1955

Pricing & History

Sold for
Start Free Trial or Sign In to see what it's worth.
Sold Date
Source eBay

*S HOCK * *S USPEN STORIES * __________________ The Complete Series # 1-18 (EC 1952-1955) ___________________________ The Shock SuspensStory Now the stuff of legend within the annals of comic lore, the short-lived ”Shock SuspenStories” series remains a critically acclaimed part of the now defunct pre-Comics Code era EC Comics line of the early 1950s, that quite literally & single-handedly, revolutionized the modern comics horror genre. The brainchild of publisher William Gaines (EC’s MAD, Weird Fantasy, Vault of Horror, etc.) and writer-artist-editor Al Feldstein of the same fame, this groundbreaking bi-monthly comic, premiered with its first controversial issue in February/March 1952. Shock SuspenStories ran for a total of only 18 edge-of-your-seat issues over a four-year span, delving into thorny issues still taboo for 1950’s America (that to-date remain socially unnerving & extremely controversial)— such as capital punishment, racism, drug addiction & rape, just to name a few. Indeed, so explosive was the controversy generated by Shock SuspenStories, that it was promptly blacklisted & effectively forced to “shut down” by Congress at the height of the McCarthy Era (as a result of being tenuously linked to the 1950’s rising tide of “juvenile delinquency”), inevitably bringing the seminal series to an abrupt halt with its final issue #18 of December/January 1955. The Taboo-Shattering Rabble-Rouser The staying power of this landmark series to this day, is that over its brief lifetime, Shock SuspenStories managed to tackle many RELEVANT, but all-too-often controversial issues including racism (issue 3's "The Guilty", issue 11's "In Gratitude"), mob violence & hysteria (issue 2's "The Patriots"), police corruption (issue 4's "Confession"), vigilantism (issue 6's "Under Cover"), drug addiction (issue 12's "The Monkey"), and rape (issue 8's "The Assault", issue 16's "A Kind of Justice"). While SuspenStories’ sampler format remained for the remaining three stories in the title until the end of 1953, starting with issue 12, the horror and sci-fi stories were phased out and the comic focused primarily on its namesake crime and " Shock SuspenStories " for the remainder of its run. Some stories from EC’s Shock SuspenStories were later adapted for the Tales from the Crypt television series. But more significantly, several of the series’ more notable stories (issue 3’s “Just Desserts,” issue 7's "The Small Assassin," and issue 9's "The October Game") were either inspired from or were direct adaptations of the earliest short stories from then newbie, and now Sci-Fi legend, Ray Bradbury. Other noteworthy thematic & plot influences permeating throughout Shock SuspenStories’ pages include, but are not limited to the following: "Just Desserts!"(issue 3) - Ray Bradbury's "The Smiling People" "Dead Right!"(issue 6) – John Collier’s "In the Cards!" "Seep No More!"(issue 8) – Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart" "Fall Guy" (issue 13) – Maurice Level’s "The Debt Collector" "You Murderer"(issue 14) - the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari . On An Inevitable Collision Course Shock SuspenStories’ issue 14 contained two of the title's most controversial stories, "The Orphan", which featured a ten-year-old girl murdering her father and framing her mother, and "The Whipping" which featured a bigoted father mistakenly beating his daughter to death under the impression that she was her Hispanic boyfriend. EC Publisher William Gaines was summoned and questioned extensively about both stories by the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in April 1954. Not coincidentally, as a result of the 1954 Senate Committee fallout, Shock SuspenStories was one of five EC titles voluntarily folded by publisher William Gaines in 1955, due to governmental pressure relating to the outcry and paranoia over horror and crime comics at the height of the McCarthy Era. Doomed to suffer the same ... read more

Items in the Price Guide are obtained exclusively from licensors and partners solely for our members’ research needs.

Flag item for content or copyright

If this item contains incorrect or inappropriate information please contact us here to flag it for review.

If you are the originator/copyright holder of this photo/item and would prefer it be excluded from our community, contact us here for removal.