Vault of Horror #40 Gaines File Pedigree 2/12 (EC, 1954) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages....

Auction amount: $11,400.00

Sold: Jun 29, 2025

Vault of Horror #40 Values

Publisher: EC, 1954

About Vault of Horror #40

Last issue of the title. Cover by Johnny Craig. Story art by Craig, Graham Ingels, Bernie Krigstein, and Joe Orlando. Overstreet notes "low distribution" of this issue.

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COVER DETAILS

Title: An Harrow Escape

Characters: The Old Witch (inset); The Vault-Keeper (inset); The Crypt-Keeper (inset)

Pencils: Johnny Craig (signed)

Inks: Johnny Craig (signed)

Letters: typeset

Notes: Cover title taken from 2nd story in the issue, as the cover was based on that story.

STORY DETAILS

(6 Stories)

Title: Old Man Mose!

Characters: The Vault-Keeper (host); Drusilla (cameo); Mose; Ned Rogers

Synopsis: Ned stopped his wagon when he saw townspeople throwing stones at old Mose, a man they thought worshipped the Devil since he lived in the Black Church. He chased them off, then invited the man to his home, where he was welcomed by Ned's wife. The next day Ned went to town for supplies and the folk there warned him of the old man, but he paid them no mind. Late that night, he heard a noise and discovered old Mose coming in, supposedly from a late night walk. But the townsfolk told Ned the next day about sacrificial killings that had occured in the area, the latest being last night, and once again they blamed Mose for it. Ned covered for Mose, but rushed home to find the still form of his wife on the floor and Mose in the doorway....with scratches to his face. Ned pounced on Mose and beat him to death, but then heard the last words of his dying wife tell him that Mose was protecting her from an escaped prisoner, whose still form lay outside the door!

Pages: 8.000

Script: Johnny Craig

Pencils: Johnny Craig (signed)

Inks: Johnny Craig (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Title: An Harrow Escape!

Characters: The Crypt-Keeper (host); Captain Grady; Lt. Morton; Kip Fowler

Synopsis: Captain Grady's ship approached the seemingly derelict "Sea Witch", boarded her and found the entire group on board slaughtered....that is, except for one Kip Fowler, who was barely able to tell them the story of how the ship had been caught in a bad storm and forced ashore. They had spotted a castle where they were met by a strange man, who invited them in out of the rain. That night, Kip roamed the castle and found coffins! He hurried back to the room of a female passenger and saw a vampire bending over her, and he drove a wooden stake thru its heart as it jumped at him. The passengers then headed back to their boat and shoved off, but Kip discovered the woman had already been bitten and was a vampire herself. At that point, Fowler passed away, and the Captain & Lt. Morton noticed the female lying near, and the Captain raised a wooden stake and plunged it into her heart. Both went up on deck....then Morton remembered that she had bitten Fowler, and both whirled to see the vampire....Fowler, leaping at them!

Pages: 6.000

Script: Carl Wessler

Pencils: Joe Orlando (signed)

Inks: Joe Orlando (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Title: This Is An Appeal For Action!

Synopsis: This was an editorial request to readers to write letters to the Senate Sub-Committee on Juvenile Delinquency in support of comic magazines as being "harmless" entertainment. It was at this time that comics were under fire by "do-gooders" wanting to rid the nation of this type of entertainment.

Pages: 1.000

Script: Johnny Craig ?; William Gaines ?

Letters: typeset

Notes: No doubt this piece was written either by Editor Johnny Craig or Managing Editor William Gaines...or both.

Title: The Pit!

Characters: The Vault-Keeper (host); Felix Johnson; Lila Johnson; Aaron Scott; Beatrice Scott

Synopsis: Felix and Lila Johnson and Aaron and Beatrice Scott both had competing money-making attractions: the Johnson's with cock fighting, the Scott's with vicious dogs. Arguments brewed between the two couples, as they discovered that each of the wives were trying to outdo each other to draw paying crowds (the husbands thought the activities were cruel and inhuman). To the husbands involved, there was only one solution to their "problem" women and competing "businesses": they put the two women into the arena and let them go at each other!

Pages: 6.000

Script: Carl Wessler

Pencils: Bernie Krigstein [as B. Krigstein 1954 A.D.] (signed); Johnny Craig (Vault-Keeper illustration in masthead)

Inks: Bernie Krigstein [as B. Krigstein 1954 A.D.] (signed); Johnny Craig (Vault-Keeper illustration in masthead)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Title: Bloodsuckers

Characters: Storch

Synopsis: Storch felt the bullet in his shoulder as he peered over to see the dead form of one Quint Barlow, and he knew he'd better leave town before they strung him up for the killing. He jumped onto his horse and rode, fearing the "bloodsucking" sodbuster friends of Barlow's might catch up with him. He was weakening from the loss of blood and decided to stop and hide in a field of grain to rest up and dig the bullet out of his shoulder. He passed out, but soon awaoke to a strange whirring sound, which he recognized to be hungry locusts invading the grain field. He tried to rise and get away, but he was too weak and the locusts soon came upon him, and didn't leave until his bones had been picked clean!

Pages: 1.000

Pencils: ? (spot illo)

Inks: ? (spot illo)

Letters: typeset

Title: Ashes to Ashes!

Characters: The Old Witch (host); Emil Frankenstein

Synopsis: Emil sat at his desk in the old Frankenstein mansion writing in his diary about how his infamous Father had tried to create life from a miasmic swamp. Only partially successfully, it was Emil who took over the experiment and successfully created a newborn infant. However, he didn't know if this infant would one day be able to reproduce. He took the child to a local hospital, switched it for a newly dead infant, and then followed the progress of the child from there. The young lady, Louisa, grew up and fell in love with Karl, but her Father, drunk as usual, came into the engagement party with a gun and tried to kill the young man. His shot went astray and his his daughter in the stomach and she fell to the floor, her body reverting to the greenish-black ooze it had been taken from in the swamp years before. Emil has his answer!

Pages: 6.000

Script: Carl Wessler

Pencils: Graham Ingels [as Ghastly] (signed)

Inks: Graham Ingels [as Ghastly] (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Data Courtesy of Grand Comics Database under Creative Commons license

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CGC Census Report*

Grade	NG	PG	CVR	0.5	1.0	1.5	1.8	2.0	2.5	3.0	3.5	4.0	4.5	5.0	5.5	6.0	6.5	7.0	7.5	8.0	8.5	9.0	9.2	9.4	9.6	9.8	9.9	10.0	Total
Universal	0	0	0	2	1	0	1	1	10	13	12	9	10	5	9	10	6	3	4	6	1	2	0	1	4	4	0	0	114
Qualified	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Signature Series	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
CGCxJSA	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Restored	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	1	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	8
Total	0	0	0	2	1	0	1	1	10	13	16	10	10	7	9	10	7	4	4	6	1	2	0	1	4	4	0	0	123

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