Cryptkeeper - Influences and Adaptations

Influences and Adaptations

As with the other EC comics edited by Feldstein, the stories in this comic were primarily based on Gaines reading a large number of horror stories and using them to develop "springboards" from which he and Feldstein could launch new stories. Specific story influences that have been identified include the following:

• "Death Must Come" (issue 17) - Ralph Murphy's The Man in Half Moon Street
• "The Maestro's Hand" (issue 18) - Robert Florey's The Beast with Five Fingers
• "The Thing from the Sea" (issue 20) - F. Marion Crawford's "The Upper Berth"
• "Rx Death" (issue 20) - Arthur Machen's "The Novel of the White Powder"
• "Reflection of Death" (issue 23) - H. P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider"
• "The Living Death" (issue 24) - Edgar Allan Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"
• "Judy, You're Not Yourself Tonight" (issue 25) - H. P. Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep"
• "Loved to Death" (issue 25) - John Collier's "The Chaser"
• "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" (issue 34) - H. P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider"
• "Last Laugh" (issue 38) - David H. Keller's "The Doorbell"
• "Shadow of Death" (issue 39) - Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr

After their unauthorized adaptation of one of Ray Bradbury's stories in another magazine, Bradbury contacted EC about their plagiarism of his work. They reached an agreement for EC to do authorized versions of Bradbury's short fiction. These official adaptations include:

• "There Was an Old Woman" (issue 34)
• "The Handler" (issue 36)