If you were a kid growing up in the 1950's, and you had a taste for gruesome horror, chances are you were one of the kids reading William Gaines' comics. They were a cultural touchstone for the genre, as much a part of the history of its development as Bram Stoker or Edgar Allen Poe. When I was a kid, the horror comics available to us were the black-and-white mags published by James Warren (Creepy, Eerie, and the like) ... but the EC titles like Tales From The Crypt and Vault of Horror loomed large on our imaginations nonetheless -- they were usually hanging on the walls of comic book shops with price tags of over $100, but the promise of gory fun in their full color pages made me and a lot of my friends wish we had that kind of money as a kid to check them out.

As a result, I never really caught on to the EC titles until they started doing the re-issues in the late 80's when I was in college. As a result of this, I actually knew very little about the story behind those comics. Until now, that is.

Tales From The Crypt: From Comic Books to Television gives you the complete story behind William Gaines' EC Comics, and it's actually a fairly ripping yarn. ("And we do mean RIPPING, BOYS AND GIRLS! Heh, heh, heh!!!!")

We first see William Gaines enter the world of comic publishing with the mistake of publishing Educational Comics. Because nobody pays for something being sold as educational, especially kids buying comic books. They wanted fun. And the fun that Gaines finally figured out was sorely lacking in the marketplace was gory, gothic horror.

This documentary is fairly brisk and quite visually interesting. Scans of the comic art and a surprising amount of photos and film footage of the young men creating these comics are intercut quickly among a variety of talking heads. But because we're Monsters at Play and not PixieFlicks.com, they're probably names that mean something to you: George Romero, John Carpenter, Jack Davis, R.L. Stine and Ray-freakin'-Bradbury are among the folks dishing about the comics, their influence on them and their careers, and that alone is kind of cool.

Another fun touch is the use of cut-out type animation to visualize some of the stories, a touch that is employed fairly well by the filmmakers since it could easily have crossed over into the realm of cheese, but instead creates its own kind of charm.

The fall of EC's horror and science fiction comics came as the result of senate hearings on the subject of juvenile delinquency. A psychiatrist named Frederic Werthram published a book entitled "Seduction of the Innocent", a book that blamed juvenile crime and antisocial behavior on comic books. The footage of the senators making busy over this "urgent" social problem only reminds us how timeless this ridiculous behavior is (as the most recent hearings on gangsta rap and violent videogames will tell us, this is a great way to look like you're doing something while actually taking time away from real work that needs to be ... ahem ... sorry kiddies, end of rant.) Gaines made the mistake of being the only publisher to testify at these hearings and was therefore made into the poster boy of everything that was going wrong with kids at that time.

As a result, the "comics code" was established, Gaines was forced out of business, and somehow, juvenile crime, suicide and depression rates failed to make any significant drops. Ah well, Gaines still had Mad magazine, movies, and the HBO TV show to keep his fortunes alive, and some of those "juvenile delinquent" readers went on to become great artists in their own right. (A heartwarming tale ... just put your heart on the stove kiddies, and let it simmer in a skillet as you watch this tale, heh heh heh!)

The documentary is pretty brief (under an hour), but there are quite a few extras on the disc. For starters, there's a discussion between Ray Bradbury and Al Feldstein, who adapted many of Bradbury's stories into comic form, that runs over an hour. It's fairly interesting, but it also provided me with a couple of sad moments over Mr. Bradbury's condition ... I realize he's had a long life, but he's not exactly sprightly of body here. EC artists Jack Davis and Jack Kamen also provide longer interviews on a bonus disc (as well as George Romero and comic historians Roger Hill and Russ Cochran). Cartoonist Al Williamson, who came into the EC stable late in the company's life, has a particularly sarcastic interview that's fun to watch.

Overall, this is a well-put together package. If you were even a casual fan of the comics or the television show, this is worth a look. If you're at all interested in the history of the horror genre, it's definitely a good reference piece for your collection.

Get it here!