At the risk of having the comments thread descend into Lord of the Flies-style mayhem, I’ll point out one more intersection.
Later this month Papercutz will release Tales from the Crypt #8,
which features on the cover a hockey stick-wielding Gov. Sarah Palin
chasing off the three narrators of EC’s horror comics, The
Crypt-Keeper, The Old Witch and The Vault-Keeper.
The caricature of the Republican vice-presidental candidate asks,
“Didn’t we get rid of you guys in the 50’s?” — a reference to
suggestions that, as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin sought to ban
books from the town library. (It’s contended that her inquiries were “rhetorical”; no books were actually banned
during Palin’s tenure as mayor.) Of course, it’s also an obvious nod to
the 1954 Senate investigation into juvenile delinquency, and the
atmosphere that spawned the Comics Code Authority and effectively
brought about the end of horror and crime comics.
The issue includes a “special editorial” by Cathy Gaines Mifsud, daughter of original Tales of the Crypt publisher
William Gaines, who insists the comic “is not endorsing any political
candidates, nor are we attacking any candidates.”
However, it’s difficult to view the cover illustration as anything less than that.
“What usually seems to be behind banning books is an attempt to
repress ideas that may offer alternative political views,” Gaines
Mifsud writes. “This is not only un-American — blatantly violating the
very concept of free speech — but it is assuming that people are unable
to come to their own informed conclusions.”
