Crime Suspenstories, volume 1

This is a large, hard-cover book which reprints the first six issues of Crime Suspenstories. There's a foreword and then the stories themselves. The original covers are reprinted, although not the ads. There's an analysis for each issue, and the author of the book doesn't pull any punches.

There are some of the stories he doesn't think are that good, and some that are. There are also some short stories thrown in.

It is also interesting that some stories from other EC comics were used. Issue 4 has a Haunt of Fear story, as do issues 5 and 6. I don't know if they didn't have enough stories ready, or if they wanted to use Haunt of Fear to help get people interested in Crime Suspenstories.

The stories do vary in quality, of course, and they are not as heavily into moralistic meanings as the House of Mystery or House of Secret series, which came later. Altogether, it's a good way to see what the EC comics looked like and see what kind of crime stories they did have.

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