KAMENS KALAMITY AND OTHER STORIES HC (MR)

Jack Kamen’s stories for The Vault of Horror¸ Tales From the Crypt¸ and The Haunt of Fear favored unnerving creepiness over gruesome shock. With his penchant for deft delineations of scheming women¸ jealous husbands¸ murderous love triangles¸ and not-so-innocent children¸ Kamen’s pen laid down a precise¸ sure line that brought each story’s shock ending into sharp relief. This volume features 27 Kamen favorites¸ drawn at the peak of powers¸ including:“Kamen’s Kalamity¸” our title story¸ featuring the “true” origin story of the artist himself! When the pressures of drawing his stories¸ dealing with his editors¸ and pleasing his wife and kids become too much¸ comic book artist Jack Kamen loses it¸ and that night¸ when the moon is full … “How Green Was My Alley¸” the cautionary tale of a traveling salesman who spends every other week at home with his wife. And every other other week at his other home with his other wife! In a grisly finale¸ echoing the EC shocker “Foul Play¸” Kamen leaves nothing to the imagination! “Beauty Rest” How far would you go to win a beauty pageant for the title of “Miss Corpse”? — Well¸ this contestant is willing to go even further than that! She had the looks¸ the ambition¸ and the smoldering sex appeal to play the world’s oldest game and snag the man of her dreams — the rich man of her dreams — but it was never more than “Only Sin Deep.” Then¸ Kamen switches from horror to horror-humor for all 13 of his classic “Grim Fairy Tales¸” revealing the gruesome underpinnings of the classics. You’ll never look at Sleeping Beauty¸ Snow White¸ Hansel and Gretel¸ or Little Red Riding Hood and their friends quite the same way again!Plus: seven bonus crime and horror stories by EC short-termers John Alton¸ Frank Bolle¸ Leonard Starr¸ Bill Fraccio¸ Rudy Palais¸ and Ed Smalle. Introduction by Thommy Burns.Like every book in the Fantagraphics EC Artists’ Library¸ Kamen’s Kalamity And Other Stories also features essays and notes by EC experts on these superbly crafted¸ classic masterpieces.