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VAULT OF HORROR No. 23 Author: Place: Publisher: Date: Description: EC Comics. February-March, 1952. CGC certified: VF- (7.5). Cream to off-white pages. Craig, Gaines and Feldstein stories. Jack Davis and Graham Ingels art. Johnny Craig cover and art. Graham Ingels photo and bio. Used in Parade of Pleasure. "To conclude this survey of almost unadulterated ghastliness, I refer to The Vault of Horror no. 23, in which a woman is pursued by a Thing ('It stank from oozing grave mud! Clods of rancid crawling rotted flesh fell from its eyeless face...'), a man is decapitated ('THOK!'), another boiled alive in a showerbath, and a tyrannous employer, who slaps his nine women employees, is burnt alive in his own sweatshop, the girls first flinging him under a sewing-machine and stitching up his lips in a perfectly sickening series of pictures accompanied by the text, 'Heh, heh, heh! Well, a stitch in time saves nine...'" —Geoffrey Wagner, Parade of Pleasure: A Study of Popular Iconography in the U.S.A. (Library Publishers: 1955). Geoffrey Wagner's attitude towards comics is even prissier and more humorless than Dr. Wertham's, if such a thing is possible. For sheer fussbudgetry, however, comics critic Gershon Legman had them both beat. In his anti-comics screed Love and Death, Legman, an eccentric sexologist who claimed to invent the first electric vibrator, goes into such paroxysms of overheated rhetoric that one almost suspects parody: "Garishly presented in clashing colors, and cheaply printed in forty-eight pages of paper-bound pulp with even more garish covers, what recourse there is in comic-books to the printed word is, totally, language violence: full capitals throughout, bold-face accents liberally besprinkled, and exclamation points galore; with illiterate little cartouches, where no conversation is thought necessary, saying Pow, Zow, and Whammo! to indicate the administration of violence, while the victims respond with Awrrk, Aagh, Aieee, Ooof, and Uggh." A limited edition of 100 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues are available. Over 200 pages, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcovers $40, dust-jacketed hardcover with limitation plate $200. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com or visit: https://www.pbagalleries.com/content/comics/. R. Crumb says, "I found [PBA's catalogue] so interesting that I am saving it for the texts that accompany the comics which were put up for auction. This is some of the best commentary I’ve yet seen on the quality of the content of comic books. I especially enjoyed the reviews of the post-war horror comics. Great. Priceless." Consignments welcome for PBA's Spring 2021 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com. Lot Amendments Condition: Item number: 322777