Each issue contained four stories centering on a wide variety of criminal activities, and it differed from other crime comic books of the period because the content was strongly influenced both by film noir and the writers of short fiction for magazines.

Artists included Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig, George Evans, Jack Kamen, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, George Roussos, Sid Check, Al Williamson, Fred Peters, Joe Orlando, Will Elder, Reed Crandall, Bernard Krigstein and Frank Frazetta.

The magazine was fully reprinted in a series of five black-and-white hardbacks by publisher Russ Cochran as part of The Complete EC Library in 1983.

In 2008, Cochran and Gemstone began to publish hardcover, re-colored volumes of Crime SuspenStories as part of the EC Archives series.

[3] Four stories were used in HBO's Tales From The Crypt television series: Two for the Show (issue 17), In the Groove (21), This'll Kill Ya (23) and Maniac at Large (27).