[1] Due to an attempt to save money on second-class postage permits, the numbering did not change with the title and continued as The Crypt of Terror for the next two issues.

Along with its sister titles, The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt was popular, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s comic books came under attack from parents, clergymen, schoolteachers, and others who believed the magazines contributed to illiteracy and juvenile delinquency.

In April and June 1954, highly publicized congressional subcommittee hearings on the effects of comic books upon children left the industry shaken.

The magazine was fully collected in a series of five black-and-white hardbacks by publisher Russ Cochran as part of The Complete EC Library in 1979.

In 2007, Cochran and Gemstone began to publish hardcover, re-colored volumes of Tales from the Crypt as part of the EC Archives series.

The contributing interior artists were Feldstein, Craig, Wood, Davis, George Evans, Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Williamson, Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, Bernard Krigstein, Will Elder, Fred Peters, and Howard Larsen.

The character began as a frightening presence in the early issues, shown as a sinister hermit sitting framed in the lightless crypt's half-open door, his face all but hidden by the double curtain of his long white hair.

He was portrayed by Ralph Richardson in the 1972 film and voiced by John Kassir in the 1989 television series.Freddy has managed to cheat death for many decades by having his old friend, a surgeon, perform transplants on him to replace his organs with those from a younger man.

(No host) A surgeon, furious that his fiancee has left him to marry an artistically gifted man, decides to take his revenge by cutting off his love rival's hand.

(No host) A you-are-the-main-character story in which you are a man on a sea crossing, forced to take a cabin that is supposedly cursed: everyone who slept in it has either gone crazy or mysteriously left the ship.

(No host) A fraternity boy is determined to terrify the new pledges going through a hazing ritual and makes them go to the top floor of an old house rumoured to be haunted.

He becomes fed up with his wife "ruining" the exhibits by relieving them of their heavy weapons and awkward poses, so he decides to stop her for good, without realizing just how much the figures appreciated her efforts.

(The Vault-Keeper) A man buys a farm which he plans to turn into a flying school, ignoring the old farmhand's instruction not to bulldoze the Native American burial plot on the site.

(The Crypt-Keeper) During the French Revolution, a corrupt duke makes money by taking bribes to save condemned aristocrats from the guillotine but then turns them in to the authorities.

(The Old Witch) Two medical students who are planning to rob a grave so they can save on expenses for their dissection project cross paths with a pair of conmen trying to fake a death.

(The Vault-Keeper) Cartoonist Jack Kamen gets his own taste of fear when he joins the staff at Tales from the Crypt and has to start illustrating horror stories instead of romances.

(The Old Witch) During World War II, a butcher decides to make money on the black market by selling rotted horse meat as steak, with horrific consequences when townspeople start falling sick.

(The Crypt-Keeper) A group of men frame their business partner to cover their own misdeeds but soon find themselves trapped in a "web" of more than just false evidence.

(The Crypt-Keeper) A greedy couple in India kill a young peasant girl who refuses to tell them the secret of her magic rope trick.

(The Vault-Keeper) A playboy uses bride and groom voodoo dolls to make a rich, elderly woman marry him so he can get his hands on her money.

(The Old Witch) You are taxi driver working in a town where a series of recent murders have been attributed to vampires, and you become suspicious of a passenger who seems to know a few too many details about the deaths.

(The Old Witch) Children overhear a plot between the local doctor and undertaker to make money by poisoning the wealthiest people in town and then charging their families for elaborate funerals.

(The Crypt-Keeper) A diver kills his rival in order to mine an area of abnormally large pearls for himself but finds a surprise waiting for him down in the depths.

(The Crypt-Keeper) A German World War I soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome is relieved from his post and goes to live with a friend, a butcher whose shop is mysteriously full of meat despite wartime rationing.

(The Crypt-Keeper) A struggling art dealer tries to take advantage of three old ladies who are able to create wonderful tapestries after they have witnessed a violent accidental death.

(The Crypt-Keeper) A man serving time on a penal colony makes a plan to escape by killing the governor and taking the corpse's place in the coffin.

(The Vault-Keeper) Elmer's selfish wife and her freeloading parents have always criticized him for his failure to "get ahead" in life, not realizing how literally he would take their words.

[11] A second Amicus film, The Vault of Horror (1973), also used stories from Tales from the Crypt: "Midnight Mess" (#35), "This Trick'll Kill You" (#33), "Bargain in Death" (#28), and "Drawn and Quartered" (#26).

An homage film entitled Creepshow (1982) followed from Warner Brothers, paying tribute to the tone, look, and feel of Tales from the Crypt and other EC comics without directly adapting any of their stories.

[14] The following tales were used in HBO's Tales from the Crypt TV series: "The Man Who Was Death" (#17), "Mute Witness to Murder" (#18), "Fatal Caper" (#20), "The Thing from the Grave" (#22), "Last Respects" (#23), "Judy, You're Not Yourself Today" (#25), "Loved to Death" (#25), "Well Cooked Hams" (#27), "The Ventriloquist's Dummy" (#28), "Korman's Kalamity" (re-titling of "Kamen's Kalamity", #31), "Cutting Cards" (#32), "Lower Berth" (#33), "None But The Lonely Heart" (#33), "Oil's Well That Ends Well" (#34), "Curiosity Killed" (#36), "Only Skin Deep" (#38), "Mournin' Mess" (#38), "Undertaking Palor" (#39), "Food for Thought" (#40), "Operation Friendship" (#41), "Cold War" (#43), "Forever Ambergris" (#44), "The Switch" (#45), and "Blind Alleys" (#46).