EC comics are back with new tales under Oni Press, and the publisher has created new horror hosts for the revitalized line. Before readers get to know the Grave-Digger, the Tormentor, and the Grim Inquisitor, we are revisiting EC’s original trio of terrifying horror hosts.

EC’s main horror comics each had its own host with the Crypt-Keeper leading Tales from the Crypt, the Old Witch hosting The Haunt of Fear, and the Vault-Keeper presided over The Vault of Horror. The books would regularly feature two stories told by the main host, and a single story told by each of the other hosts.

Fiction met reality when the horror hosts wanted to grow their audience. To do so, they chased EC editors Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein through the sewer and threatened to kill them. The editors negotiated for their lives by giving each horror host their own book.

The Crypt-Keeper exuded sinister energy through the comic, drawn as a creepy hermit with his face mostly obscured by deep shadows and his stringy hair. His father was a two-headed living corpse, and his mother was a centuries old Egyptian mummy. They fell in love while working in a traveling carnival, and had the Crypt-Keeper. Easily the most recognizable of the GhouLunatics, the Crypt-Keeper was the host of HBO’s horror series Tales from the Crypt, based on the comic.

The Vault-Keeper is an ancient, hooded and robed figure who lives in the dungeon that was the location of his bloody past as an inquisitor. The details of his origin and identity, though its confirmed that he is undead. He is a bit more cheerful than his fellow horror hosts, and occasionally competes with the Crypt-Keeper for the Old Witch’s attention.

The Old Witch was the last GhouLunatic added to EC’s horror line. Her parents were a werewolf and vampire who were killed by a mob, resurrected by evil magic, and then they got pregnant with the future Old Witch. She loved frightening people with scary stories, eventually moving into the Haunt of Fear. She appeared in nearly every title of the three horror books and she was in multiple issues of Crime SuspenStories.

All three of the GhouLunatics mixed horror and humor with twisted jokes and puns while introducing his stories. Because they shared time in each book, the horror hosts were competitive with each other, which often played out in their letters column.