The High Cost of Dying and Other Stories

Reed Crandall’s mastery of fine line detail and expertly nuanced pen-and-ink texture is a perfect fit for EC Comics. This collection of 21 Crandall favorites, delineated in his classically illustrative style, includes “The Silent Towns,” a Ray Bradbury story about the last man and woman on Mars; “Carrion Death,” a stark horror story about a man struggling through the desert with a corpse handcuffed to his wrist as the vultures circle closer; “Sweetie-Pie,” the grisly story of a ghoul who sets up a roadside hazard to procure, um, fresh meat; “The Kidnapper,” about a man who decides to kidnap a baby to replace the baby that had been stolen from him and his wife; “Space Suitors,” a science fiction love triangle that leads to jealously, betrayal, and murder, and “The High Cost of Dying,” the title story, in which a man must make an awful choice between burying his wife and feeding his children …