Our Appendix N Archeology and Adventures in Fiction series are meant to take a look at the writers and creators behind the genre(s) that helped to forge not only our favorite hobby but our lives. We invite you to explore the entirety of the series on our Adventures In Fiction home page. Ghosts, Ghouls, and Little Green Men: EC Comics and Appendix N by Mark Bishop “Drag over a casket kiddies and place your palpitating body upon it… being careful not to jar it, otherwise its unfortunate occupant might GO TO PIECES! If you have time to KILL, let’s have a chat…” Thus begins the Crypt-Keeper’s Corner, the letters page in the June-July 1950 edition of EC Comics Crypt of Terror. You could be forgiven if you mistook that dramatic introduction as the opening salvo from any game master at any table-top role-playing game. In fact, it’s also fairly easy to see how Gary Gygax, the main co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons (and an entire gaming industry) would fess up to being influenced by the art and storytelling found within the comic books of his formative years. But they are not just any old comic books that he mentions; Gary took the time to single out the creative output of one particular company among the veritable sea of comic books being printed at the time. Yes dear readers, the creeping tendrils of Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science, and Vault of Horror have been christened part of the root system beneath the mighty sequoia that is Dungeons and Dragons. EC Comics are among the very first influences Gary mentions in the now-famous Appendix N, a bibliography of sorts on page 224 of the 1979 AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide. Before we allow ourselves to be dragged into the murky swamps by those same rotting tendrils, let us remember exactly what Gary Gygax said in the opening paragraphs of Appendix N. APPENDIX N: INSPIRATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL READING Inspiration for all the fantasy work I have done stems directly from the love my father showed when I was a tad, for he spent many hours telling me stories he made up as he went along, tales of cloaked old men who could grant wishes, of magic rings and enchanted swords, or wicked sorcerers and dauntless swordsmen. Then too, countless hundreds of comic books went down, and the...