After rival Pacific Comics went bankrupt in 1984, Eclipse took over many of their titles, including two issues of Bruce Jones' horror anthology Twisted Tales. As a result Eclipse planned their own similar horror anthology to replace Twisted Tales, and kept on the services of artists John Bolton and Joe Chiodo. In order to reach a wider audience, Eclipse planned to scale back the previous title's sexual content.[1]
The new title was named as Tales of Terror and would run bi-monthly alongside Alien Encounters, a similar replacement for Alien Worlds. Unlike Twisted Tales, which was nearly entirely written by Jones, Tales of Terror would feature a number of writers, with Buzz Dixon and Alan Moore among those to express interest, along with artists Bo Hampton, Ken Steacy and Tom Yeates.[2]