122 CRIME COMICS
Indeed, the displacement of the comic book detective (otherwise prevalent in fi ction,
on radio, and in the movies) by superheroes may have encouraged publishers to turn their
attention to the more guilty pleasure of stories dramatizing the lives of criminals. Led by
publisher Lev Gleason’s highly successful Crime Does Not Pay under the editorship of
Charles Biro and Bob Wood, crime comics of the 1940s regularly revisited the exploits
of notorious gangsters, such as John Dillinger, from previous decades. While the title of
Gleason’s comic, like many of its imitators (Crime Can’t Win, Lawbreakers Always Lose!,
Crime Must Pay the Penalty!), alerted readers to the outcome of its stories, Golden Age
crime comics relied upon the subversive appeal of fast living criminals being more excit-
ing and glamorous than honest but dull cops. Like fi lms regulated by Hollywood’s Pro-
duction Code, crime comics countered their lurid pleasures with fi nal moral messages.
Th ey also frequently made claims to truth: Gleason also published Crime and Punishment
(74 issues, 1948–55), featuring “true criminal case histories.” Th e claim was reinforced by
comics throughout the period: All-True Crime Cases (Atlas, 26 issues, 1948–52) asserted
on the top of every page that “crime can’t win” while also reassuring readers on every
page’s bottom that its stories were “from offi cial police fi les.” Crime Must Pay the Penalty!
(Ace, 45 issues, 1948–55) promised “ True Cases of Actual Crimes” and Real Clue Crime
Stories (Hillman, 1947–53) off ered “Police Facts!” Unlike the later practice of assuring
audiences that stories and characters are not based on actual events or people, crime com-
ics regularly claimed (with spurious evidence) that they were only slightly altered reports
from the crime-ridden world of their readers. While authors and artists clearly borrowed
stories from newspapers, their reliance on generic conventions suggests that detective
novels and movies were a more likely source of material than police fi les.
While the early crime comics published by EC, Crime Patrol (10 issues, 1948–50)
and War Against Crime (11 issues, 1948–50) were in the Gleason mode, again promis-
ing “real stories from police records,” EC’s retooling of their crime stories along the lines
of their horror titles led to Crime SuspenStories (27 issues, 1950–55) which shifted the
focus off of gangsters and detectives, and onto on the gnawing guilt, lust, and greed that
led ordinary people to commit violent acts before they faced the typically ironic ends
that guided many EC stories. With stories and art by many of the company’s legendary
fi gures, especially George Evans, Reed Crandall, Jack Kamen, Jack Davis, and Johnny
Craig (who provided most of the comic’s eventually notorious covers), EC’s crime com-
ics were among those that alarmed the child psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham and
led to the adoption of the industry’s self-regulation under the Comics Code in 1954.
While the crackdown on comics is often recalled as a response to horror comics, crime
comics were the explicit focus of a number of the code’s prohibitions: sympathy for or
glamorous depiction of criminals was forbidden, and the code warned that “the letters of
the word ‘crime’ on a comics magazine shall never be appreciably greater than the other
words contained in the title. Th e word ‘crime’ shall never appear alone on a cover.” More-
over, “restraint in the use of the word ‘crime’ in titles or subtitles shall be exercised.” Per-
haps because of its title, Justice Traps the Guilty (Prize/Headline, 92 issues, 1947–58),
spearheaded by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, managed to survive a few years after the
