Crime Does Not Pay: Blackjacked and Pistol-Whipped

Crime Does Not Pay was a notorious comic book magazine that caught the ire of Senator Estes Kefauver and Dr. Fredrick Wertham. The book was filled with murder, torture, sadism towards women and just about every crime and vice ever imagined. While it shocked small town USA during the Comics Scare of the early to mid 1950s, the book actually earned the support of some very unlikely champions. 

Representatives of the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America and educators nationwide praised the book for helping children to the straight and narrow. An overwhelming majority of the stories presented in Crime Does Not Pay were true stories of mobsters such as Lucky Luciano and real life monsters like H.H. Holmes. While the stories were sensationalized to entice readers, publisher Lev Gleason received a number of praises from those working with at-risk youth as seen in a collage inside the front and back covers of this book.

I found this anthology from Dark Horse at a used bookstore about a month ago. My plans were to read it as a part of my 2025 reading challenge. Unfortunately, I don't think there's enough prose material about the history of the book and it's co-creators, Bob Wood and Charles Biro, to count this as a book about the history of comics. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book. But less than 30 pages of research from Denis Kitchen compared to about 200 pages of comics is a bit of a stretch for item #40 on my challenge.

This is pre-code comics at it's very best and very worst. The storytelling is amazing. There's a slew of comic book legends making their way in the industry in this book such as Bob Montana and George Tuska. However, the gratuitous violence paved the way for a legion of imitators and ushered in the books that would result in the coming of the Comics Code.

At the time of Crime Does Not Pay's debut with the 2nd class mail skirting 22nd issue, EC Comics had yet to introduce its readers to horror comics. Without this title, the Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper and the Old Witch might never been created. Crime introduced fans to the concept of the host narrator with the top hat donning Mr. Crime. With his dripping fangs, maniacal smile and inch-long fingernails, Mr. Crime was more than just a narrator, he was a part of the story, playing the devil on each crook's shoulder in hopes of helping them execute the perfect crime. Only it was never to be with most criminals being executed by law enforcement at story's end.

Crime Does Not Pay lasted for an impressive 147 issues. However, by the end of its run, the book has become a victim of censorship it brought about, with later titles having far less emphasis over crime and becoming more of a police procedural comic. Ironically, one of the creators of the book would not learn from the lessons against hard living as espoused in the pages of Crime Does Not Pay. In 1958, Wood would go on a week-long bender with a divorcee full of drinking and arguing before ultimately taking the woman's life in a fit of rage because 'she wouldn't clam up.' 

The question I'm left with is 'do I keep this book?' I'm leaning towards no. Not because I hated it. It's more for the fact that this is an album of the series' true crime tales. Had this been an omnibus of several full issues, I would keep it. I think there's too great a chance that I'll find some Dark Horse archives for a good price or some of the single issue reprints making a need to own this book obsolete. So I'll trade it in for something else to add to my collection. Maybe I'll get lucky and find that prose book about comic book history I need for my reading challenge!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Complete Web (Gwandanaland Comics #1137)

I bought this book by mistake. No, I didn't accidentally pick it up or drunkenly one-click it on Amazon. Instead, I mistook it for another of Archie's Red Circle heroes when I bought it. But I was pleasantly surprised by it's quality!

In 1959 Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were freelancing for Archie where they created a character called The Fly. Clad in green and yellow spandex, often illustrated on covers that bore a spider-web motif and of course a Red Circle Hero; when I found this book, I thought I was getting my hands on an affordable collection of one of my favorite artists' forgotten works. But instead of starring The Fly, this book stars an earlier character called The Web!

Created in 1942, The Web was a war-time hero, often battling Nazi saboteurs and Japanese spies. Created in part by John Cassone, along with an unknown co-creator, the Web was just a physically fit man in a green/yellow costume with webs dangling from his armpits, much like Spider-Man in his Ditko days. There were no super-bug powers or anything like that. His name represented the web of justice that was to ensnare all who worshiped evil! A professor of criminology by day known as John Raymond, our hero is motivated by his brother who turned to a life of crime and is implied to have later died while imprisoned.

Featuring the talents of Bob Montana, Irv Novick and others, the writing was melodramatic, sensationalized and finger pointing evidence of why parents freaked out about violence in comics! There's a level of death, torture and sadism that you would not see in a Silver Age comic. I think if these 12 stories hadn't been publishein the pages of Zip Comics during World War II, these issues would have been standout examples in early comic book history of ultra-violence and racism. But this is pre-Code comicdom. It was still an industry much like the Wild West. The Web was a dime-a-dozen characterization of anti-Hitler and anti-Japanese propaganda. There's at least 2 scenes in which Hitler is portrayed as being in a homosexual relationship with some of his underlings while almost every Japanese character in these books has sharp fangs and long claw-like fingernails. The only difference between this Batman clone and those dozens of other imitators from Second World War is that the Web has at least made a couple returns over the year's with Archie's frequent reboots of the Red Circle heroes. 

The material in this book is definitely dated. Normally, I'd be torn as to whether to continue owning this book or not. However, I view myself as a semi-pro comic book historian and I am a fan of the Red Circle heroes. It might not have been the yellow and green superhero I was hoping for. But I was entertained by this time capsule of pro-American comics that came about as an almost immediate reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Probably not the kind of material a more modern comic book reader would favor. Though this is a book from Gwandanaland Comics with definite historical value if only to show how far we've come and how much more work there is to accomplish!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.