Blackjacked and Pistol-Whipped: A Crime Does Not Pay Primer

Crime Does Not Pay Archives

by Bob Wood, Various, Charles Biro

Gangsters, kidnappers, maniacal killers, and thugs of all stripes had their lurid stories recounted in Crime Does Not Pay, a seminal '40s comic-book series. Bob Wood, its editor, brutally murdered his girlfriend, did prison time, and was then murdered himself This fascinating sidebar is described in an essay by cartoonist, historian, and co-editor Denis Kitchen. Featuring thrilling, disturbing, and brutal tales and despicable characters, Crime Does Not Pay enthralled a nation. With a claimed readership of over 5 million it was the most popular comic book of its day. The series was a favorite target of Dr. Frederic Wertham and other censors and is partially responsible for the creation of the Comics Code Authority, yet it was an inspiration for Harvey Kurtzman's reality-based EC Comics. See why this series was revered and reviled

Genres: Comics, Crime, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Mystery

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2007

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume contains the best of the stories from Crime Does Not Pay, which, unlike most of the crime comics of the era, were "true stories." Most of the stories are about lesser-known criminals of the 20s, 30s and 40s. The same writers went on to do War Against Crime for EC.

[Kipp Poe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been interested in True Crime books my Kindle is filled with them, I love looking into the mind of the criminal,Killer, and how the authorities finally crack the case.

I also love nostalgic art work from True Detective pulp magazines and comic book art. Then one day cruising the Amazon store I came across this interesting book and thought I would give it a try. Wow so glad I did It's like the combinations of both of my favorite things. The art work is a lot of fun looking into the days past when radio shows, and books were our main form of entertainment.

The stories based on true crimes even with the stories originally printed in the 40's all of the cases are from late 1800's up to the 1930's. The stories are about 8 pages long they cover a lot of details and facts through the txt and artwork. The book contains 24 stories from a few years of the publication.

It is nice to see now the series is being released in volumes and number 1 was just released in March Crime Does Not Pay Archives Volume 1 (True Crime Graphic)and I just received it and it looks like a lot of fun. Very happy with my purchase of both books. This one is a nice introduction without the pricey cost of the new book that just came out.

Listing of the stories:

September 1942 Two-Legged Rat
September 1942 The Fire Fiends Of Missouri
January 1943 So Mean He'd Kill His Own Mother
March 1943 The True Life Of Charles "Lucky" Luciano
November 1943 The Patent Leather Killer
January 1944 The Horror Hobby
March 1944 The Man Who Loved Murder
September 1945 The Monster of Crime
November 1945 Million Dollar Burglar
November 1946 Mutiny On The Rock
March 1947 The Kill-Cazy Fleagle Brothers
March 1947 Danny Iamascia, Dutch Schultz's Triggerman
July 1947 Dr. Holmes, The Master Of Murder Castle
July 1947 The Beast Of Brooklyn
August 1947 Crime's Dumbest Wise Guy, Peter Treadway
September 1947 Leo Lepke Buchalter
November 1947 The Wild Spree Of The Laughing Sadist-Herman Duker
January 1948 Vic Everhart The Kill-Crazy Scoundrel
February 1948 The Crooks Who Couldn't Get Together
March 1948 The Electric Chair and the Murderess
June 1948 A True Crime Story: Robert James
July 1948 A True Crime Story: Machine-Gun Kelly
August 1948 A True Crime Story: The Ferocious
September 1948 A True Crime Story: Once There Were Three Killers From Brooklyn Called Shapiro- Now There Are None!

[Chris W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a bit repetitive, it is surprisingly good for a comic of its time period and surprisingly gory. It doesn't sugarcoat too much of its subject matter nor the deaths that occur.

If you like crime comics, like Golden age comics or just need to see history of how comics have changed, this would be and enjoyable read for you.

[tony dillard jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

[Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate to complain but this was a minor disappointment for me in some small niggling ways. I almost gave it three stars but the last few stories put it into the four star territory. The book starts off great w/a Denis Kitchen introduction about Denis's meeting w/a shady lawyer by the name of Farrell in New York City in the early 80's who was trying to sell Denis on printing up reprints of the The Crime Does Not Pay comics from the 40's. The only thing is Farrell after some pressing from Kitchen doesn't have the rights to said comics so the deal falls through at the time. It's not said outright but I believe that the reason Dark Horse put this book out in 2011 was because the comics were by this time in the public domain which is great because Dark Horse as usual does a terrific job of packaging the book w/a Pete Poplaski cover homage and the aforesaid Denis Kitchen intro. I didn't realize before I bought this that all the stories were true, no crime fiction. Also the gimmick of having the "Crime" character, a crudely drawn ghost w/top hat and leering, vampire-like grin, whispering into the ear of true life criminals in order for them to commit to their lives of crime, pales pretty fast. It's a bit of drag, man. Anyway the stand-out artist in this book is George Tuska who had a reputation as a bit of jobber in the superhero comics but he shines here telling the true crime tales w/his art. Stand out splash pages to start the stories and very fine story telling through out his panels only marred by that damn stupid "Crime" character popping up every now and then.
These comics when they were first published in the 40's and 50's made a ton of money for the publisher, Lev Gleason and the two writers/editors, Charles Biro and Bob Wood, but ultimately the line was squeezed out by the anti-comic crusade of the 50's as well as unscrupulous competition from jealous distributors. Biro continued on in design work for television but Bob Wood ended up living a dissolute existence of drinking and cheap hotels and indeed became a real-life lurid crime story himself when he ended up killing his girlfriend in a drunken rage, going to prison, getting out after a few years and then being killed himself for unpaid debts. Wow. Again that's all from Kitchen's great into. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in comics history or old comics, I would've liked there to have been more stories but I think too that maybe this was the best of the bunch and there probably wasn't too much more gold to be mined from the Crime Does Not Pay title.

[DOUGLAS J BERRY · Rating 5 out of 5]

True crime stories as comics.

Color artwork. Dark horse freebie. From the archives. Part of a series, criminals from 1900 to 1940. Includes the Brady four and machine gun Kelly. Not suitable for children.

[s.j.hannaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

True Crime stories

There are some real bad asses here, who got their just desserts proving crime doesn’t pay, great graphics & stories, it’s a fab nostalgic trip down memory lane ...

[Kris Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bumped this one way up in the backlog because I wanted to make sure that I liked the material before committing to yet another line of high end hardcovers, and you know what? Crime Does Not Pay rules!

There is an excellent introduction in this book on the history of both these comics in relation to popular culture of the day (i.e. pulps, film noir) and the impact that this title had on comic books as a whole. Did you know that this was the best selling title in it's day? Yup, it even outsold Superman and Batman. The history of the publishers and creators also offers tremendous insight into the mindset behind this title, and the stories about the creators themselves are equally amazing.

While this title was a “preachy”, it offered tons of violence and murder, so as to deter impressionable youth from a life of crime. I love how inappropriate old comic books and cartoons are. If this were marketed to, or sold to, children today, Faux News would have a field day with it. I often chuckle when reading Golden Age comic books because of how neutered and politically correct we as a society have become. It's fun to see people “get theirs” because, after all...CRIME DOES NOT PAY!

One of the things that I noticed while reading this was how slow law enforcement responded to crimes back then, the result of a lack of technology. It seems so simple to fake a new identity and make a run for it back then.

These are based on true stories, but as the introduction states, there are liberties taken with the facts. While some of these issues are historically accurate, others have minor facts altered. This was 220+ pages and it wasn't enough. I want more more more! I can't wait for the Archives.

I absolutely love this new paper that Dark Horse is using in their Archives. While it doesn't lay flat, it feels and smells wonderful. They used that same paper here in this high quality trade paperback. Sewn binding and a cardstock cover with fold-out flaps help give the cover an extra thick and extra durable feel. The restoration is excellent, and the uncoated paper stock gives it an authentic comic book feel while the weight maintains the luxurious feel that I have come to expect from collected editions. It's the happy medium that fans have been clamoring for.

Not really an OCD issue but rather an aesthetic one, I dislike the faux weathering on the cover. I will never understand people's desires to see things artificially distressed, be it this book or those lame fake distressed concert shirts. I love things that are genuinely distressed through use, wear, and love, but not the fake scratches and coffee splotches like you see on the cover of this book.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sampler of the pulpy crime comic that dominated the post-war newsstands.

This book cherry picks selections from a six year span, 1942-1948. Accordingly, the book opens with the usually shaky WWII era material. Early work by later masters like Carmine Infantino was likely included for historical interest; his contribution from 1943 is disjointed and sketchy.

The pieces get stronger in the post-war era and you can see why it garnered some of its legend--these stories were pulpy and violent in a way that surpassed other comics of the day. Nevertheless, over the long haul of the book, the true crime tales get repetitive. Without much to distinguish the characters (aside from "evil"), the many murders and robberies take on a depressing monotony. The stories are crisply illustrated by artists like Dan Barry and George Tuska, but it takes a real talent to make true crime tales intriguing. For the most part, the writers just went for titillation.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the Classics Illustrated bullpen got into the true crime magazine racket they'd probably produce something as lurid as this, which is to say that the art work is fairly journeyman style, with the exception of Dick (Frankenstein) Briefer who injects a little cartoony style to his story.

I thought the tale of Dutch Schultz's triggerman, who perpetually messed up every time he dropped his glasses, was a pretty funny story. Caveat emptor: if you find images of infants or children being stabbed to death disturbing then this book isn't for you. This is one of those comics that was responsible for the not-so-secret origin of the Comics Code Authority. It didn't help that one of the editors was a real-life murderer, as depicted on the cover of this book.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a great idea for the time. About half of the art is pretty good for a third rate publisher in the 50's . Unfortunately, the writing is pretty dull. I think that they were reading newspaper articles and making up the rest. This too is a good idea if only some of the dialogue was a bit more believable. But if the writers would be imagining the details, they could have gone so far as to make the characters more realistic. Unfortunately, most 50's comic publishers did not have this skill.

I really wanted this to be better. While reading it I couldn't help thinking about how Rick Geary has taken a similar idea, although more based upon fact, and come up with a much better story based upon facts.

[Robby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for historical interest, three stars for content.

A little of this collection goes a long way. I recommend reading only a couple of stories at a time, or else it might lose its charm.

Some great Golden age art, though the writing traffics in substandard pulp cliches. The titles are usually the best-written parts.

[John Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are probably better remembered for their pre-Comics Code depictions of graphic violence than art or writing quality. Still, there is plenty of grisly entertainment to be found in these pages.

[Acton Northrop · Rating 2 out of 5]

George Tuska and Mort Meskin have got some nice work in here but on the whole it just increases my appreciation for how timeless EC and Simon & Kirby’s crime comics still are.