Remember: Crime Does Not Pay

[Andrew666]

One of my favourite comic books from the noir era is Crime Does Not Pay. It's publication dates (1942-1955) mirror almost exactly the golden age of film noir. It was based on the radio series (1939-52) of the same name. You can still tune into the radio series for free here:

http://www.freeotrshows.com/otr2/Cri...s_Not_Pay.html

Published byLev Gleason comics, written and edited by Charles Biro, they were the first and foremost of the true crime comic book adaptations. At its height, it had six million readers, rivalling the great superhero comics of the day, and covered the stories of most of the major gangsters of the era, including Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly and others. The first edition featured gangsters Louis Buchalter, Diamond Joe Esposito and - strangely - Wild Bill Hickock.



Biro was apparently inspired by a profit-sharing incentive, offered by Gleason, suggesting that if he created a new comic book series, he would become wealthy on the share of the proceeds. He did more than that - inventing a whole new genre.

The comic books were extremely lurid - this was in the pre-code days - and featured tales of violence, drugs, prostitution and worse - but always there was a strong moral undercurrent in the style of film noir - tales where a man did what he had to do.



The stories were topped and tailed by a Mr Crime character, similar to the Cryptkeeper in the later Tales From The Crypt, who always ended with the moral that crime does not pay.

By 1948, Crime Does Not Pay had spawned a whole series of rival titles including Official True Crime Cases (1947), Gang Busters (1947), Crimes by Women (1948). Regrettably the sense of moral outrage created by these comics, and EC's range of horror comics led to a moral backlash that led to the Senate Subcomittee on Juvenile Delinquency which eventually led to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority and the demise of the whole true crime comic genre in the mid-fifties.

[Adam Lounsbery]

It was based on the radio series (1939-52) of the same name.

A small correction, Andrew. The radio series ran from 1949-1951. It was based on the MGM series of short subjects called "Crime Does Not Pay" that were produced from 1935 to 1948. You can read more about the radio show here: http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/Digita...s-Not-Pay.html.