Crime may not pay, but writing about sure does.
Creative Staff
Story: Dick Wood
Art: Rudy Palais, Robert Q. Sale, “Irving,” Richard “Dick” Briefer, R.W. Hall, Art Gates, C.L. Hartman, and Alan Mandel
What They Say
Crime Does Not Pay—the true-crime comic series that enjoyed massive circulation throughout the forties and fifties—was a hit with readers but an easy target for Seduction of the Innocent author Dr. Frederic Wertham! The 1954 Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hammered Crime Does Not Pay for its graphic scenes of violence, ultimately leading to the formation of the rigid Comics Code Authority. Issues #34 to #37 of this visceral, provocative series are now collected into one fine, head-walloping hardcover, with a new foreward by modern crime maestro David Lapham (Stray Bullets, Murder Me Dead)!
Gun-toting wiseguys and switchblade-swinging sociopaths can murder their way to the top for a little while, but they learn a hard lesson when justice finally straps them into the hot seat: CRIME DOES NOT PAY! Original series editors Charles Biro and Bob Wood contributed to the stories collected within, with artwork by Richard “Dick” Briefer, Bob Q. Siegel, Rudy Palais, Alan Mandel, and others!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Crime Does Not Pay should really be renamed “You Think You’re So Smart.” Practically every story features some master criminal who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. In fact, they often declare that in wonderfully expositive statements such as, “Them dumb coppers don’t stand a chance against a slick mod like mine!” or “These clerks are trained to match wits with moronic mobsters! They’ll be no match for me!” Of course every criminal in these tales either makes some incredibly foolish mistake or encounter someone reasonably smart and they’re hauled off to jail or the gas chamber or the guillotine. Often the last words of the story are “Crime does not pay,” either given as a caption or stated by the criminal or some bystander. While certainly true in these cases, I’d much prefer somebody say to these criminal masterminds, “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”
All of the stories in this series are true and presented as a lopsided mix of childish moralizing and lurid titillation. The acts recounted in these stories are violent. Men, women, and children are stabbed, shot, poisoned, and beaten to death with thought given at all to softening the blow for the readers. While Frederic Wertham was wrong in pretty much every way when it came to his evaluation of comics and their impact on children—it’s hard not to see where he was coming from in regards to the violence depicted here. Crime Does Not Pay gleefully leads us through bloody acts of greed and desperation—often guided by the ghostly, Crypt Keeper-esque Mr. Crime—and once the fun’s over it wags its finger at us, telling us never to do what we just read about because, well, you know.
The stories are fun, though—make no mistake about that. At times there is a Tales from the Crypt-style sense of circularity or poetic justice, such as the story about the convict who built a gas chamber, was released, killed his cousin and a couple of girls, and winded right on Death Row, waiting for his turn in the chamber he built. And for me there was also the joy in seeing these geniuses get caught. I’m no great believer in fate or higher powers, but there are only so many times a character can claim his superiority and laugh in the face of the universe before you expect him to get zapped by a bolt of metaphorical lightning. I’m always happy when that happens.
However, as enjoyable as the content is, its presentation severely lacks. These were written back in the 1940s and they suffer for that. The stories are far too text-heavy and laden with wooden, expository dialogue. The panel placement and camera positioning are basic, and with few exceptions, the quality of the art is unexceptional. The real joy that comes from reading this is the sense of history. Each issue is faithfully reprinted. Nothing is left out, including the ads that ran in them. Their historical value far outweighs their lack of quality and I have to commend Dark Horse for the quality with which it has collected this archive. The four issues are bound in a high-quality hardback with a nice dustjacket featuring one of the covers. A great deal of care and attention were taken in this binding, and it shows.
In Summary
While the quality of the writing and art are rather poor, the historical value of this collection far outweighs those issues. Crime Does Not Pay was a seminal work of comic art back in the 1940s and 50s. It served as an integral part of Dr. Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the Senate Subcommittee that sprang from the furor caused by that book. Without Crime Does Not Pay and Tales from the Crypt, the Comics Code Authority may never have existed and the entire history of comics could have been radically different. Comic collectors and those interested in the history of the medium should absolutely check this out, but make sure you don’t come to it with too high expectations.
Content Grade: C
Art Grade: C
Packaging Grade: A+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: March 26, 2013
MSRP: $49.99
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