Number 1322: Crime and/or Punishment

For day two of Pappy’s Crime Wave week (see yesterday's post for an explanation) we have the standard crime comic; i.e., what most people, especially censors, bluenoses and joykillers, meant when they pointed at something and said, “That's a crime comic!”

Crime and Punishment #1* came out in late 1947 and became the companion publication to the standard-bearer of the genre, Crime Does Not Pay. The publisher was Lev Gleason, the editors Charles Biro and Bob Wood, just like Crime Does Not Pay. We find the same kind of contents in the latter magazine as we do in the former...panel after panel of lurid criminal acts and in the last couple of panels some sort of moral and the criminal’s just due. He (or she in many cases) either ended up on the gallows, in the electric chair, or died a violent death by either cops or fellow crooks.

The contents of crime comics varied with American crime mixed in with crime in other countries. In this case we see Dan Barry’s great artwork on “Danny Iamasca, Dutch Schultz’s Triggerman” and Jack Alderman’s ink-heavy art on “The Butcher of Düsseldorf.” A note about crime comics: Their use of the word “true” doesn’t mean their version of truth got in the way of telling a good story. Truth may have figured in there somewhere, but not at the expense of cheap thrills. An exception might be made in the case of Peter Kürten, the Butcher of Düsseldorf (also called the Düsseldorf Vampire). His many crimes were so depraved the scripter and artist restrained themselves in telling the story. And that’s the truth.

C.H. Moore had a regular gig doing these informational pages. They were quite good. Moore used a style perfected by sports cartoonists in newspapers and also in the famous “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”

*There’s internal evidence that the title of the comic was originally Obey the Law but was changed to Crime and Punishment during production.

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Number 881


Jeep and Peep


Day three of "Superzeroes Week":

Jeep and...Peep? Could that really be the name of the team starring in Jeep Comics? Yep, and no other names are given, no secret identities. Jeep and his young friend Peep appear to be Jeep and Peep all the time to everybody.

Jeep got an Army jeep vehicle instead of mustering-out pay. He put a rocket on it. In Jeep Comics #1 it's shown that only two drops of lighter fluid will propel the rocket. The jeep isn't aerodynamic, but the first story, although not a true origin story, is very tongue in cheek, so it doesn't seem that important. Not so this second episode, with different artwork by Jack Alderman, he of the stiff figures, heavy ink line and dark shadows. (We've shown Alderman stories before, a couple of them in Pappy's #282 and Pappy's #668.)

Jeep and Peep dress as civilians with only the addition of Jeep's cape. And of course his flying Army jeep. In this particular story Peep is getting fat. Holy childhood obesity problem! He passes by a hamburger stand, an antique version of McDonald's, but resolves he's going to lose some weight, "Even if I have to die doing it!" In the story the villain does what he does because no one would loan him money to market his weight loss invention. Holy small business bank loan financial crisis! It's a screwball story with a couple of screwball heroes.

From Jeep Comics #2, 1945:

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Number 668


Fortean Comics


When I saw scans from the sole issue of Captain Wizard my jaw dropped, twice. First, it's a superhero story drawn by Jack Alderman, whose heavily inked, lead-footed and stiff style I've usually seen only in crime comics, although last year I showed a goofy magician story by him.

The second reason for my amazement is that the writer of this Captain Wizard story uses the books of Charles Fort as the basis for the story. If you haven't heard of Charles Fort go here for a fairly good biographical piece on this fascinating and eccentric author.

From Captain Wizard #1, 1946:

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Number 569


Macfadden the villain


Bernarr Macfadden was a publisher in the first half of the Twentieth Century, made rich by a newspaper called The New York Graphic, and magazines like Physical Culture. Depending on whose version of the story you believe, Macfadden was also a rival of Amazing Stories publisher Hugo Gernsback, who forced Gernsback into bankruptcy. Online biographies of Gernsback say that the bankruptcy was orchestrated by Gernsback himself, who was quite a sharpy at business.

I was amused when I saw this strip, "Hip Knox, the Super Hypnotist" from Superworld Comics#3, 1940, published by Hugo Gernsback. It features a villain called Macfadden! Hip Knox is a hypnotist in the Mandrake-style, who apparently has a supernatural ability to hypnotize anything living. In this breathless adventure he's shot into space by Macfadden. Macfadden could have handled him gangster-style and had him shot, but in pulp magazines, comic books and movie serials the bad guy gives the good guy ample time to figure his way out of an elaborate death trap. It gives Hip Knox the chance for revenge by hypnotizing Macfadden into thinking he's a mermaid. Honest, guys, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Artwork is by Jack Alderman. He went on to draw crime comics for Charles Biro at Crime Does Not Pay, and supposedly late in his career drew Tweety and Sylvester for Dell Comics. And that is all I know about Jack Alderman. We've featured him before in a story of Burke and Hare, the infamous grave robbers and murderers.

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