Number 2439: “I can shoot faster than you can slit throats!”

I saw a picture of a crime comics cover years ago, and the title stuck in my head: Seven Dead Men. It is an intriguing title, but what got my attention was the garish cover lettering.It was another example of a comic book fighting to command attention on newsstands, and probably succeeding. It came out in 1948, which was the year that newsstands saw an onslaught of crime comics. 

I didn’t see the actual comic until much later. The title is officially Complete Mystery #1, in small print. It is a private eye story; a tale of some hidden stolen loot and some gangsters getting bumped off by a guy looking for that loot. 

Best information on the creators are from Dr Michael J Vassallo, who knows more about the magazine and comic book empire of publisher Martin Goodman than anyone. In the Grand Comics Database he says that it is Gene Colan’s pencil art with an unknown inker, and script by Stan Lee. There are no credits for either the short “Tommy Tyme” story or the U.S. Post Office's requirement for two pages of text material, “The Stuffed Rubber.”

 I showed the lead story in 2014. These are new scans of the entire book.

Number 1952: The bad man who loved orchids

Gangster Johnny Orchid loves 'em...orchids, that is. He also loves the gangster life. I guess there is no reason a guy can’t love both. Oh, and of course there is a girl. He loves her, too. Despite all that love it ends bad. It’s a crime story, after all.

This melodrama comes from Men’s Adventures #4 (1950). We showed another story, “He Called Me a Coward!” from this same issue a couple of weeks ago. The earlier story has a moral of sorts (young man, disappointing to father, becomes a man in his eyes), but “Johnny Orchid” is a straightforward crime comics story, and ends with the main character dead.

The main reason I’m showing it is because under that sloppy coloring and cheap printing is art by Gene Colan, ably inked by Syd Shores.