Number 1464: Tony Gayle’s underwater style

When I first showed this story from Guns Against Gangsters #6 (1949) in 2006, I wrote the following about artist L. B. Cole:

L. B. Cole drew, by his estimation, nearly 1,500 covers in his career. He was a decent artist on these inside continuity pages, but it’s for his covers he’s famous. His ability to make eye-catching poster-like covers sold an awful lot of otherwise mediocre comic books. Except for his loving renditions of sexy Toni, I don’t think there’s much else about this artwork that would send anyone’s pulse racing. But then, maybe that was enough for those readers in 1949 looking for a little something extra for their dime.

“Toni” is Toni Gayle, the lead character for Guns Against Gangsters. Toni is a pin-up in the Bettie Page style. She is so stylish she can swim underwater and come up with dry hair.

And as for the cover, despite, or maybe because of, the silliness of fashion model Toni in high heels fighting a shark, I think it is one of the great covers of the Golden Age.

Number 631


Toni Gayle and Big Bertha get down


What have we got in this story from Guns Against Gangsters Volume 2 Number 1, 1949? We've got art by L.B. Cole, we've got model Toni Gayle with her Bettie Page hairdo and sexy high heels, and we've got Big Bertha and Toni in a chick fight!

I don't know what else you guys want, and it's all for free, courtesy of Pappy's Prurient Interest Blogzine.

More about Toni here and here.

Number 304


The Gunmaster


Gregory Gayle is Toni Gayle's dad. Who's Toni Gayle? She's the sexy chick with Bettie Pageboy hair who is the main character of Guns Against Gangsters. I showed her story from this issue, #6, July-August 1949, in Pappy's #22. Guns Against Gangsters, or GAG for short, is a crime comic book, but not like the type that we usually think of, the Charles Biro-edited books like Crime Does Not Pay, or Crime and Punishment. GAG had regular characters, and attempted to deflect the flood of criticism of crime comics that was following in the tidal wave of their success.

Gregory Gayle was kind of an early NRA spokesperson. He liked guns and was an expert as he shows in this story, taking out the crooks with an antique Kentucky long rifle. L. B. Cole, who drew the story, and maybe wrote it too, was reputedly an outdoor type of guy who liked fishing and hunting. There was probably some of L. B. in Gregory.

When you read the bottom of page 8, you see the line, "All comics are not alike. First read and compare them, then criticise." Some of the readers took them up on that. They could earn a buck for getting their letter published. This letter by a soldier shows both that GAG published critiques of itself, and also how the language and meanings have changed: "[The cover] should be more gay, with more action," read a lot differently 59 years ago than it does today.

Number 22

Toni Gayle By L. B. Cole. Guns Against Gangsters Number 6, July-August, 1949.


Crime Does Not Pay had issued in a whole genre of comic books when it introduced and popularized the crime comic books of the 1940s and 1950s. They also raised the ire of parents and educators everywhere, who were convinced that crime comic books were turning their kids into juvenile delinquents. Fredric Wertham, M.D., who published his book, Seduction Of The Innocent in 1954, was writing in 1948 about what he perceived as the dangers of crime comic books, and they were under the microscope from several diverse and equally concerned groups.

Some publishers tried to make their products a little more palatable to parents. In this crime comic, Guns Against Gangsters Number 6, there are legends under some of the pages, as they attempted to blunt the effects of then burgeoning criticism. Evil men appear in these stories, but "they get what's coming to them." Or to answer the charges that comic books were poorly printed and their lettering hard to read, you find the legend, Large, easy-to-read lettering in all "balloons" in this magazine.

In reading the story you can see that unlike Charles Biro and Bob Wood's Crime Does Not Pay and Crime And Punishment comics, fewer words were used in Guns Against Gangsters. Where Biro's comics could be almost novelistic in verbiage and length of stories (especially for Golden Age comic books, where 13 pages was a fairly long story), Guns Against Gangsters simplified the writing.

L. B. Cole, who worked for both this magazine and its companion, Criminals On The Run, drew the Toni Gayle lead story in this issue, as well as the second story, "The Gunmaster Gregory Gayle," starring Toni Gayle's dad. Cole also drew the classic cover, which I posted in Pappy's Number 14.

When I read this Toni Gayle story, besides noticing how simple the plot is--some bad guys looking for jewels they tossed at Toni while escaping the Coast Guard--I'm also struck by Toni's pin-up style sex appeal. These comics were being sold to boys, most of them probably in the 10-to-14-year age group, but some older as well, including adults. (Despite the claims of today's comics being for "adults," comic books have always had at least some adult readership.) Almost 60 years later Toni's obvious charms still show very well. In lingo gleaned from Seduction Of The Innocent Toni's breasts would be called "headlights," and they are definitely on high beam throughout the story. I'm also fascinated by how she can dive into the water and come up with hair and makeup--even high heels--still intact and perfect.

L. B. Cole drew, by his estimation, nearly 1,500 covers in his career. He was a decent artist on these inside continuity pages, but it's for his covers he's famous. His ability to make eye-catching poster-like covers sold an awful lot of otherwise mediocre comic books. Except for his loving renditions of sexy Toni, I don't think there's much else about this artwork that would send anyone's pulse racing. But then, maybe that was enough for those readers in 1949 looking for a little something extra for their dime.