Number 1864: The Devil Bat

Today we have a crime story; not a traditional crime story, but instead a gang leader who is a hideous human bat.

Or...hideous, yes. A bat, well, you’ll see.

Drawn by Maurice Del Bourgo, who had a style that complemented such unusual fare. From Wanted Comics #17 (1949).

Del Bourgo also drew a version of the Salem witch trials for another issue of Wanted. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1801: Holiday of heroin horror!

This crime comics story is a cautionary tales, preaching to the readers about the dangers of drug addiction. I was never tempted by hard drugs. My addiction is coffee...caffeine. Give me my caffeine or I’ll start bustin’ heads!

Times have changed. Marijuana is legalized in some states, with probably more to come, but heroin is still not a drug anyone should mess with. The history of drug addiction goes back even further than this 1953 tale, when drugs like heroin, morphine, cocaine, were available on druggists’ shelves. They turned many people into addicts before the law stepped in and banned their sale. You can read about it here in this excerpt from the book, They Laughed When I Sat Down, by Frank Rowsome, Jr.: “A spoonful of opium helps the medicine go down”.

Now, man, pass me that pot...of coffee.

From Wanted Comics #51 (1953), drawn by Mort Leav:

Number 1697: Kill! Kill! Kill!

In seven short pages of “The Butcher” we have criminal kingpin Harry Markos in action. A self-described hot head, he kills his girlfriend and her lover, takes over the mob, and expresses his philosophy: “To strike it rich, you’ve got to be ruthless! You can’t be scared of anything or anybody! When something gets in your way - - KILL! KILL! KILL!” Harry is a man I would not like to meet.

This story is drawn by John Buscema,  for several decades one of the most versatile artists in comics, and was published in Wanted #51 (1953). It ends with the obligatory comeuppance death scene, including the boilerplate philosophy, CRIME CANNOT WIN! The Butcher has become, according to the police officer, “. . . a hunk of cold meat --- for the undertaker, now!”

Oo-la-la! A pre-Code bonus, from the inside back cover. 

More Buscema, including another crime story from Wanted, and a science fiction story from Adventures Into the Unknown. Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1555: “The Man With Nine Lives”

Syd Shores did this violent crime story for Wanted Comics #48 in 1952. Shores was a very facile and talented comic artist, one of the journeymen I admire who had been around since the earliest days of comics. The symbolic splash for “The Man With Nine Lives” is very striking. Like the best artists Shores didn’t stick with one genre; he could draw just about anything. I have examples of him doing horror and Western, also (see the links below my short article on Fredric Wertham and Alfred Hitchcock).

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Wertham and Hitchcock

After Dr. Fredric Wertham, M.D., had done serious damage to the comic book industry in 1954 he didn’t just go away and retire. He was available to the legal system and reporters on the subject of media violence. For Redbook magazine Wertham interviewed director Alfred Hitchcock on his movie, Psycho. Psycho had been linked in the newspapers to at least a couple of murders where the killers were reported to have been “inspired” by the film.

From Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello, published in 1990:

     “. . . Hitchcock agreed to talk with psychiatrist, Dr. Fredric Wertham, an author and outspoken critic of media violence. The published account of their dialogue suggests that Hitchcock was not about to be pinned down. Wertham, after admitting that he had not seen Psycho [emphasis mine], tried several times to get the director to admit that the violence in the film was ‘A little stronger than you would have put in formerly — say ten or fifteen years ago?’ Hitchcock replied, ‘I have always felt that you should do the minimum on the screen to get the maximum audience effect. Sometimes it is necessary to go into some element of violence, but I only do it if I have a strong reason.’ Wertham persisted: ‘But wasn’t this violence stronger than your usual dose?’ Eventually, Hitchcock conceded, ‘It was.’ ‘More?’ asked Wertham. ‘More,’ Hitchcock replied. So it went for Wertham, and one suspects that is was, for him, much like dealing with a particularly defensive patient.

     “The psychiatrist may have hoped to elicit from Hitchcock at least an artistic, if not moral justification for that violence. Yet one is left with the clear impression that Hitchcock might justify the bloodletting in Psycho similarly to the way he had justified to François Truffault the risqué opening scenes. ‘Audiences,’ Hitchcock said, ‘are changing. I think that nowadays you have to show them the way they themselves behave most of the time.’ Thus, the filmmaker implied that he was a reporter, not a shaper, of human behavior.”

Here Wertham showed that he didn’t need to see what he was criticizing in order to criticize it. Isn’t this a lot like pressure groups that jump on pre-release publicity of books or movies in order to justify their calls for censorship or banishing — or even death to the author?

By calling in Wertham as their interrogator Redbook showed it had its own agenda. Wertham was famous for his views on violence in popular culture, comic books, television and movies, so the magazine was out to show their readers that Hitchcock was responsible for the evil wrought by his movies. With that in mind, why would Hitchcock agree to sit down with Wertham?

Hitchcock had a strongly intuitive knowledge of psychology. He was a master showman (think P.T. Barnum) and manipulator when it came to moving his audiences through the story. The psychology that Wertham used to come to his conclusions about violence being promoted by popular culture was also used by Hitchcock in the way he brought  audiences into theaters and juggled their fears and emotions. I would not doubt that Hitchcock felt such an interview, even with someone who had such well-known and outspoken views as Dr. Wertham’s, could be turned to Hitchcock’s advantage.

One thing both of them had in common was the ability to rise above the din and clamor of everyday life —  and the news cycle— and make themselves heard. The difference is that after Hitchcock died he became an even bigger cultural icon than he had been when he was alive, where Wertham sank into public obscurity, except amongst us Golden Age comics fans.

I have done several posts where Wertham fits in. To find them click on his name at the bottom of this post.

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As promised, two more stories by Syd Shores. Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1447: Prison break!

Five cons try to shoot their way out of prison only to find that CRIME CAN'T WIN! Nor can busting out of prison.This story, which tells each killer's crimes, is a bit like a television or movie script, and accentuates the drama leading up to the fatal final scenes.

Syd Shores, one of the great journeymen artists of the Golden Age, lends his considerable talents to telling this violent tale. I have some links to more of Shores’ fine work after the story scans.

From Wanted Comics #51 (1953):

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As promised, more Shores, representing horror, war and Western. Just click the pictures.