Number 1581: Joe the Boob: Bullets, Booze and Blood

Blood. Lots of blood. Killings on nearly every page of this lurid 11-page story from Crime Must Pay the Penalty #1 (#33 on cover; 1948). Not only killings, but killings with bloody head shots. Even a couple of knifings. If you like your crime comics fast and violent this fits that description.

Page 7 has two head shots, including a panel of a crook still talking after being shot in the forehead. Crooks were tough in those days!

Jim Vadeboncoeur gives Ken Battefield credit for pencils, and hedges with a question mark on an artist named Wilcox for the inks.

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Number 1547: From that wonderful artist who brought you Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich...

I’ve shown another crime story (check the link under this story) by Warren Kremer. He is probably best known as being the master cartoonist who for years drew Casper and Richie Rich, Stumbo the Giant and other Harvey Comics characters. In his early career Kremer was known to do crime stories, and also did work as designer of some of the most gruesome early ’50s horror covers for Harvey Comics.

“Frisco Mary” is from Ace Comics’ Crime Must Pay the Penalty #37 (1954), which is a reprint from issue #3 (1949) of the same title.

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More Kremer crime. Just click on the thumbnail:

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Number 1462: Warren Kremer’s Burke and Hare

Warren Kremer (1921-2003) was one of the most talented artists in the history of comic books, but you’d hardly have known it. Over most of his career he drew the fantastic kid-friendly strips for Harvey Comics, including Casper, Spooky, Richie Rich, et al. He didn’t sign his work and until his name became known by fans he was kind of comics’ best kept secret.

Early in his career Kremer was drawing more adult fare, crime comics, and later he delivered some terrific covers for the Harvey horror comics. With this story of the infamous duo of Burke and Hare for Ace Comics’ Crime Must Pay the Penalty #2 (1949), which he signed, he showed he could handle drawing dead bodies as well as friendly ghosts.

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Number 1059


"Keep yer yaps shut!" Lou Cameron's tough guys


Artist Lou Cameron has been featured in my blog, as well as Karswell's The Horrors Of It All several times. I've always thought of Cameron's Golden Age work as being primarily horror, but he did some crime stories, too. I have two of them, from Ace Comics' Crime Must Pay the Penalty.

Cameron's crooks are hardboiled, tough and murderous. They cause lots of mayhem. These are two violent tales, the sort of comics that got the industry in trouble. They were published in issues #40 and #41, which came out in '54, the year of greatest heat on comic books. The next year the Comics Code came out, and Crime Must Pay the Penalty lasted a few issues under the Code.

No matter in what genre he drew, Cameron was superb. He did comics for a few more years, then became a writer, an author of original paperback novels.

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