Number 1524: Written in hot lead

When DC Comics picked up the license in 1947 for the radio program, Gang Busters, it entered the crime comics fray, presided over by Crime Does Not Pay and its myriad of imitators. DC had a ready-made audience for Gang Busters, which was a perennial popular show and identifiable by comic book readers. This story from issue #1 (1948) is more of the format of a traditional crime comic. Gang Busters later moved into the DC-style of the fifties, especially after the Comics Code was instituted. The title lasted at DC until late 1958.

The story, “Murder Was My Business,” with a traditional career-ending arrival by the killer at the electric chair, is signed by George Roussos.

Number 917


Technology wipes out crime!


This short strip from Gang Busters #51, 1956, "The Detective of Tomorrow!" is prescient about advances in fighting crime, or even speeding motorists. Using a humanoid robot as a Photocop is cute for 1956, but in the Twenty-First Century the real Photocop is a camera designed to nab you in the act of speeding or going illegally through a red light.

The story, drawn by Ralph Mayo, is extrapolating based on technology known 55 years go, and is way too optimistic that crime will be eradicated by technology. What we have found is that technology can breed its own kind of criminal. We've also found that much technology is going through a period where society has to decide if its intrusiveness goes over the line from a right to privacy to protecting the public welfare. Like, I hate Photocop. If I'm nailed for speeding, let it be the old fashioned way, by a human cop.






An issue later, in Gang Busters #52, a public service announcement itself extrapolates the future. In this case 1976. Allergy sees himself hawking tickets on rocket ship rides. Tourism in space is still quite a ways off, although people like Sir Richard Branson are working on it. There is something special going on in the panel with the girl: a young woman has made a medical breakthrough, rare to show in the days of stay-at-home moms and few working professional women. She's communicating through what looks like a flat panel computer monitor. Now that's prescient. But then we get to the panel with Tom, who might "invent something for those big electronic machines." Uh, yeah, Tom, they're computers. If you want to work on them you should learn what they're called. He's also being congratulated by a Richard Nixon lookalike.

Number 827

Straight to the electric chair

I was taught in Sunday School that "being disobedient will lead you right down the path to the electric chair." Jeez, gimme a break. I'm a Sunday School dropout and I'm still waiting for my date with Ol' Sparky.

Dan Barry draws this tale of a guy who was so bad he didn't even make it to the chair. He got killed by cops, but his pals got the hot squat. It's from Gang Busters #4 in 1948. The last time we saw a story by Dan Barry it was from Strange Adventures #3 in Pappy's #785. Barry, in my opinion, was one of the top illustrators of that period, spreading his artwork amongst several publishers before landing a job with Burne Hogarth on the Tarzan syndicated comic strip, and then on to Flash Gordon.

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Something I find really entertaining about DC Comics of that era is the advertising. Lots of ads were done in a comics format, which seems only natural to get the attention of comic book readers. I don't know any of the artists except for C.C. Beck on Captain Tootsie. First up is Old Nick, getting a bullet through his Old Nick chocolate bar. I thought Old Nick was a euphemism for the devil, Satan, and maybe this Old Nick could be "that" Old Nick. He's got a beard and perhaps his hat is covering his horns. I've never seen an Old Nick candy bar in my part of the country. Are Old Nick candy bars still being made?

The P-F Flyers ad fits right into a crime comic book, with boys being the heroes, catching the crooks. Gotta be the shoes.

The Ray-O-Vac ad with its moody coloring is graphically striking.

What would a comic book--or magazine of any kind--be without an ad featuring a sports figure? In this case Bob Feller, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, hanging with Popsicle Pete.

Oboy! A gorilla! I love gorillas. Probably not if they're chasing me, but in comics they're great. John Wayne's no gorilla, but he sneaks into the last panel with a pitch for RC Cola.

C. C. Beck, who made his fame drawing Captain Marvel, was equally well known for his Captain Tootsie ads, which were everywhere. He was able to sign the ads, which is probably when a lot of kids made the connection between the artist's name and Captain Marvel.

I showed a bunch of entertaining Dubble Bubble ads in Pappy's #634. Bazooka Joe's strips don't rise to the level of Pud and his gang, but like Pud's group, B.J. rises by defying the laws of physics with his flying bubble.

"U.S." Royal gets on his two-wheeler and catches the crazy man! Don't expect any sympathy for the mentally ill in this strip. Maybe a followup could be "U.S." hooking his bicycle up to the electoshock therapy generator so they can zap the poor "lunatic". That would be entertaining for the kids of 1948!

Arrrrgh. I don't know Ray Weir but I hate him. "Most Popular Boy." Let me put my Thom McAn dead in Ray Weir's popular posterior.

Finally, a DC house ad I find attractive. It has a nice cartoony Shelly Mayer touch to it.

Number 587


The Officer and the Oatburner


Here's a tender tale of the relationship between an officer and his horse. It's from Gang Busters #14, 1950.

"I Gallop For Danger" is an excellent example of Frank Frazetta's ability to draw animals.

Number 581


Case of the Counterfeit Cigs


Two things make this short story interesting: Madman Mort Drucker's artwork, and the subject matter, cigarettes.

Yes, folks, there was a time when cigarette smoking was not viewed with utter disdain and loathing. For my international readers, in America smoking is still a legal activity, up to a point. When I started smoking in 1967 I could go anywhere, walk into a retail establishment, store or restaurant, and be able to pull out a cigarette and start puffing away. That began to change, and by the time I quit in 1977 the road to pariahdom for smokers was being paved with clean air ordinances, health warnings, and the dirty looks of passersby.

When I see working folks taking a smoke break, outside under awnings or in doorways as it rains or snows, I cringe. I remember my own cigarette jones very well.

I have only one word for the miserable huddled masses, having to go outdoors to puff: QUIT. The writing on the wall, or should I say the smoke signals, tell you that society has decreed that in the social pecking order smokers are only slightly above criminals.

This story is from DC Comics' Gang Busters #51, a Comics Code-approved story from 1956. In "The Case of the Counterfeit Cigarettes" the fictional cigarette company is not the villain, but the innocent victim of counterfeiting.

By coincidence, the Vanity Fair magazine web site currently has an article on North Korea's government sanctioned program of counterfeiting, both U.S. currency (called supernotes) and cigarettes. You can read the article here.