Eldon’s Copy of Charles Biro’s Crime Does Not Pay #33, up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Charles Biro, Crime Does Not Pay, golden age, lev gleason

Crime Does Not Pay #33 is one of the most-collected points of probably the most infamous collection in comedian ebook historical past.

Crime Does Not Pay stays maybe the only most infamous title in comedian ebook historical past, and Crime Does Not Pay #33 offers us a wonderful snap-shot as to why.  While the duvet is what sparks its notoriety amongst classic comedian ebook collectors, the eclectic combine of folks concerned in placing out this comedian ebook serves to make it all of the extra traditionally attention-grabbing.  Publisher Lev Gleason was additionally serving to to publish “Communist Front” magazines on the time and was investigated by the FBI for associated associations. Regular collection contributor Dick Briefer, maybe finest recognized for his unusual and great work on Frankenstein from Prize Comics, additionally had a long-running caricature in The Daily Worker, the propaganda outlet of the Communist Party USA.  Regular collection author Dick Wood would go on to contribute considerably to the DC Comics Silver Age together with one of his brothers, Dave Wood.  And of course, one other of the Wood brothers, Crime Does Not Pay co-editor Bob Wood, would himself commit an notorious homicide. Wood and his different co-editor and canopy artist Charles Biro put crime comics on the map. Crime Does Not Pay was a comic book ebook title destined to be infamous, and problem #33 is a superb instance of the collection. There’s a Crime Does Not Pay #33 Eldon Pedigree (Lev Gleason, 1944) CGC GD/VG 3.0 Cream to off-white pages up for public sale within the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

The Crime Does Not Pay title was typically impressed by the MGM movie brief serial of the identical identify, which had been working since 1935.  The movie collection supplied sober warnings in opposition to a life of crime as a direct consequence of the then recently-instituted Hays Code, which had been instituted partly after Hollywood got here underneath fireplace for glamorizing gangsters.  Ironically sufficient, the comedian ebook collection it impressed would do a lot to assist convey in regards to the Comics Code some 20 years later.

The collection sensationalized the crimes of many of the gangsters, killers, robbers, and con artists of the period and earlier than.  For instance, the lead function of Crime Does Not Pay #33 chronicles the exploits of Farrington Hill, who dedicated a quantity of murders, armed robberies, automobile thefts, and even a kidnapping all through 1941-42. Hill killed the cashier of the Frontier Club in Las Vegas in August 1942, and was captured by police. However, Hill later escaped from the Clark County, Nevada jail that October, solely to be apprehended once more in Texas whereas making an attempt to make his manner into Mexico.

This problem has a traditionally noteworthy editorial from writer Lev Gleason.  It reads partly:

Paper is rationed and the quantity obtainable for magazines has been sharply reduce. Publishers are pressured, due to this fact, to chop down on their comedian magazines, and this problem has been decreased from 56 inside pages to 48 pages. That would have meant that you just readers would have had eight pages much less studying. With us, patriotism comes first — and we have now decreased our paper necessities. Our readers come subsequent — and we have now dropped the same old seven pages of promoting to make use of the area for comics. This has price us a loss of many 1000’s of {dollars} a month from promoting — however it offers you nearly as a lot studying matter as earlier than.

Our comics will now comply with proper on the within again cowl, and the again cowl itself. Every obtainable pound of paper shall be used for comics. The publishers of Boy Comics, Daredevil and Crime Does Not Pay once more take the lead, regardless of the associated fee, to provide the most of the very best.

As may be seen by the identify written on the duvet, this copy of Crime Does Not Pay #33 is from the Eldon pedigree assortment.  Named after its unique proprietor Eldon Hamman, it solely not too long ago gained official pedigree recognition by CGC regardless of its emergence within the late Nineteen Eighties. The extent of this assortment stays unclear, however quite a few Forties (1940-1945, at least) comics bearing “Eldon” written on their covers, both in print or cursive, have appeared over time. Hamman, born in 1934 in Iowa, served within the Army through the Korean War. He died in 1987.

Currently the #4 ebook on Overstreet’s Top Ten Crime Comics listing, Crime Does Not Pay #33 is a traditionally vital comedian ebook that’s not often discovered above mid-grade.  There’s a Crime Does Not Pay #33 Eldon Pedigree (Lev Gleason, 1944) CGC GD/VG 3.0 Cream to off-white pages up for public sale within the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

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