Inspired by his recent appearance on Geek Gab: On the Books, the Injustice Gamer offers some additional thoughts on the crime genre in the pulps:
Let’s start with a definition of the Crime genre(yes, I know genres are mostly marketing tools). It’s not inherently a mystery story, though it might be. A great proportion of these feature “protagonists” on the other side of the law. There’s a lot of deceit in the several characters, possibly including the narrator. Commonly, there’s a lot of violence, and sex and language content is generally within the norm.
I wrote an overview post on the genre of crime comics. While this is a good start, it’s also very much an incomplete view. There were a slew of crime comics before the comics code came into being, notably from EC, the biggest victim of the code. On the recent side, Hard Case Crime has been partnering with Titan Comics to bring some interesting stories to graphic format, and if they do quality work long enough, will unseat Vertigo as the crime comics king.
As a kid I stumbled upon the Gladstone-Cochran reprints of EC comics at the local supermarket. The intense art and effective, if formulaic, writing hooked me immediately, and I convinced my dad to buy me an issue each week. Those old issues are still around here somewhere. I’ll have to dig them out.
Another treasure of my youth was a paperback biography of EC publisher William M. Gaines, better known as the founder of Mad magazine. The episode of Gaines’ cold medicine-impeded testimony before the senate hearings on juvenile delinquency stuck with me. Along with Werthan, those hearings brought an end to the golden age of EC crime and horror comics.
What a strange turn of events that now it’s publishers who are engaging in censorship to keep ideas they deem dangerous from corrupting readers.
Happily, publishers don’t have the power to muzzle writers anymore.
Want to read something really scary?
