Other publishers took notice, with the most zealous imitator being Entertaining Comics (EC), which soon became known for its gruesome crime and horror titles, including Tales from the Crypt and Crime SuspenStories. The title's sales eventually skyrocketed in the late 1940's, driven by GIs returning from WWII who found themselves uninterested in the now-childish-seeming superhero comics crowding the racks.
In July of 1942, writer Charles Biro and artist Bob Wood created Crime Does Not Pay, a true-crime anthology comic with storylines ripped from the police blotter. Testimony of EC publisher William Gaines during the Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency (April 21, 1954) Jimmy Walker once remarked that he never knew a girl to be ruined by a book.
What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of our own children? Do we forget that they are citizens, too, and entitled to select what to read or do? We think our children are so evil and simple minded that it takes a story of murder to set them to murder, a story of robbery to set them to robbery? Detail from the cover of Crime SuspenStories #22 (April 10, 1954).
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