Saturday, June 28, 2008

Excuse For Murder

We’re going to finish out the month on a wild, 3 day detour into the realm of horrific crime horror. And if you’ve already glanced down at the splash panel then you’ll probably agree that shooting someone point blank in the face is pretty horrific, but also add elements concerning heroin addiction, excessive corpse violence, hints of rape etc, what you wind up with is one stunning bit of sensibly illustrated, extremely well written, non-supernatural pre-code. That’s right, no ghosts or ghoulies this weekend, just bloodcurdling violence from the back alleys of evil... and the phenomenal Johnny Dynamite series was one of the most notorious of them all.

From the September 1953 issue of Dynamite #3










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Vintage 50's ad
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Wanna see more kooky pre-code crime comedy? Chuck’s Comic Book Catacombs is hosting a “lighter side of crime” special all this weekend, where you can see other random odds and ends from Karswell’s Kollection that won't be found on THOIA! Don't miss it!

9 comments:

Chuck Wells said...

Great to see Johnny Dynamite here, Karswell, and pre-eyepatch to boot.

See ya' tomorrow!

Mr. Cavin said...

Thanks, Uncle Johnny you're really swell!

Awesome. I could stand about ten more pages of this, as Dynamite moves from person to person, accusing everyone in Chicago of killing Maxie Stull with a dum dum bullet, and each and every one of them admitting to actually doing it. There is a certain prerequisite in crime and mystery fiction, I guess, to begin with the most surreal puzzle pieces it is still possible to make fit together plausibly by the end of the story. Right? I would love to see that happen in the other direction more often (only one Twin Peaks is not enough).

silvano said...

After the recent "tributes" this stuff seems quite ordinay ; that's a decent pre-code mistery comic tough , and with a killer ( no pun intended ) splash page !
Thanks

Anonymous said...

Strange how the most frightening stories you've posted have involved violence by ordinary humans,and how all of us seem to recognize this.shows that we're all not just gorehounds with no taste(unless it involves cheesecake,that is.).

Dave Tackett said...

Love it, from the gory splash page to the cute comedy!

The Vicar of VHS said...

Boy, Johnny's niece is STACKED at the bottom of pg. 7. Wasn't this the age before implants?

Interesting crime story, but even more interesting to see the gender roles being played out here. Johnny is gruff and impatient--I mean, it's fine to tell how he put the clues together, but was it absolutely necessary to hurl a rolled-up rug at her head? He also threatens to knock it out of her, and seems to half-way hope he'll have to. :) And then later, once he decides the doll's innocent--"Lemme take you to the fights, with no explanation, and later I'll buy you a beer if you're 'good.' " And of course Cora thinks this is just swell!

Well, at least she stands up to him when he offers her a smoke that is "not her brand." That's tellin' him, toots!

Interesting change of pace here, and the splash (or should I say "splat") page is very grim indeed.

Make mine a pack of Chesties. (iykwim)

Mr. Karswell said...

Great comments today you pack of hooligans, and thanks for spending your Saturday morning with us. There's lots more Johnny Dynamite out there too for those interested... after the '53-'54 Comic Media Dynamite series ended JD got another run over at Charlton for a few issues in '55, plus appearences in another one of their mags called Foreign Intrigues. Dark Horse even revived the character in the mid 90's with a cool mini series that you can still find easily enough everywhere in affordable back issues and/or a collected tpb. Renegade Press also reprinted some stories in the back of their cool Ms. Tree series n the 80's. Hopefully Renegade paid Waugh and Morisi some money for these reprints so I don't get yelled at here for just mentioning it.

Dane said...

Wow, this could have been written yesterday for the topicality. And as a broad who'll never see 30 again myself, I appreciated the artist's kindness in depicting Cora despite that description. :)

bzak said...

Howdy,

I really like Morisi's stuff. Check out the Wikipedia entry on him. The guy was a real NYPD cop in Brooklyn!

Brian James Riedel