Crime and Punishment #11

This February 1949 entry in Lev Gleason's crime anthology series features a cover by Charles Biro that tells its own little story: three convicts in striped prison suits celebrate wildly over a stash of buried cash, unaware that the blue-uniformed lawman crouching beside them has been in on it all along — his thought bubble making clear the escape was deliberately allowed so the crooks would lead authorities straight to the money. It's a sharp, lively scene that captures the series' "crime does not pay" ethos with genuine wit rather than just grimness. At a full 52 pages for a dime, this issue promises a satisfying stack of true criminal case histories drawn from the tradition that made Lev Gleason's titles some of the most talked-about crime comics of the era.