Crime Does Not Pay #147

Produced by Charles Biro and bearing his cover signature, this July 1955 installment of Crime Does Not Pay promises five police crackdowns drawn straight from real case files. The cover scene — rendered by Biro — catches two officers crouched over a bulging U.S. Mail sack stuffed with cash while a third, gun drawn, cautions two suspicious men at an open doorway, the tense whispered exchange playing out in lively speech bubbles. Rounding out the promise of pulse-quickening procedural drama, the cover teases a mystery clue ("a lone shoe on a highway — what does it mean?") and bills the contents as "the most daring police action in a state's history," making issue #147 a fine snapshot of mid-1950s crime comics at their most energetically reported.