Crime Does Not Pay #65

This July 1948 entry in Lev Gleason's long-running crime anthology finds four sharply dressed gangsters in the middle of a tense doorway confrontation — one man forces his way through an apartment door while his accomplices cover the stairwell, speech balloons crackling with tough-guy menace about stoolies, rods, and fire escapes. Charles Biro's cover art captures the coiled, street-level tension that made Crime Does Not Pay the self-proclaimed "original and best" true crime comics magazine, boasting over six million readers monthly in 1948. Inside, Dan Barry handles writing, art, and inks for a story centered on the grimly nicknamed "Happy" Malone — a character whose very name promises a good, dark irony.