Gwandanaland Comics #2037

The second volume of this Jack Cole treasury spotlights his hard-hitting work for True Crime Comics, and the reproduced cover art says it all — a sweating, wide-eyed criminal grips prison bars while a gun looms large overhead, a $100 reward poster names fugitive James Kent as "crook, murderer, escaped convict," and a police officer watches from above as chaos erupts below. It's a vivid snapshot of the raw, uncompromising energy that made pre-code crime comics so electrifying. Gwandanaland's 2018 collection is a great way to dig into Cole's distinctive crime-comics style in one well-assembled package.