You can keep your dime-store rags. This one’s a fifteen-cent special, and it’s got a story for every nickel. Complete Detective Cases, November 1940. It’s the kind of magazine you’d find rolled up in a trench coat pocket, smelling of cheap tobacco and stale coffee.
This isn’t a collection of high-minded literature. This is the raw stuff, the kind that gets your hands dirty. Inside, you’ll find true crime tales with titles that scream from the newsstand: “Love Monster of Fall River” and “Harlot of the Highways and the Nude Corpse”. They’re not pretty stories, but then, the truth never is.
The artists, Kirby and Simon, they know their stuff. Their illustrations are all high contrast and deep shadows, perfect for a world where everyone’s got something to hide. It’s a quick trip into the seedy underbelly of America, a peek at the real stories that don’t make it to the front page of the morning paper. It’s raw, it’s brutal, and it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.
Jack Hammer. Keeping an eye on the gutter, because that’s where the best stories are born.
- Thrilling Detective Magazine 1953
- Image of Evil 1963 by Paul Russo
- Gripping Detective Stories 1954-03
- SENSATION Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1939: The First Hit
- IT’S A MAN’S WORLD: The Raw, The Real, and The Red
- COMPLETE DETECTIVE CASES: A Dime-Store Trip to the Gutter
