So my reaction to Pep Comics: I love 1940s anthologies. They are definitely a mixed bag. Most stories are mediocre but there is usually a treasure to found with at least one story. Pep had so many different genres in one title! I liked the Comet and Madame Satan stories. The rest were ok.

I think it was due the popularity of Famous Funnies and the like that helped make it common to see comic books in the 1930s and early 1940s be made up of a variety of features, and it was later that one saw more books being devoted to one character or group:

Noted!

Thoughts on Crimebuster

Well, you had my attention with that first splash page:



Beyond that, this is really a very traditional crime story, in which a millionaire is well aware their heir is plotting to kill them and thus sets up an elaborate form of retribution via an unorthodox will, which plays out after their murder early on in the tale. It's a story that's been done a thousand times prior to December of 1944, except...not with a legless street begger:



To be fair, while we readers of 2020 might find the image of a legless man on a rolling board shocking or perhaps absurd, they were much more common in an earlier era with less medicine and less means for people of need to get the medical equipment they deserve. I can only hope Pete (secretly being a millionaire) went home to a nice, comfy wheelchair after a hard day of begging.

Still, it's the visual of the legless man on wheels that really propels the rest of the story forward, as his will requires the fake best friend who he knew would murder him to lose his own legs before getting the inheritance. It gets...strange after that.



Really strange.



Shocking and strange.



But that's essentially the entire draw of the story -- a legless man in horrific action scenes. A little...tasteless, even in spite of the sympathy Biro tries to build for amputees and street beggars early on in the story.


I will say that I like Crimebuster far more than any of the heroes we've yet found in either Planet Comics or Pep. It's not so much that he has a personality, but more that the constant reminder that he should be the weaker guy makes each of his fights admirable. He's not only an unarmed, non-powered kid, but that homemade costume is an unavoidable reminder, each panel, that this guy is NOT some A list crimefighter, making each punch he lands all the more impressive.




Good suggestion, Crimebuster!

In recent times it has come to my attention that the vocally concerned like Fredric Wertham weren’t really in favor of censorship, and thus not the 1954 code, but more so attempted to encourage responsibility and to make sure children weren’t exposed to gore, as well as speaking out against racial caricatures (Charles Murphy’s lunatic response to the race-related Judgment Day being separate from Wertham’s actions) which were common before the 60s and sexualized images of women, likely talking about the good girl art. I honestly feel a ratings system, which movies would later have in the 60s, would have been seen as more favorable to the Senate as opposed to censorship.

Of course, when has a ratings system ever proven effective? I bought all the "explicit lyrics" albums I wanted as an adolescent, and when I taught middle school, all my kids were playing Grand Theft Auto.

There really is no perfect solution, but while the Comics Code caused a lot of turmoil and put a lot of good people out of business, I don't think it was as insanely evil a concept as modern comic historians often make it out to be. Some stuff out there really shouldn't have been put in the hands of kids, and there should have been some effort on the part of publishers to help prevent that.

You're right that full blown censorship wasn't the way. I'm not sure there was a right way, but it was appropriate to do something.