Hillman Commits to Crime in Clue Comics, at Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: crime comics, Hillman Periodicals

Hillman hired Crime Does Not Pay creators Charles Biro and Bob Wood to launch Clue Comics for them, but it seems not to have worked as planned.

Article Summary

Hillman hired Charles Biro and Bob Wood for Clue Comics, aiming for a crime comic but launched a superhero/adventure series.
The Boy King and His Giant headlined Clue Comics initially, before a hiatus and shift to crime elements in 1946.
Gun Master debuted in Clue Comics with a unique anti-gun stance, contrasting crime comic trends of the era.
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby joined later, transitioning Clue Comics to traditional crime comics before the 1947 reboot.

Charles Biro and Bob Wood’s exceedingly brief late 1942 stint at Hillman Periodicals is an interesting historical oddity. The pair had been editors at publisher Lev Gleason for nearly a year by that time, and had three issues of Crime Does Not Pay under their belts. Hillman, as the publisher of true crime magazines such as Crime Confessions and Real Detective, certainly seems to have meant for the title Clue Comics to be a crime or detective-oriented comic book as well. And had hired the team behind one of comics’ hottest new releases in Crime Does Not Pay to help them create that new crime comic, just four months after CDNP launched.

Clue Comics V2#2 (Hillman Publications, 1947)

Hillman was attempting to reboot their entire comics line at this time with new editor Ed Cronin after a one-year hiatus from comics. Air Fighters Comics returned with issue #2, introducing Airboy with art by Biro and a story by Bob Wood’s brother (and frequent Lev Gleason contributor) Dick Wood. Biro and Dick Wood clearly understood the assignment here, and the relaunched Air Fighters Comics with Airboy would be a success.

But if Hillman wanted a crime comic from the launch of Clue Comics, which seems likely, they didn’t get it. Despite claims on the early covers that it was a crime comic book, it was pretty obviously a superhero/adventure series. Biro and Bob Wood’s contribution was an unusual feature called The Boy King and His Giant, about the young king of the central European kingdom of Swisslakia and the giant, Golem-like statue that he controlled. Were Biro and Bob Wood unable to deliver something similar to CDNP due to obligations to Lev Gleason? Impossible to say absent some evidence, but their freelance moonlighting stint for Hillman ended after four months. The Boy King continued as the cover feature until Clue Comics #8, to be replaced by an equally unusual robot named Paris for the cover of issue #9. Hillman must have been less than thrilled with the result, because the comic then went on hiatus for two years.

When the series returned in late 1946 with Clue Comics #10 it moved a little closer towards crime comics material, but still had a highly unusual approach. That issue contains the debut of a character the likes of which one wouldn’t expect to find in a late Golden Age comic book: the Gun Master, who swore to “crusade against the gun.” The title page blurb sets the stage:

There was once before a great threat to the life of the world… yes… a threat of unlimited destruction… and as much feared as today’s atomic power! It all began ages ago with a blinding flash of light in the silent regions of forbidding Tibet… it was the birth of the gun.

From there, the story develops a character that is surprising in the context of the comic books of the time. With the popularity of crime comic books on the rise, Hillman’s Gun Master set himself apart with an explicit anti-gun message. The Gun Master series lasted until the end of the short-lived Clue Comics title, but the original thrust of the Gun Master feature had been diluted by that point. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby came on board the series with more traditional crime comics fair for the final three issues of this title. One can almost hear editor Ed Cronin pleading throughout the series for the kind of cover that Crime Does Not Pay often featured, and finally getting it with Dan Barry’s rather startling piece for Clue Comics V2 #2. The series was rebooted in 1947 as a much more traditional crime comic under the title Real Clue Crime Stories v2 #4. But the original Clue Comics finally hit its target towards the end of its run, and there’s a CGC FN+ 6.5 copy of Clue Comics V2#2 (Hillman Publications, 1947) up for auction in the 2024 October 24 – 25 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40272 at Heritage Auctions.