Crime Illustrated

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Crime Illustrated was a black and white magazine published by EC Comics in late 1955 and early 1956. Part of EC's Picto-Fiction line, each magazine featured 3-5 stories. The artist would draw 1-4 panels per page and text was overlaid onto the artwork. The first issue appeared with a cover date of November-December 1955.

Crime Illustrated ended up lasting a total of 2 issues. The Picto-Fiction magazines lost money from the start and when EC's Distributor went bankrupt, they had no choice but to cancel them.

The editor of Crime Illustrated was Al Feldstein. As with EC's comics, Feldstein was the most prolific writer of this title, and generally wrote up to three stories per issue. In addition to the stories credited to him, Feldstein also wrote under the pennames 'Maxwell Williams' and 'Alfred E. Neuman'. Feldstein included multiple retellings of previous stories, a move suggested by publisher William Gaines. This included issue 1's 'Fall Guy For Murder' and 'Mother's Day' and issue 2's 'Screenplay for Murder' and 'Pieces of Hate'. Other contributing writers included Jack Oleck (who had worked as a writer on EC's earlier publications), Richard Smith and John Larner.

Artists featued in Crime Illustrated include Joe Orlando, Bernie Krigstein, Reed Crandall, Graham Ingels, George Evans, Jack Davis and Johnny Craig.

Crime Illustrated was reprinted along with the other Picto-Fiction magazines in hardbound volumes by Russ Cochran (and Gemstone Publishing) for the first time in 2006 as the final part of his Complete EC Library. These reprints also published for the first time the third issue of the title, which had been producted, but was never printed.

[edit] Issue guide

# Date Cover Artist Story Story Artist Story Writer
1 Dec 1955 Joe Orlando Fall Guy For Murder Bernard Krigstein & Reed Crandall Al Feldstein
The Sisters Joe Orlando Jack Oleck
Fool's Gold Graham Ingels Richard Smith
Farewell to Arms Reed Crandall John Larner
Mother's Day George Evans Alfred E. Neuman
2 April 1956 Reed Crandall Motive Reed Crandall Jack Oleck
Fair Trade Graham Ingels John Larner
Clean Sweep Joe Orlando Maxwell Williams
Screenplay for Murder Jack Davis Al Feldstein
Pieces of Hate Johnny Craig Alfred E. Neuman