Crimes by Women

    (Fox, 1948-1951)
™ and © Fox

Violence, vice, and really tight dresses—it didn’t take the geniuses at Fox Features Syndicate long to discover the winning formula for Crimes by Women, a notable contribution to both the crime comics and cheesecake genres popular in the late 1940s and 50s. Purporting to detail “true crime cases,” Crimes by Women spotlighted the careers of notorious femmes fatales like Bonnie Parker (of “and Clyde” fame), plus assorted gun molls, fast women, black widow killers, and good girls gone wrong. Crimes by Women adopted the characteristic crime comics’ tone that all these crimes were “so very, very wrong,” while the artwork lavished detail on every feminine curve and blood-spattered massacre. Unfortunately, the same qualities that made Crimes by Women a hit also ran it afoul of the Comics Code and the title was swept from the stands in 1954.
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