The Informer

    (Feature, 1954)
™ and © Feature Television Productions

The Informer was a late and relatively minor entry into the then-crowded crime comics genre in the early 1950s. Unlike its more famous and successful competitors like Crime Does Not Pay and Justice Traps the Guilty, The Informer focuses primarily on the straight-laced undercover cops rather than the sensational antics of the criminals. There’s a fair share of shoot-em-up violence, but the moral tone is much less dark and cynical than in many other crime books. Some combination of bad sales and the general backlash against adult-themed comics in the mid-50s doomed The Informer before the end of its first year. The artwork, reminiscent of both Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) and Jack Kirby (at that stage of his career the reigning king of the crime comics genre), was provided by a very young Mike Sekowsky, who later went on to better things as illustrator of DC’s Justice League of America.
Jump to issue:
  NotesWriterArtist