Crime SuspenStories #1 Gaines File Pedigree 5/9 (EC, 1950) CGC NM/MT 9.8 Off-white to white pages....

Auction amount: $26,400.00

Sold: Jun 29, 2025

Crime SuspenStories #1 Values

Publisher: EC, 1950

About Crime SuspenStories #1

Johnny Craig cover and art. Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and Graham Ingels art.

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COVER DETAILS

Pencils: Johnny Craig (signed)

Inks: Johnny Craig (signed)

Colors: Marie Severin

Letters: Jim Wroten

Notes: Colorist and letterer credits by Craig Delich.

STORY DETAILS

(6 Stories)

Title: Murder May Boomerang

Characters: unnamed father; unnamed son; Alvin Carcas (villain, name only)

Synopsis: Nearly inseparable, a father and son did everything in life together until that one day when a prisoner from a nearby penitentiary discovers the pair's cabin, where he steals clothing and nearly beats the father to death. Distraught, the son drives the father around, trying to locate the escapee, when the dazed father points out the villain, and the son runs him down with their car. Soon, however, the son realizes the father's mistaken identification.

Pages: 8.000

Script: Johnny Craig (signed)

Pencils: Johnny Craig (signed)

Inks: Johnny Craig (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Reprints: Crime SuspenStories (EC, 1950 series) #19 (October-November 1953)

Notes: Most of the story is told in flashback. Story likely inspired by Samuel Blas's story, "Revenge", which appeared in a 1947 issue of Colliers Magazine, and which later became the first episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV show in 1955.

Title: Death's Double-Cross

Characters: John Drakely (death?); the Drakely's doctor; Ruth Drakely (villain, John's wife); Ronald Drakely (villain, John's twin brother, death?)

Synopsis: Ruth was bored and lonely. Her two-year marriage to John was missing something: love, and she found it in John's twin brother. The two conspired to do away with John and thought they had.....but a little mole on the cheek of Ronald made Ruth wonder.

Pages: 7.000

Script: Bill Gaines (co-plot); Al Feldstein (co-plot, script)

Pencils: Wally Wood [as W. Allan Wood] (signed)

Inks: Wally Wood [as W. Allan Wood] (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Notes: Letterer credit by Craig Delich. Writer Feldstein likely used concepts found in James M. Cain's novels "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934) and "Double Indemnity" (1936) as a basis for this tale.

Title: Reward!

Characters: Ngami (native prospector, death); Carstairs (villain, prospector)

Synopsis: Carstairs had trailed a native prospector to his hut, hoping to steal a fabulous gem from him. Discovering the native dead, Carstairs lifted the jewel and left the hut as others began to approach the hut. The joy of the gem would be short lived, however.

Pages: 2.000

Script: Albert B. Feldstein

Pencils: ? (spot illustration)

Inks: ? (spot illustration)

Letters: typeset

Title: A Snapshot of Death!

Characters: Louie (pool hall proprietor); Frank Darrow (Jean's husband); Doctor Hartley (also in flashback); Jean Darrow; unnamed Policeman; "Red" Morgan (villain, death)

Synopsis: A woman enters a pool room and hires a man to kill a lady, whose picture she provides to him. Imagine his surprise when he notes that the photo is of the woman wanting the crime committed.

Pages: 6.000

Script: Bill Gaines (co-plot); Al Feldstein (co-plot, script)

Pencils: Graham Ingels

Inks: Graham Ingels

Letters: Jim Wroten

Notes: Cover story. Some of the story is told in flashback.

Title: Double Indemnity!

Characters: unnamed wife (death); unnamed husband (villain, death)

Synopsis: A man kills his wife after taking out a double-indemnity policy on her, then attempts to make her death look like an accident. But fate has a twist in store for him.

Pages: 1.000

Script: Albert B. Feldstein

Pencils: ? (spot illustration)

Inks: ? (spot illustration)

Letters: typeset

Title: High Tide!

Characters: unnamed bookkeeper (death); unnamed civil service worker (death); unnamed lawyer (death); unnamed ship's skipper (villain, death)

Synopsis: Four men on a mail boat leave the infamous Mephisto Prison and soon hear by radio of the escape of one of the prisoners. When the boat's engine, clogged with sand, brings the craft to a halt a ways off shore, all fingers begin to point to each other as the culprit.

Pages: 7.000

Script: Harvey Kurtzman

Pencils: Harvey Kurtzman

Inks: Harvey Kurtzman

Letters: Jim Wroten

Data Courtesy of Grand Comics Database under Creative Commons license

GoCollect Price Guide Report for this comic

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CGC Census Report*

Grade	0.5	1.0	1.5	1.8	2.0	2.5	3.0	3.5	4.0	4.5	5.0	5.5	6.0	6.5	7.0	7.5	8.0	8.5	9.0	9.2	9.4	9.6	9.8	9.9	10.0	Total
Universal	0	1	1	2	0	4	6	6	7	7	4	2	1	5	4	4	4	1	2	2	3	1	7	0	0	74
Qualified	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Signature Series	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Restored	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	8
Total	0	1	1	2	0	6	6	6	7	10	4	4	2	5	4	4	4	1	2	2	3	1	7	0	0	82

*All information listed is intended to be as accurate as possible, but errors are possible. No item may be returned or refused based on this information which is provided as a service to our customers. You should contact each pricing source directly to determine the accuracy of this information.

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