Number 2111: Legs Diamond, the human target

Jack “Legs” Diamond, infamous Prohibition-era gangster, was the target of killers four separate times. In the first three attempts at rubbing him out, Legs got a total of ten bullets in him. He survived each of those attacks. He might have felt invincible. But he ran with a rough crowd, and he did not survive the last attack in 1931, when a couple of goons put two bullets in his head. Goodbye, Legs!

Legs had a girlfriend, Marion “Kiki” Roberts. In this crime comics version of Legs’s life and career, Kiki becomes “Diki.” The editors would do that sometimes when the person they were referring to was still alive. Kiki, who had been a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, went on the road with her newfound notoriety, after Legs was safely dead.

Artwork by Bob Q. Siege. From Crime Does Not Pay #44 (1945).

“It’s the Truth”

With this issue of Crime Does Not Pay, a 16-page rotogravure section was included with the comic book. It was done in standard detective magazine style, with lurid text articles like “The Riddle of the Bludgeoned Beauty!” and “‘That’s the Killer!’ Shrieked the Parrot!” The section included little fillers called “It’s the Truth” with things every young crime comics reader should know about hanging, the gas chamber, and accidental death by firearms. Also, an informational bit for young murderers: how not to make the mistake of placing a gun in a dead man’s hand, to make it look as if he used it on himself.

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