Crime SuspenStories #20
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCrime SuspenStories #20 occupies a singular place in comics history as one of the documented exhibits in Dr. Fredric Wertham's 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, with its Johnny Craig hanging-corpse cover reproduced as illustration #10 in that anti-comics polemic. The issue was also formally identified as one of 24 comics displayed on a board of 'representative' crime and horror covers during the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings of 1954 — a watershed moment that directly precipitated the industry's self-imposed Comics Code Authority and effectively ended EC's entire pre-Code line. It therefore stands as primary-source evidence of the cultural collision between EC's sophisticated, noir-inflected crime storytelling and the moral-panic campaign that reshaped American comics for nearly six decades.
"Fire Trap!" is a chilling tale from Crime SuspenStories #20 (1953), a standout issue written, drawn, and inked by Johnny Craig, with vibrant colors by Marie Severin and sharp lettering by Jim Wroten. Set in a gothic estate where greed and betrayal simmer beneath a polished surface, the story follows Georgia, a wife whose marriage is a transaction, as her plan to eliminate her husband Martin spirals into a deadly game of deception. The cover, also by Johnny Craig, captures the tension with a stark, dramatic image that perfectly previews the story’s dark turn.
In "Fire Trap!", Georgia schemes to eliminate her wealthy husband Martin, orchestrating a deadly plan with her lover Bill to trap Martin in a stable with a vicious new horse. But Martin, sharp and calculating, turns the tables—dispatching Bill and hiding the body before setting a final trap of his own. When the authorities uncover Bill’s corpse and find Georgia’s scarf around his neck, the evidence points squarely to her, though the truth of what really happened remains buried beneath the estate’s secrets.
In "The Welchers," two desperate cousins plot to kill their wealthy uncle to settle a debt to a gangster, but their plan backfires when they botch the attempt by tampering with his insulin. Now trapped by the very criminals they sought to outwit, they face a grim fate as the mob exacts brutal retribution—sentenced to cement shoes and a final drop into the harbor.
In "Double Jeopardy," a jealous Hollywood writer sets a trap to expose his sister Nan’s boyfriend Eddie as a fraud—only to witness a chilling act of violence that turns his plan into a nightmare. With Nan’s life now in danger, the truth about Eddie’s intentions unfolds in a moment of shocking betrayal.
In "Plane Murder," a gripping tale from Crime SuspenStories #20, aerial daredevil Phil faces a deadly game of revenge when his wife Milly, aware of his sabotage that caused Marty’s death, takes matters into her own hands—by tampering with the key he relies on to free himself mid-air.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Published with a cover date of December 1953–January 1954 (on-sale date of record: August 13, 1953) by EC Comics under managing editor Bill Gaines and associate editor Al Feldstein, the issue was produced at the height of EC's 'New Trend' crime anthology run — a bimonthly series that drew consciously on film noir and the hardboiled short-fiction tradition of writers such as James M. Cain and Cornell Woolrich. Johnny Craig, who served as the title's lead artist and writer for the bulk of its run, handled the cover and the eight-page lead story; interior stories were scripted by Feldstein and co-plotted with Gaines, with art from Jack Davis, Jack Kamen, and Reed Crandall. The issue appeared at almost precisely the moment Craig was transitioning to an editorial role at The Vault of Horror, making this one of his last covers on the series.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published December 1953–January 1954 (EC Comics); on-sale date recorded as August 13, 1953 per copyright registration B429466.
- Cover by Johnny Craig depicts a hanging corpse and was reproduced as illustration #10 in Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (1954).
- The issue was one of 24 comics displayed on an exhibit board at the 1954 U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings under the label 'representative comic book covers — crime, horror & weird variety.'
- Interior art credits: Johnny Craig (lead story 'Fire Trap!', script and art); Jack Davis ('The Welchers', co-plotted by Gaines and Feldstein); Jack Kamen ('Double Jeopardy'); Reed Crandall ('Plane Murder', loosely based on William Faulkner's 1935 novel Pylon).
- Edited by Al Feldstein (associate editor) and Bill Gaines (managing editor); cover price was 10 cents for 36 pages.
- The series was cancelled in 1954 — one of five EC titles Gaines shut down due to distributor pressure following the Senate hearings and the establishment of the Comics Code Authority.
- Stories across the issue's four tales all follow the crime-anthology formula EC perfected: morality-play twist endings in which perpetrators are undone by the very schemes they devise.
- The complete run of Crime SuspenStories, including this issue, has been reprinted multiple times: in Russ Cochran's Complete EC Library hardbacks (1983), as individual Cochran/Gemstone issues (1992–1999), and in the Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library series (2016–present), which reprinted individual stories from #20 in black-and-white volumes.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Crime Suspenstories #4 (1983), Iskalde Grøss #3/1989 (1989), Iskalde Grøss #4/1994 (1994), Iskalde Grøss #5/1994 (1994), Crime Suspenstories #20 (1997), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #15 (2016), The EC Archives: Crime Suspenstories #3 (2017), The EC Archives: Crime Suspenstories #4 (2019), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #31 (2021), Comics Signatures #4 (2022), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #33 (2023), Artisan Edition #[16] (2024), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library #37 (2024)
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