Lawbreakers Always Lose

In the late 1940s, Bell Features published Lawbreakers Always Lose, a ten-issue crime comic that ran the gamut of postwar pulp justice. The series is best remembered for its gritty, shadow-drenched artwork, most frequently handled by Syd Shores and a young Gene Colan, whose moody visuals gave the straightforward tales of cops and criminals a noir-like intensity. It stands as a concise example of the pre-Comics Code crime genre, where the title’s promise of inevitable punishment was the only moral compass needed.