Casey Crime Photographer

A quick look back to a simpler time, when comics weren't based on the big mega movie, or even the latest TV series, but instead were based on novels and radio shows.

Such is the case with Casey - Crime Photographer!

The creation of novelist George Harmon Coxe, Jack "Flashgun" Casey was a feature of the pulp magazine Black Mask and in novels, as well as being a radio show before becoming a comic book.   

It followed the adventures of Morning Express photographer Casey, reporter Ann Williams, with Casey reporting his activities to Ethelbert, bartender at the Blue Note jazz club.

The first cover was a combination photograph and art by Allen Anderson, with interior art by Vern Henkel (with no writer on record)., and typical of the hard hitting crime based comics that were popular in the day.

Casey - Crime Photographer #1 and #2 (August and October, 1949)

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Casey - Crime Photographer #3 and #4 (December, 1949 and February, 1950)

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After the comic series, the feature was turned into a TV show, airing from April 19, 1951 to June 5, 1952, with Jan Miner playing Ann Williams (as she did on the radio show), and from April to June, 1951, Richard Carlyle was Casey, to be replaced by Darren McGavin for the rest of its run, who said of the series: "it was so bad it was never rerun, and that's saying something when you recall the caliber of television programs in those days".  

Darren would take the lead as a much more beloved (by the audience) reporter for the INS as Kolchak the Night Stalker, and the Casey comic turned into Two Gun Western #5 (November, 1950).