Steve Duncan

Drawn by Cal Massey
(1926-2019)

STEVE DUNCAN was a licensed investigator (“Please don’t call me a private eye”) who appeared in 25 issues of The Perfect Crime comic book in the early fifties– and in every one of them, his was the kick-off story. Although he was mentioned on the cover often, none of the illustrations on the cover were taken from his stories.

Go figure…

Not that he was much different from his contemporaries. He was a tall, good-looking doofus, a cigarette smoker who was always stylishly dressed (he preferred tailor-made suits), and he had the obligatory attractive secretary–in his case, blonde-haired Lou Lynn–and the equally  obligatory police buddy, cranky M.R. Grimshaw of the Homicide Squad.

The plots were similarly familiar: damsels in distress, mobsters, blackmailers, etc.–all of which Steve, after getting beat up, thrown around and narrowly cheating death a few times, managed to solve.

Without a gun.

He didn’t carry one.

So, passable fare but nothing spectacular.

The biggest mystery, in fact, may be why Steve went from sporting a healthy head of dark hair, flecked by white streaks, in the early stories to becoming a blond about midway through his run in “Super Cargo” in the November 1951 issue. All the stories were drawn by (and possibly written by) Cal Massey, so it can’t be due to a change in artists.

And while we’re on it, what happened to his putter? Early on, clients would meet him in his office where he was constantly practicing his putting.

As for the comic he appeared in, The Perfect Crime, well, the anthology of crime stories (Steve was the only regular) only lasted a few years–much like its publisher, Cross Comics. They only published comics from 1949-1953, and three-quarters of its output was The Perfect Crime.

Perhaps The Perfect Crime‘s biggest claim to fame, though, is how often they banged the “Crime Doesn’t Pay” drum.  Disclaimers on the cover and even on banners running across the pages all informed readers (and reassured parents), again and again, that:

• “There was NO perfect crime!”
• “All crime is IMPERFECT!”
• “A criminal’s first mistake is always his LAST one!”
• “Gun courage is FALSE courage!”
• “Police archives are filled with ALMOST perfect crimes!”
• “The saddest men in the world are those behind prison bars!”

And so on…

It’s almost like Cross knew that Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent was coming.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

It’s unclear who created or wrote the Steve Duncan stories, but Cal Massey definitely pencilled and inked them. All of them. A fine artist and illustrator, he worked in American comics from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, drawing stories for The Perfect Crime for Cross Publications, before moving after graduating from the Hussain School of Art in Philadelphia in 1950. He continued working in comics, drawing for Timely-Atlas, St. John Publishing, Lev Gleason and Story Comics. Later in the fifties, he moved on from comics to magazine illustration and advertising  for agencies in Philadelphia and New York, before joining the Franklin Mint, designing commemorative pieces. But there was more to come. A Black man, he was celebrated for his sculptures and paintings that honored African-Americans and their contributions to American culture and society. “Calvin led a fabulous life,” his widow, Iris Massey said. “He was the only Black artist that has both a statue that he designed in Valley Forge Park and at Ellis Island, at the Statue of Liberty. He designed Olympic medals. There were just so many fabulous things he did. It would have been unusual for anybody to have done in a lifetime.”

COMICS

• THE PERFECT CRIME
  (1951-53, Cross)
  33 issues
  Artists: Cal Massey
  Crime anthology

• • “The Deadlier of the Species” (December 1950; #7)
  • “Alibi for a Killer!” (January 1951; #8)
  • “Actors Also Die” (February 1951; #9)
  • “Thrill Show Murders!” (March 1951, #10)
  • “The Shake-Down Murder” (April 1951; #11)
  • “The Venus de Milo Murders” (May 1951; #12)
  • “Hired to Die!” (June 1951; #13)
  • “The Fatal Mistake” (July 1951; #14)
  • “The Man Who Died Twice!” (August 1951, #15)
  • “The Politician’s Cameo” (September 1951; #16)
  • “Death Rides the Waves” (October 1951; #17)
  • “Super Cargo” (November 1951; #18)
  • “The $100,000 Hoax” (December 1951; #19)
  • “Chorus Girl Murders” (January 1952; #20)
  • “Microfilm and Murder” (February 1952; #21)
  • “Boom Town” (March 1952; #22)
  • “The Mad Mobster” (April 1952; #23)
  • “Murder Mountain” (May 1952; #24)
  • “Killing is My Hobby” (June 1952; #25)
  • “Murder at Sea” (July 1952; #26)
  • “The Perfect Inside Job” (August 1952; #27)
  • “When Killers Return” (September 1952; #28)
  • “The Man Who Murdered Himself” (October 1952; #29)
  • “The Fighter and the Fixer” (November 1952; #30)
  • “The Death of Mr. Murder” (January 1953; #31)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.