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[erebain]

Hello all,

I've been trying to find comics that were inspired by the Leopold-Loeb case (the 1924 murder of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb), but so far have had little success. All I've found are newspaper comics from 1924, an issue of Pocket Chiller Library, two issues of Spider-Man, and Eightball by Clowes.

This was a prominent case when it happened, and with the amount of true crime and detective comics out there I felt sure that there would be more old comics telling the story. Can anyone recall seeing any comics you think were based on their case? Stories about them or fiction based on them would probably involve two male killers, maybe with alliterative last names, kidnaping and/or killing a random child. The killers would likely be young, rich, and have very little motive beyond superiority or a thrill. There might be wording used like 'perfect crime' or 'thrill kill,' as those were popular phrases used to describe their case.

I'm hoping to study the fiction that's been based on this case, and there's dozens of adaptations, but I have a significant gap from the 1920s-1950s which I'd like to flesh out, and the medium of comics is barley represented so far. Any help would be really appreciated!

[The Australian Panther]

That was a particularly disturbing crime and it is possible that it was deemed unsuitable for treatment in a comic format because children would have access to it.

[erebain]

That makes sense, I wondered if the age of the victim (14) and the implications of homosexuality may have made people reluctant to tell the story. Reading some of the other true crime comics on the site, most of them seem to focus on cases with adult victims.