Who knows what I'm talking about? Not me!

September 18, 2006 10:52 AM

I have this vague memory of a comic or graphic novel I read one time about a man executed for a murder he didn't commit. Anyone know what it might be?

(It's possible this was a cartoon, but I'm pretty sure it was a comic book.)

So it's late one night.. I don't think the setting was obvious, but it suggested maybe the 40s or 50s, a night in the city, maybe it's snowing. A guy helps someone with their car, maybe it's a flat tire or something like that. Someone is murdered that night and this guy is arrested. Throughout his trial and whatnot he appeals for the person he helped that night to come forward, knowing that will establish his alibi. The witness is never found, and I think the guy is executed. Maybe the whole story takes place as a flashback while the man is sitting in prison on the night of his execution.

So yeah, anybody know what I'm talking about?

Or maybe the real murderer was the person in the car and the witness he wants to come forward just walked by or something.

posted by thirteenkiller to media & arts (6 answers total)

I can't confirm the title because I'm not near my books, but I'm almost certain that this is one of the EC Shock SuspenStories of the 1950s, probably the August/Sept 1952 story "Confession." I remember the story like this--a guy is picked up while changing a tire, he is beaten into a confession despite his innocence, and at the end the twist is that one of the cops was the actual killer, as revealed by a paint smear on the bumper of his car. Is that the one? If not, it's probably another one in that series.
posted by underwater at 11:03 AM on September 18, 2006

This also sounds like a cross between Identity and The Life of David Gale, although neither of those was in graphic form.
posted by jxpx777 at 1:17 PM on September 18, 2006

Ok, not that anyone's still following this, but it is possible that you're mixing up three Shock SuspenStories?

The first one is as I described above.

There's another one done as a flashback from the electric chair about a killer whose upbringing made him a criminal, but both he and everyone else just blames his bad character.

And the third has the courtroom thing you mentioned. It's a bit complicated. Matt and his wife conspire with an undertaker to fake Matt's death so he and his wife can collect the insurance money. They have just moved to a new place, so Matt wears a disguise around for several months so that it will be easy for him to return someday and not be recognized. He gets a knife as a murder weapon, they use someone else's blood, etc. He goes to South America for a year, expecting his wife to join later. When he doesn't hear from her, he returns, to find her and the undertaker living it up, and she pretends not to know him. Matt goes to the police to confess the whole thing, but no one believes that he is who he claims. Because his fingerprints were on the knife at the initial "murder" scene, he is convicted of murdering himself and is hanged!
posted by underwater at 7:56 PM on September 18, 2006

None of those really ring a bell, except maybe the first one. But I think we never knew who really did the murder. If I can find a copy of those comics I'll have a look. They sound kinda cool anyway.
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:52 AM on September 19, 2006

When did you read this comic? A month ago? 3 decades ago?
posted by malp at 7:17 AM on September 19, 2006

It was when I was a kid, maybe early 90s.
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:51 AM on September 20, 2006