It Rhymes with Lust by Arnold Drake, Leslie Waller, & Matt Baker

I found out about this book around 2002.  A graphic novel from 1939 pre-dating modern graphic novels by 30 years.  Of course how could I track such an item down?  Much less at a price I’d be willing to pay.  As luck would have it, Dark Horse reprinted this in 2007 & that’s the version I ended up with.  It’s 120 pages at a time when comic stories were typically under ten pages, which is fairly fascinating to have a story ten times the standard length.  The afterward explains the book was in response to GIs getting hooked on comics in WWII & trying to do something slightly more sophisticated targeted to that audience.

It Rhymes with Lust is a crime story of political corruption like you might find in a number of movies & books from the era.  It has photo-realistic art & the panel layout is simple & easy to follow.  My main complaint would be some of the word balloons would have made more sense as though balloons.  It’s not mind-blowing today, but it probably is worth checking out for it’s historical importance.