Today in Comics History, April 1: April Fool around and find out

As we saw last night, the night of March 31 (HINT HINT HINT), scientist Victor Gattling has turned himself into the police for murdering his best friend and co-worker Joe, startling all the boys in blue, especially when Vic tells them Joe murdered him first! How could such a thing even be possible?!? Well, first, it's a tale from an EC comic. Second...


from "This'll Kill You!" in Crime SuspenStories #23 (EC, June 1954), script by Otto Binder, pencils and inks by Reed Crandall, colors by Marie Severin, letters by Jim Wroten
Joe fell and accidentally injected Vic with Hypno-Helio-Static-Stasis (containing X-4) Virus Y-44-Gamma, so you'll expect he's about to turn into Victor-Hulk. Sadly, no, it just means what it means in the real world: Vic's gonna die. No antidote, no tomorrow, no picnic in the park this Saturday, no seeing the opening of The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters in a few weeks, even though it's sure to be the #1 box-office draw for the entire summer blockbuster season.

Notably, Joe's all broken up about it. So, for slightly better reason, is Vic.


Knowing you have only 24 hours to live, what would you do? Make peace with your family? Go speak to a minister? Eat all the cookies you could possibly hold? Naw, not Vic. He goes back later to the lab and murders Joe todeath with a microscope! (A small crime, then. They oughta let him slide for that. certainly none of his actions could magnify his crime. Um...ah...microscope!)


Still, after that amoeba-disturbin' murder, Vic comes to his senses and realizes he's going to have to live the rest of his life (less than 24 hours) with that guilt. He drags Joe's body to the police station — geez, there wasn't a trolley in that lab? — and confesses to the crime. But what can they do to him? Vic will die anyway (checks watch)...slightly less than at the beginning of this paragraph.


Give yerself a gold star or a No-Prize or one of the coverted EC Irony Awards if you, the reader, has sussed out exactly what happened and what day this is happening...


Good Lord! Choke!