The Crime Octopus, as you can read in the ad above, was a limited run strip written by none other than Walter Gibson, the creator of the Shadow. The strip was to tell the history of mob activity in the U.S. Apparently newspapers weren’t too interested in a historical strip about mob activity, and the strip is exceedingly rare. The only paper that is known to have run it, and then I only know it from a promotional ad they ran, is the Detroit News. The ad says they would start printing the strip on April 15, 1951. Not having reviewed the microfilm of that paper, I don’t know if they really did, or whether they printed the complete series.
Does anyone have a run of this strip?
This comic ran in the St. Petersburg Times. The #1 ran on April 24, 1951 (http://tinyurl.com/nf9c5b) and continued until May 21, 1951 (http://tinyurl.com/mspkko), with #28, the end. I believe all issues are available through Google News Archive, but some are very badly scanned (or preserved).
Wow, great catch Fram! I need to credit you for that find in my index, so if you could email your real name I'll make you (just barely) famous.
–Allan
I've emailed it!
I too found it at the Washington Star and I am now clipping them for a complete run on my blog.