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Charles Biro (; May 12, 1911 – March 4, 1972) was an American comic book creator and cartoonist. He created the comic book characters Airboy and Steel Sterling, and worked on Daredevil Comics and Crime Does Not Pay at Lev Gleason Publications.
Biro worked as artistic supervisor (as well as writer and artist) for MLJ until 1941, writing and drawing such characters as Steel Sterling (a character he created)Brancatelli, Joe "Biro, Charles (1911-1972)" in Maurice Horn (ed.), The World Encyclopedia of Comics (Chelsea House Publishers, 2nd ed., 1999) , pp. 134-135 and Sgt. Boyle, before moving to Lev Gleason Publications, for whom he would work for the next 15 years.
While working for Gleason, Biro held the roles of editorial director, head writer and cover artist. According to comics historians Jerry Bails and Hames Ware, Biro did not do much, if any, interior artwork after 1942, focusing solely on covers.
For Gleason, he produced a number of titles, among them (with Bob Wood) Chuck "Crimebuster" Chandler, who appeared in Boy Comics (1942–1956). Chandler is described by Joe Brancatelli as "a hero, yes, but first a boy... arguably the best-handled boy's adventure feature ever to appear in comics." Later, he marketed "the first full adult comic book, Tops, a 1949 experiment in full color and standard magazine size" (which lasted two issues, July and September 1949).
The title is described as: "an above-average Golden Age superhero title from quality-conscious Lev Gleason Publishing which''
Joe Brancatelli, in Maurice Horn's The World Encyclopedia of Comics (2nd ed.) described the pre-Biro Daredevil as "Gleason's top seller and a fine superhero concept in its own right... created by Don Rico and Jack Binder", swiftly taken over by Biro, who then performed a "miraculous job" with the title, through which his "real talent became known." The Lambiek Comiclopedia similarly calls Biro's "guiding of ' Daredevil'" "one of his most impressive feats." Charles Biro at Lambiek's Comiclopedia. Accessed August 29, 2008
Biro was joined by writer-artist Basil Wolverton and Dick Briefer in Daredevil Comics. In issue #13 (October 1942) Biro introduced the "Little Wise Guys," echoing such junior characters as the Jack Kirby-created Newsboy Legion for DC Comics. The Wise Guys comprised Curly, Jocko, Peewee, Scarecrow and Meatball, with Meatball meeting an early death—"a rare moment in comics of the days." By the late 1940s, with superheroes going out of fashion, the Little Wise Guys took center stage, and "Daredevil unmasked and became a mentor to the kids, who eventually pushed the title character out of his own comic book." After writing the adventures of Daredevil between 1941 and 1950, with issue #70 (January 1950), Biro continued to write "Little Wise Guys" stories until the series ended with issue #134 (September 1956).
In October 1955, he wrote and illustrated the first of around 13The 13th issue of Poppo (released in the third week of January 1956) is thought to be the final issue, as per: Miller, J. J., Maggie Thompson, Peter Bickford and Frankenhoff, Brent, The Comic Buyer's Guide Standard Catalog of Comic Books, 4th Edition (KP Books, 2005) - "Poppo of the Popcorn Theatre", p. 1066 issues of a weekly humor book entitled Poppo of the Popcorn Theatre for Fuller, which was "virtually ignored."
"Usually regarded as the comic book industry's first crime title," the series started with Crime Does Not Pay #22 (July 1942), carrying on the numbering from Silver Streak Comics #21. The landmark title was the result of bar talk between Biro and Wood (both alumni of the Harry "A" Chesler Shop Nicky Wright "Seducers of the Innocent". Accessed August 29, 2008), who worked together regularly.
Part of "the allure of the series" was due to Biro's narrator, "Mr. Crime" (a prototype for the more famous EC Comics The Vault-Keeper).
The series immediately spawned a plethora of imitators, but "throughout its run, Crime Does Not Pay was always the best-written, best-illustrated, and best-edited crime title, and it was always the best-selling title, as well." Although it can arguably be said to have been a major factor in the comics witchhunts of the 1950s, it is fair to note that it stood apart from its more tawdry imitators:
Indeed, Brancatelli claims that "for several years during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Boy, Daredevil and Crime Does Not Pay all were the three best-selling titles in a comic field of over 400 competitors."
He died on March 4, 1972, and was nominated for induction into the Eisner Awards in both 1998 and 2000, before being formally inducted in 2002.
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