"Yes Robin, I've become a human 'fish'!"

The interesting book Comics: Between the Panels has a look at amusing comic book covers from yesteryear. For instance, this 1958 issue of Batman #118 (Merman Batman!) provides a chuckle.

But if you want some REAL comic fun, than More Fun Comics (#54, 1940) is for you.

Yeesh. 

Crime comics provide smirks of a more pained variety, to wit, this snappy repartee from Headline Comics (#29, 1948).

"Sorry fella! We're hired killers! In our business, we don't make lasting friendships!"

Two more increasingly reprehensible examples after the break.

The Crime and Punishment comic book (#2, 1948) made its stance on lawbreakers pretty clear: "Crime Does Not Pay" "Obey the Law" "Dedicated to the Eradication of Crime"). If that's not enough, the miscreant robbing the blind war vet makes for a cautionary tale.

On the other end of the morality spectrum was the lurid Law Breakers Suspense Stories (#11, 1953). 

"I know you are a mute, Miss Kimberly, but even if you COULD yell, the people downstairs couldn't call the police, you see . . . I already cut all their tongues out!"

Yeesh redux. And to think this was on newsstands in the 1950s.