Hi Gang,
Here's another new topic for this section.
Anti-Comics Hysteria of the 50s. This one will include Dr Wertham and the birth of the Comics Code Authority. If you can read Spanish I
highly recommend this blog on this topic with dozens of samples.
https://www.tebeosfera.com/documentos/comics_y_delincuencia_juvenil_en_estados_unidos_durante_la_golden_age.htmlComics have always been looked down on by the other American media starting way back when the comic strips were kings in newspaper publishing and some popular artists were making a
lot of money in bidding wars for their talents.
But what seems to happen to many popular diversions for kids comics were circled out as being 'bad for kids' that would ruin their eyes as well as moral threats likely to turn them into illiterates. Pool halls, dime novels and pinball machines had the same labels put on them and we all know movies, rock'n'roll, television, video games and social media have all had their turn.
I'll be sharing several pics I've collected on the topic over the years but you can see many more at this Canadian site
'A Crisis of Innocence': http://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/"An online exhibition that investigates the widespread public outcry over comic books, and the ill-effects the horror and crime genres in particular. The site archives several hundred legal, legislative, academic, and popular media documents chronicling the controversy."David Hajdu, in his book
'The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux-2008)
https://www.amazon.ca/Ten-Cent-Plague-Comic-Book-Changed-America/dp/0312428235goes into the anti-comics hysteria in minute detail for those that really want to dig into the topic. I highly recommend it.
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1941-magazine-rack.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1942.04.17-Family_Circle_issue.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1947.07.26-pittsburgh_post_gazette.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1948-Dr_Wertham.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1948.04-Time_Mag._Comm._Harry_S._Toy.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1948.07-Notable_comic_fan_David_Wigransky.jpg
1 2 3 4 5 6With the end of WWII soldiers were returning home and babies soon followed. A 'boom' of them even. Reports of juvenile delinquency became a concern. Parents started wondering what could made their kids so bad. Looking around they noticed how many comics they were reading. During the war comics were at their peek of popularity. Millions of them were sold each month. Due to this and the unfortunate fact comics were almost always perceived as entertainment for very young children they made a convenient target for moral crusaders.
Children's author Sterling North would write a scathing and very popular editorial in the
Chicago Daily News (1940) "A National Disgrace" where he rips into comics warning parents of the dangers they posed as a "hypodermic injection of sex and murder" and a "violent stimulant". Typical of most adults he would not give children credit for any maturity, accusing the comics industry of a "cultural slaughter of the innocents."
You can read about the editorial here:
http://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/exhibits/show/a-crisis-of-innocence/anti-comics-backlashAs early as 1941 parents groups were speaking out against comics. Even President Roosevelt spoke out in a note read to the National P-TA meeting May 20, 1941.
The Associated Press, “National P-TA Official Assails Horror Comics,” The Innocence Project, accessed February 20, 2018, which you can see here:
http://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/files/original/461b7757cc54d711407fa231c9dc9dbe.jpg#1 - 1941-Congressional Library exhibit rackA view showing the magazine stack in the Congressional Library.
(Photo by Bernard Hoffman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
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Here's a mix of pulps, comic books, true detective magazines and other magazines on this rolling stand. On the bottom shelf is the first issue of Exiting Love (Winter 1941). Moving up, you'll see; Planet Stories (Spring 1941), Amazing Stories (August 1941), and a bit of Astonishing Stories (August 1940).
-www.thepulp.net
A rolling cart of magazines and comics for congressmen in 1941.
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With the dwindling popularity of superhero comics by the end of the WWII publishers tried a variety of genres looking restore their hold on readers. Crime comics were among those tried. Dick Tracy had made its debut in a Detroit newspaper in 1931 and was popular. The first comic book dedicated to the crime genre was probably Lev Gleason’s
'Crime Does Not Pay' in 1942 and it was popular. Publishers noticed and more followed.
In 1943 and 1944 several U.S. Senate subcommittees were started devoted to investigating the problem of criminality among young people, supporting data and conclusions disseminated by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover.
Books and anti-comics articles would become common. Gabriel Lynn published two works (
The Teacher And The Comics, Post-Reporter, Minnesota, 1944;
The Case Against the Comics, Catechetical Guild, Minnesota, 1944), based on a study of about ninety-two comics, concluded that comics were authentic manuals for crime, profusely illustrated, in which children could be detailed information on how to commit crimes. Lynn harbored no doubt that there was a direct connection between comics littered with gangsters and the alleged wave of juvenile crime going on.
Horror comics would take off in 1947. EC Comics is the best known example but there were many others out there as well. You can easily find them on DCM.
Check out this list of pre-code horror comics we share on the site: http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/forum/index.php/topic,3151.0.html#2 - 1942.04.17-Family Circle issueThis mag features a swipe on the cover from Batman #9 and a story on Youth and Comics.
#3 - 1947.07.26-Pittsburgh Post-GazetteA typical anti-comics feature from 1947.
COMICS:
Prize Comics (Prize) v6 #5 (#65)(August - September 1947)
Whiz Comics (Fawcett) #89 (September 1947)---
In 1947, the topic was so hot that Hoover held a National Conference on Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency promoted by the Attorney general, Tom Clark, whose findings were collected in eighteen large volumes which, as well as statistics, analyzed the causes and possible prevention of the problems.
#4 - 1948-Dr Fredric Wertham(03.20.1895 – 11.18.1981) a German-born director of psychiatry at Queens Hospital, he also founded the Lafargue Clinic, the first mental health clinic in Harlem.
He started writing about comics effects in the
American Journal of Psychotherapy v2, #3, July, 1948.
Basing his claims on his study of the children and teenagers he treated, Wertham was quoted as an expert on the subject in a
Collier’s Magazine feature entitled, “Horror in the Nursery" - The comics and juvenile delinquency as seen by a psychiatrist written by Judith Crist which came out in Collier's, March 27, 1948. You can see it at this link:
http://www.lostsoti.org/ColliersArticleHorrorInTheNursery.htmTwo months later, his essay “The Comics—Very Funny!” appeared in the May 29, 1948 (cover date)
Saturday Review of Literature; a condensed version appeared in the widely read Reader's Digest in August. You can read his full version on this link:
http://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1948may29-00006/#5 - 1948.04-Time Magazine, Police Comm. Harry S. ToyIn this issue of Time, a story appeared about Detroit Police Commissioner Harry S. Toy, who examined all the comic books available in his community and then stated they were "Loaded with communist teachings, sex, and racial discrimination."
Harry Toy sitting behind desk reading his comic strip.
(Photo by Tony Linck/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
COMICS:
Holding Is This Tomorrow (Catechetical Guild Edu. Soc.)([November 1] 1947)
Justice Traps the Guilty (Prize) v1 #3 (Prize-March-April 1948)
Adventure Comics (DC) 128 (May 1948) behind pen.
All-Star Comics (DC) #40 below Adventure book. #6 - 1948.07-Notable comic fan David WigranskyNotable comic fan and collector David Wigransky shows off his collection in July 1948.
http://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/exhibits/show/a-crisis-of-innocence/child-readers/children-s-voicesWigransky wrote a strong rebuttal defending comics to Dr. Wertham’s anti-comics article (see #2 above) in the
Saturday Review of Literature (July 24, 1948, pp. 19-20) which you can read for yourself here:
http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1948jul24-00019?View=PDFDavid continued his interest in comics even producing an unpublished comic of his own - “The Uncanny Adventures of (I Hate) Dr. Wertham” which likely was sent to Milt Caniff sometime in the 1940s. Caniff was president of the National Cartoonists Society. You can see it for yourself at this link, it's better than you'd expect for an untrained teenager:
https://library.osu.edu/blogs/cartoons/2016/02/23/guest-post-found-in-the-collection-the-uncanny-adventures-of-i-hate-dr-wertham/David sadly died in 1969 at what must have been about age 36.
COMICS:
Reading
Famous Funnies (Dell) #17 (December 1935)
Powerhouse Pepper Comics (Marvel) #2 (Spring 1948)
True Crime Comics (Magazine Vill.) v1 #2 (May 1947 [1948])
Two-Gun Kid (Marvel) #1 ([March] 1948)http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1948.10-newstand.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1948.12.20-Binghamton,_New_York_-comicburning_2.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1949.02.24-Cape_Girardeau_burning.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1948-Censors.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1949.02-from_Family_Circle_anti-comics_feature.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1949.06-Waterloo-horror_comics.jpg
7 8 9 10 11 12Samples of anti-comics propaganda and hysteria.Comic publishers were hearing the complaints and EC's Bill Gaines tried to organize publishers into an 'Association of Comics Magazine Publishers' on July 1, 1948. But the ACMP wasn't to be with only five publishers joining and soon folded. You can read more about the AMCP here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Comics_Magazine_PublishersThe comic book burnings which followed in 1948 were part of a growing moral panic over comics that occupied Americans through the mid-1950s. Comics were a convenient target for a range of anxieties. The first reported comic-book burning was in November of 1945. It took place in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, a town of eleven thousand north of Madison. The children of Saints Peter and Paul School burned 1,500+ comics accumulated during a school-sponsored collection drive, all titles which a Catholic censor had classified as “condemned."
#7 - 1948.10-Newsstand -BubleyCrime comics dominate this 1948 comic rack.
Photo:Esther Bubley, Newsstand, c. 1944,
Collection of the Akron Art Museum, Gift of the estate of Esther Bubley 2003.22
More pictures by Bubley can be seen here:
http://thewallbreakers.com/gorgeous-1940s-bw-photos-of-nyc-and-its-people-by-famed-photographer-esther-bubley/COMICS:
Crime Patrol (EC) #8 (Fall 1948) likely
Lawbreakers Always Lose (Marvel) #4 (October 1948)
The Witness (Marvel) #1 (September 1948) one-shot
Exposed v1 (D.S. Pub.) #5 (November-December 1948) maybe
Criminals on the Run (Novelty) v4#2 (September 1948)
War Against Crime (EC) #4 (Winter 1948)
Crime Fighters (Marvey) #4 (November 1948)
Crimes by Woman (Fox) #3 (October 1948)
Famous Crimes (Fox) (unknown)
The Spirit (Quality) #14 (Winter 1948)
Charlie Chan (Harvey) v1#2 (2) (September 1948) likely
Target Comics (Novelty) v9 #7 [#97] (September 1948)From Tommy Burns
#8 - 1948.12.20-Binghamton, New York comic burningGerard Jones, in his informative book,
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book described this event as follows:
An impromptu crusade in Binghamton, New York, sent volunteers door-to-door to ask, “Are there any comic books in this house?” When the households could be persuaded that doctors, police, and ministers were right about the dangers of comics, the volunteers gathered the offending publications and carried them to the local school yard, where they were piled high, doused with gasoline, and set afire. Time ran pictures of the comics blazing, children watching with some ambivalence from the background.The picture of the Binghamton burning was featured in the December 20th 1948 issue of
Time.
The photo caption read -
Manners and Morals-
In Binghamton, N.Y., Students of St. Patrick’s parochial school collected 2,000 objectionable comic books in a house-to-house canvass, burned them in the school yard.A NY Time story covers the same event at this online link-
http://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/files/original/69d4d2cab99771e90a73b435c91b524c.jpg#9 - 1949.02.24-Cape Girardeau burningComics deemed unfit for children were ceremonially burned in Cape Girardeau on February 24, 1949 at the St. Mary’s High School. Led by Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, church groups, and parents 8,000 comic books were claimed to be collected, brought to St. Mary’s School and burned. Kids pledged to never again purchase or read objectionable magazines or comic books.
This large burning was one of many that emerged across the nation in 1948-49, seeking to eliminate the perceived dangers of comic books. You can read more clippings about the different burnings at this link:
http://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/exhibits/show/a-crisis-of-innocence/anti-comics-campaigns#10 - 1948.8.27-Two Boys Look at Comic Books(Original Caption) 8/27/1948-Memphis, TN: The clean up drive against objectionable comic books being displayed by local newsstands, recently proposed by the Memphis Retail Drug Association, is more fact then fiction now. Each newsstand has its own censor who 'pulls' funny books on crime. Tommy (left) and Bill Coleman, whose dad owns a drug store, act as their own censors as they examine the latest stock of funny books.
Photo by Bettmann / Contributor
https://www.gettyimages.ca/license/514703220A few pulps are seen on the right including:
Private Detective Stories [v20 #5, August 1948] (25¢, pulp)
http://www.philsp.com/homeville/CFI/t626.htm#A12616#11 - 1949.02-from Family Circle anti-comics featureYou can see the cover and read the anti-comics article for this FC issue here:
http://www.lostsoti.org/FamilyCircleArticle.htmCOMICS:
Cookie (ACG) #9 (October-November 1947)
Curly Kayoe (United) #1 (1946)
Four Color (Dell) #167 - The Lone Ranger (October 1947)
Rusty (Timely) #15 (January, 1948)
Superman (DC) #49 (November-December, 1947)#12 - 1950s-Waterloo, Ont. CANADA -horror comicsThe anti-comics hysteria spread to other countries as well including Canada and the UK.
COMICS:
Reading
Ghostly Weird (Star) #123 (June 1954)
Terrors of the Jungle (Star) #9 (June 1954)
Journey into Fear (Superior) #19 (May 1954)
T-Man (Quality) #16 (June 1954)
Strange Mysteries (Superior) #17 (May 1954)http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1950-gaines-feldstein-1950_colour.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1950.04.13-The_Crypt_of_Terror.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1950s-editorial_cartoon_comic-book-censorship.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1950s-Kids_and_horror_comic-1950s_paper_drive.jpg
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/forum message pictures/newsstands/1951.08-HOF_in_lake.jpg
13 14 15 16 17#13 - 1950-EC's Gaines and FeldsteinThe brains behind the resurgent EC Comics. Bill Gaines had taken control of his father's comic line in 1947 and after a couple years of losing money he and Al Feldstein started their New Trend line focused on more mature horror and crime stories. The comics today are praised as a high water mark of comics creativity.
You can read about Al Feldstein on this blog entry:
https://tdhicks.com/2014/05/12/al-feldstein-seriously-mad/#14 - 1950.04.13-Comic Connoisseurs(Original caption) At noon each Saturday, young comic collectors meet to trade and evaluate various comic books. One of the boys is holding a Tales from the Crypt comic.
Photo by Bettmann / Contributor
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/at-noon-each-saturday-young-comic-collectors-meet-to-trade-news-photo/514080896#15 - 1950s-editorial cartoon comic-book-censorshipEditorial cartoon of Estes Kefauver cleaning up comics.
#16 - 1950s-Kids paper driveFound on the Buffalo Comic Convention FB page. A recent find, I'll let
SuperScrounge figure out the books if he likes.
#17 - 1951.08-HOF in lakeA pleasant day reading while swimming at Humboldt Park in Chicago, Illinois. 1951. H/t Dennis Ray. Found on Facebook.
Reading
Haunt of Fear (EC) #8 (July-August 1951)That's it for this batch, hope you liked them. Part 2 coming up next week.
-Yoc