Seduction caption: Pity was the keynote when Homer described a dead body dragged behind a war chariot. But are there heroin addicts in Grimm, marihuana smokers in Andersen or dope peddlers in Mother Goose? And are there advertisements for guns and knives? Murder, crime and drug traffic are offered to children in a literature which the defenders of comic books call the modern version of the stories of the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen or Mother Goose. She says: “Then I was dreaming, of murder and morphine.” This is a crime-comic-book dream. Print will run an expanded feature on this topic, “An Uncensored Look at Banned Comics” from the 1950s to today, in its February 2014 issue.Ī typical comic-book drawing shows a blonde young girl lying in bed. Wertham’s gone, but comics continue to be suppressed. The first installment of this story, which posted Monday, covered Wertham’s hit list of comic books dealing with subjects such as subliminal nudity, women’s “headlights,” and the fascism and homosexuality of DC superheroes today we conclude with depictions of death, drugs and eyeball damage. And of course, we should also review those sinister, seductive, 60-year-old pulp pages he picked out, in all their gory graphic glory. And now he no longer matters: Tilley has driven the final nail into his coffin.īut before we finally discard him, let’s take a final look look at his “cooked” comics condemnations. Most recently, research by University of Illinois professor Carol Tilley uncovered definitive proof that Wertham falsified crucial facts, distorted quotes, omitted relevant circumstances, and otherwise “played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics.” Bottom line: he lied, lied, lied. So a Senate Subcommittee hearing was held, and subsequently their quantity and quality, already a mixed bag with respect to writing and illustration, quickly declined.Īlthough Seduction essentially accomplished its goals, its text has continued to be challenged ever since, with increasing effectiveness. It was the era of McCarthyism, rampant paranoia, and misplaced fears and blame. But in 1954 the devious doctor published Seduction of the Innocent, which claimed that these 10¢, 4-color periodicals were actually leading these youths to lives of depravity and debauchery.
As an entertainment medium, comics were the digital devices of their day: Sales could be counted in hundreds of millions, and more than 80% of kids and 90% of teens were reading them. Wertham was an anti-comic book crusader who did some serious damage back in the 1950s. Since this is Banned Books Week, I’ve come to bury Dr.