Comments on: Remembrance of Werthams Past

by: AndyDecker

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:24:22 +0000

I read “Seduction” back in the 80s, and even then it was hard to understand how people could take a lot of Wertheim´s ideas seriously. I mean, hidden sex-organs in panels, come on, this is one step removed from lunacy. The mantra of “this comic is the first step to juvenile crime” was also as tiresome as his fear that comics makes boys into gay adults. Reading this helped one to understand however how people ticked at the time, how they thought that lobomity was a good prescription against mental illness. Or that “duck and cover” really works in case of a A-Bomb. Any of this stuff which one just can´t understand today any longer.

But I have to admit that among all those nonsense Wertheim came across as a man who really cared about his patients. A good case of the road to hell etc, etc

by: gene phillips

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:18:18 +0000

James Van Hise,
IMO nothing “hurt” Wertham except that the Comics Code succeeded in taking the bite out of his complaints, in large part by eliminating the gorier horror titles that were so upsetting to middle America. Once that was done, Dr. W was yesterday’s news.

by: John Tebbel

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:02:32 +0000

They were both too gentlemanly to correct my grammar in public.

by: John Tebbel

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:32:53 +0000

Menand: “William Gaines and Al Feldstein were no doubt interesting, complicated, talented people who believed in what they did, but they were businessmen manufacturing entertainment for children.”

They were businessmen like Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, whose artistic sides were in control at least half the time. If it weren’t for their artistic and creative endeavors, we wouldn’t be talking about them today. They can’t be tarred as some kind of capitalist kid exploiters (calling Hasbro/Mattel/Kelloggs).

And no one, then or now, has any idea who was buying those comics. Talks with Russ Cochran and Archie Goodwin leads me to believe the EC audience was older children. There’s not one datapoint in existence on the subject.

by: Mark Coale

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:38:05 +0000

I started reading it today and have already found, in the first two chapters, some golden age history of which I was unaware.

by: Tom Galloway

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:04:23 +0000

Just checked and it’s not up yet, but David Hadju spoke at Google last Friday as part of the Authors@Google series and a video should be up on YouTube within a few days. http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=AtGoogleTalks links to videos of talks in the Authors@Google, Candidates@Google, etc. series ordered by most recent first. Other comics related authors in there include Neil Gaiman and Andrew Helfer (and there’s a possibility of a few more to come in the next few months; I’m no longer at Google, but still occasionally drop the A@G folk, of whom I used to be one, a line about possible comics speakers in the area).

by: Jamie Coville

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:32:08 +0000

I’m DYING to read this book. I preorderd it and waiting for it to be delivered to me.

One thing we should remember about Wertham was that he wasn’t out to “clean up” comics. He hated the very medium of comics and wanted them banned from sale or even display to kids under the age of 15. He believed kids reading comics wouldn’t go on to reading the great works of literature that he approved of. That’s what he fought for the entire time. All the rabble rousing about the horrible stuff in them was just a means to that end.

by: James Van Hise

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:29:04 +0000

What hurt Wertham in the long run was his contention that reading comics lead to juvenile delinquincy because all of the juvenile delinquents he interviewed read comics. In the 1940s and 50s most all boys (and many girls) read comics. It would have been unusual if the children he interviewed DIDN’T read comics. Even in the 1960s when I grew up most kids read comics.

by: DJ Schuldt

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:24:09 +0000

The release of this book and the surrounding press has been great for a class I’m teaching this year at Carnegie Mellon University. It’s an English 101 writing course to teach argumentative writing to freshmen, but the content can be anything. The class I’m teaching is called Comics are for Kids; Comics are Art: The Comic Book in American Culture since 1940. We’ve read excerpts from Seduction of the Innocent, Nyberg’s Seal of Approval, Beaty’s book on Wertham, Irving Howe’s “Notes on Mass Culture,” and Mark Evanier’s Wertham was Right!, not to mention Jack Cole’s Murder Morphine & Me, early issues of Captain America, and some Animal Man & Daredevil issues. The press Ten-Cent Plague has been getting has really invigorated some of my students with an added sense of immediacy and value to this debate we’ve been studying in class.

by: STWALLSKULL » Interesting Links: March 26th, 2008

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:51:48 +0000

[…] Remembrance of Werthams Past from THE BEAT […]

by: Torsten Adair

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:35:24 +0000

Teen culture is rarely understood by adults. Let’s review the pre-Comics Code era: a medium marketed to children and teens, review panels ineffective against public outcry, images taken out of context, adult incomprehension concerning the medium, local and state laws enacted.

There has already been an Otaku murder case in Japan. All one needs in the U.S. is a media hook (like Columbine) to start a crusade where manga and comics can be misinterpreted. Will the American graphic novel community stand in solidarity with the manga publishers, or will they let them swing like strange fruit, like the National Cartoonists Society did in 1954?

While you read this book, ask yourself, “How difficult would it be to repeat this today?”

by: Ralph Mathieu

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:51:01 +0000

Steve, it was interesting to read your comments on being on the front line during that time - thanks for sharing.

by: Steve Taylor

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:03:52 +0000

I was born in October of ‘54.
Grew up on the great newspaper strips. A perfectly acceptable medium in my home.
Naturally, when I discovered comic books,…I was in love.
My father,…a news broadcaster,…was appalled.
I never understood his reaction to them.
He didn’t want them in the house and when he found them he would tear them in half and leave them laying in the middle of the living room floor.
I learned rather quickly to hide the books.
It wasn’t until a little later in life, when I discovered the writings of Fredric Wertham, that I fully understood why he was so down on comics.
Wertham became my Lex Luthor,…my Sivana.
And of course, I never totally shook the idea that Batman and Robin were gay.
I did, however, grow up being much more accepting of gay people than anyone else in my nuclear family. After all,…one never knew,…did one.

by: Torsten Adair

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:12:44 +0000

For further reading:
Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code by Amy Kiste Nyberg.
(Contains all three versions of the Code)
Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign by Martin Barker (The British reaction, mentioned in Ten Cent Plague)
Not Just for Children: The Mexican Comic Book in the Late 1960s and 1970s, Vol. 30 by Harold E. Hinds, Charles M. Tatum

The transcript of the Senate hearing can be found here, courtesy of Jamie Coville. http://www.thecomicbooks.com/1954senatetranscripts.html

The National Archives is the repository of the Committee’s papers, so I suspect the comics and slides used in the Hearing are located there. Some of the televised hearing can be seen on the DVD “Comic Book Confidential”. I do not know how much footage exists or where it is located.

And finally, David Hadju will be appearing at the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center at 7:30, on Thursday, March 27, 2008. (Also April 12 and April 19 at other B&N stores.)

As for the book, I was a bit disappointed in that the author did not chronical the aftermath of the Code, particularly the Underground comics and the revision in the 1970s.

What struck me is that many of the laws mentioned in this book still exist. PW reports that Indiana has passed a law requiring any bookstore which sells “adult” material to register with the state, and detail what exactly they sell. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6544559.html
And thus the Curse of Santayana repeats itself…