According to a recent book about EC comics Frederic Wertham (above) , author of "Seduction of the Innocent," spent his declining years denying that he was responsible for the decline of comic books. Well, you can't deny that comics were less interesting after his crusade.
I do wonder sometimes if comics really were as horrific as he said they were. I don't really know because it's so hard to get hold of the old comics. EC comics are still out there in reprints but other titles are harder to find. For the curious here's a few excerpts from old comics. I don't know how typical they are.
Here (above) is comics reformer Judge Charles Murphy with before and after pictures of an offending comic character.
Equally interesting is the story behind the Comics Code Authority, which was more or less created by Gaines himself as a means to protect against censorship by people like Wertham, but was somehow turned against him (thanks in part to John Goldwater of Archie Comics), to the point that zombies, vampires, werewolves, and even the word "horror" were banned outright from comic books, practically shutting down E.C. completely, save for Mad.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how all of Wertham's hysteric arguments about comic books are trotted out and repeated for EVERY new "threat" to society. You heard the same things said about rock music, rap music, music videos, video games, long hair - you name it, they quote Wertham.
ReplyDelete"Seduction of the Innocent" is an interesting read. Well worth sourcing out.
Comics in the 50s were gruesome but they were at least drawn with talent. Nowadays comics are ugly, gruesome, violent, fake-anime, cynical, talentless garbage for 30 year old losers living in their mom's basements.
ReplyDeleteThe only comics kids can read these days the ones based on their favourite TV shows, like Dexters' Lab, Cartoon Network PResents, Looney Tunes, and Justice Leahue Unlimited.
Eddie, One thing that struck me in this (highly entertaining!) post was your comment that a recent history says that Wortham spent his declining years denying that he had harmed comics -- in effect, answering criticisms. Which history was that, I wonder? I'm interested because, in my own experience, such things virtually never happen. Uplifters spend their declining years basking in imagined glory, totally ignorant of what they have actually done and completely ignoring criticisms. Indeed, Grant Geissman in Foul Play says that Wortham was still on the attack well into the 1960s, claiming that comics, now tamed and disembowelled, were still a major cause of juvenile delinguency - !
ReplyDeletehmmm, well it didn't take ,I saw some pretty gruesome marvel and Dc comics in the book store. pretty gross stuff . As far as making the witch look less creepy, that just seems silly . I don't see how a creepy witch can seduce a kid into anything.
ReplyDeleteWertham and Murphy are two dumbass Censor Monkeys plain and simple. >:P
ReplyDeleteim not for censorship but if i had kids i wouldnt let them read any of that stuff, theyll be able to read all the poe and lovecraft they can take but that stuff is worse than saw 3
ReplyDeleteThat stuff was gruesome for the 50's, but I know people who grew up reading those comics and they aren't mass murderers.
ReplyDelete>>Nowadays comics are ugly, gruesome, violent, fake-anime, cynical, talentless garbage for 30 year old losers living in their mom's basements<<
Jorge, I resent that remark.
Steven: John Goldwater? Never heard of him. How did he influence the comics code?
ReplyDeleteE.C. comics seem pretty harmless to me now. Maybe some of the other titles were more drastic.
Lester: Interesting!
there seems to be some sadistic hatred of women in some of those panels
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEddie: John Goldwater was the publisher of Archie Comics. I forgot how the story goes exactly, but basically Gaines got together a group of comics publishers to try to form an organization to protect their interests, and over the course of the first meeting, Goldwater was elected as the head of the group and started establishing rules to limit and censor some of the violence and horror in comics -- basically listing anything remotely related to E.C.'s horror line as "unacceptable."
ReplyDeleteGaines stood up and said "this is not what I had in mind," or something to that effect, and stormed off, and for whatever reason, stores actually started not stocking comics that didn't carry the CCA seal, basically crushing E.C. completely.
It's all in The Mad World of William M. Gaines by Frank Jacobs, which has been out of print for decades, but it's a really great, funny book and is worth seeking out -- you can usually find them used on Amazon or eBay for $10-15.
Yeah, that's what we need. Lots more brutal, sadistic murders in comics.
ReplyDeletethe issue isnt really black and white. The comics code is the most laughable fascist document in history. rule 17 characters shall not express disrespect towards authority figures etc. But some of those comics werent suitable for kids at all.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is creating blanket standards for all comics instead of a ratings system. Itd be like some movies board creating laws that make it illegal to make films that arent g rated.
Its a lot like how the disney goons took out trade paper ads protesting fritz the cat like they had a moratorium on what an artform was allowed to portray.
Mad did some brilliant parodies of the comics code back in the fifties, could you post them if you have them Eddie?
then of course the ratings system we have for movies is run by an arcane shadowy organization
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's what we need. Lots more brutal, sadistic murders in comics.
ReplyDeleteThe genre was known as horror. What should be in it?
As long as there are any real life examples of horror around the globe, the people who protest this stuff are misplacing their energies, unless the argument is that Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld or manufacturers of land mines and depleted uranium weapons read these things. Anybody who could read a horror comic and decide to act it out has bigger problems already than his choice of reading material. But if you know of any human body part barbecues I have a delicious sauce recipe.
I used to love underground comix when I was a kid. It was the only source of uncensored cartoon images.
I think some of those comics genres that were quashed could have evolved into something interesting over the last 50+ years...imagine if film was treated the same way. Would thrillers or horror movies be the same as they are now?
ReplyDeleteMust...destroy...all...humanity...
ReplyDeleteSorry, those images seem to have had a bad effect on me.
ReplyDeleteAs lurid as those images are one has to take into consideration that they are posted out of context. The E.C. comics were not aimed at children. Their audience was older and more sophisticated. I also recall that some of their stories took on social issues of the day, like racism and whatnot, and usually had ironic endings -- similar to the tv show The Twilight Zone.
I also recall that almost every issue had someone exclaiming, "Good Lord! *Choke*"
Steven: Thanks for putting up more about that. I'll keep my eye open for more on that story!
ReplyDeleteAnon: Parodies of the Code? Do you mean stories like "Starchie?"
What I thought leaned gruesome, in a kitsch way, was the black and white horror magazines that followed in the wake of werthams shut down some years later.
ReplyDeleteNot the Warren magazines, which could be as good or better in some ways as EC, but the stuff produced, I think, perhaps in Mexico, that flourished as Warren was flourishing.
The characters might all have fangs, and blood surrounded their heads like pearls of sweat whenever they spoke, and the stories were often based on campfire tales and Urban legends.
The genre was known as horror. What should be in it?
ReplyDelete(Oh, I'm all for it! Did you think I was being sarcastic?)
1. Step by step instructions on how the little old lady from Pasadena got away with Satanic ritual murders for 50 years. How she really used her hot rod. You could have her interviewed in hell. That would be cool.
2. Jack Frost's chest and nuts roasting on an open fire (literally).
3. Graphic depictions of Ed Gein's life. Especially concentrate on how much his mother loved him and how much he loved his mother. Make it a Mother's Day special.
4. The Green River Killer's advice on what you need for a good life: A prostitute, a stocking, a roll of plastic (industrial strength), a pickup truck, and the local dump. Describe how he used each for ultimate fulfillment.
5. Charles Manson as a psychology professor.
That kinda stuff.
Yes, I thought it was sarcastic. My bad. It seemed like a dismissive comment, but sometimes people mean just what they say.
ReplyDeleteMovies? I think thrillers or Horror could be a lot more interesting by leaving more to the imagination, occasionally. I like Hammer horror films more than post MPAA slasher flicks.
ReplyDeleteI think Animated features could be more interesting without the token fart joke.
I think you probably never would have seen a writer of teen humor romance comics apply the same aesthetics to superhero comics (Stan Lee and Marvel), had the code not come into being.
Not that I am saying censorship is a good thing, but I am saying that it can be often more clever and rewarding to work around such prohibitions, than it is to mindlessly exploit the lack of same.
Those. ROCK!
ReplyDeleteWertham was merely following the old formula that X (with X being some horrific anti-social criminal misfit) did/read/saw Y as a child, therefore Y is the cause of X's deviance.
ReplyDeleteOF COURSE some criminals read comics as children. In those days, millions upon millions of people were reading comics. It stands to reason- unless you're a learned psychiatrist with an axe to grind and an imperfect grasp of cause-and-effect- that criminals grew up reading them as well as other more socially acceptable types... for example, used car dealers, lawyers, congresspeople and psychiatrists.
very interesting blog about the comics code authority and dr F. Wertham. i am also writing a paper on him and his book 'the seduction of the innocent' and was just wondering if you knew the publisher of the book?
ReplyDeleteHi. You have a picture on this post of a woman being choked by hands coming in from the right of the panel. Do you have any idea what comic and issue it is from?
ReplyDeleteThanks for any info you can provide.