Comic Book Bonfires
Upstate New York, 1949
Binghamgton, New York. 1948
Not Texas.
The leading anti-comic book freak was Dr. Frederic Wertham, a German born Freudian.
“I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry,” he stated once.
1952, Scranton.
Doc Wertham. After his death it was discovered that he came to his conclusions by giving juvenile delinquents comics and noting that they liked them. Considering that any young criminals he would have been in contact with were incarcerated with nothing to do, I would guess his methodology suspect. He produced a gay guy who testified in court that he would love to be either Batman or Robin. (Anyone who wants to be Robin is queer beyond all understanding. 'Queer' does not mean 'gay'. Back in the day when we would play Batman and Robin it was always a helpless little brother who had to be Robin). He stated that Wonder Woman was a bondage thing, true enough and the creator, William Moulton Marston had said as much. Wertham also announced that she was a lesbian. Wertham just ran his mouth and everyone listened because at that time Psychiatry was regarded as science and not the exact equivalent of chopping open birds in order to foretell the future. He and his kind were witch doctors with zero knowledge of what causes societal problems (crime), never mind why kids read comics. His book, Seduction of the Innocent, took panels out of context to make his points. His next book was aimed at the TV industry and what they did to children, nobody would publish it. Comics were an easy target, the networks would have sued the publishers and Doc Wertham for everything they owned and they would have won their case easily. Dell refused to join the Comics Code because they were partnered with Disney, Walt would have had the Code boys sewed into bags made from their own skin and catapulted into the Upper East Side, and everyone knew it.
I'm trying to mock Fred Wertham and then I find something like this. DC sucked when I was a kid, after Matter Eater Lad hove into view that was it for me, I went Marvel. This is certainly by Neal Adams.
Indeed.
Art Spiegelman gets into the act. Art is exactly the type of person the paranoid doctor feared. In all fairness, something that did not concern Fred, he wrote a paper on the harm school racial segregation was doing to this country that was a factor in a landmark court case overturning the practice. Be that as it may, Wertham lied about comics in his writings and no one called him on it.
Opera Square, Berlin. May 10, 1933
Doctor Wertham had noticed the value of proscription back in the Heimat, so he thought that it could happen here. And it did.
Montag hesitated. "What—was it always like this?
The firehouse, our work? I mean, well, once upon a time. . . ."
"Once upon a time!" Captain Beatty said. "What kind of talk is that?"
The firehouse, our work? I mean, well, once upon a time. . . ."
"Once upon a time!" Captain Beatty said. "What kind of talk is that?"
September, 1953. First 3D comic, Mighty Mouse in Three Dimension Comics #1. The Nazis and the Comics Industry had one thing only in common, and that was to get 'em young. Then they were hooked for life. All of us were.
The kid standing upper left is clearly the leader.
Okay, okay, maybe two things in common.
So guess which industry promoting deviant imagination and total fiction, Psychiatry or Comics, got the last laugh?
Dr Wirtham's Comix and Stories, Clifford Neal. 1976 - 87.
Cover by Charles Burns, speaking of the type of artists Wertham was worried about.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness that some people knew about Wertham and his works. My mom would throw away comics, at 12 cents a pop they had no value. Why I got to read them at all I don't know. And good for your professor, the entire Code thing is worthy of being included in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
ReplyDeleteFriedrich Ignatz Wertheimer is Not spelled with a 'K', and this slip will be,...corrected!