Alter Ego #128 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas’ Not-So-Innocent Comics Fanzine

8.95

In the USA

No.128 September 2014

SEDUCING THE INNOCENT with

DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM!

Heroes TM & © DC Comics; other art © Jason Paulos and Daniel James Cox.

by Carol L. Tilley

ALSO: MORE OF AMY K. NYBERG’S

08 1

82658 27763

HISTORY OF THE COMICS CODE!

Edited by ROY THOMAS The first and greatest “hero-zine”—ALL-NEW, focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America], MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY’S Comic Fandom Archive, and more!

EISNER AWARD Winner Best Comics-Related Periodical

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO #119

ALTER EGO #120

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

ALTER EGO #116

ALTER EGO #117

ALTER EGO #118

JOE KUBERT TRIBUTE! Four Kubert interviews, art by RUSS HEATH, NEAL ADAMS, MURPHY ANDERSON, MICHAEL KALUTA, SAM GLANZMAN, and others, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY’s Comic Fandom Archive, FCA’s Captain Video conclusion by GEORGE EVANS that inspired Avengers foe Ultron, cover by KUBERT, with a portrait by DANIEL JAMES COX!

GOLDEN AGE ARTISTS L.B. COLE AND JAY DISBROW! DISBROW’s memoir of COLE and his work on CAT-MAN, art by BOB FUJITANI, CHARLES QUINLAN, IRWIN HASEN, FCA (Fawcett Collector’s of America) on the two-media career of Captain Video, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, Cat-Man cover by L.B. COLE!

AVENGERS 50th ANNIVERSARY! WILL MURRAY on the group’s behind-thescenes origin, a look at its first decade with ROY THOMAS, STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, THE BROTHERS BUSCEMA, TUSKA, ADAMS, COLAN, BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, MERRY MARVEL MARCHING SOCIETY, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, FCA, Golden Age Blue Beetle artist E.C. STONER, unused Avengers cover by DON HECK!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

ALTER EGO #121

ALTER EGO #122

ALTER EGO #123

MARC SWAYZE TRIBUTE ISSUE, spotlighting FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America)! Salutes from Fawcett alumnus C.C. BECK and OTTO BINDER, interview with wife JUNE SWAYZE, a full Phantom Eagle story from Wow Comics, plus interview with 1950s Dell/Western artist MEL KEEFER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and a SWAYZE Marvel Family cover art from the 1940s!

X-MEN SALUTE! 1963-69 secrets, rare ‘60s BRAZILIAN X-MEN stories, lost ‘60s XMen “character sheet” by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS on the 1970s revival, art and artifacts by KIRBY, ROTH, ADAMS, HECK, FRIEDRICH, and BUSCEMA—plus the MMMS fan club story, interview with Golden Age writer ED SILVERMAN, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, and JACK KIRBY’s unused X-Men #10 cover!

GOLDEN AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY ISSUE! Features on JOHN B. WENTWORTH (Johnny Thunder), LEN SANSONE (The Atom), and BERNARD SACHS (All-Star Comics inker), art by CARMINE INFANTINO, BOB OKSNER, HOWARD PURCELL, STAN ASCHMEIER, BEN FLINTON, and H.G. PETER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY to a vintage All-Star image by IRWIN HASEN!

Farewell salute to the COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE! TBG/CBG history and remembrances from ALAN LIGHT, MURRAY BISHOFF, MAGGIE THOMPSON, BRENT FRANKENHOFF, “final” CBG columns by MARK EVANIER, TONY ISABELLA, PETER DAVID, FRED HEMBECK, JOHN LUSTIG, classic art by DON NEWTON, MIKE VOSBURG, JACK KIRBY, MIKE NASSER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

DENNY O’NEIL’s Silver Age career at Marvel, Charlton, and DC—aided and abetted by ADAMS, KALUTA, SEKOWSKY, LEE, GIORDANO, THOMAS, SCHWARTZ, APARO, BOYETTE, DILLIN, SWAN, DITKO, et al. Plus, we begin serializing AMY KISTE NYBERG’s groundbreaking book on the history of the Comics Code, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

ALTER EGO #124

ALTER EGO #125

ALTER EGO #126

ALTER EGO #127

We spotlight HERB TRIMPE’s work on Hulk, Iron Man, S.H.I.E.L.D., Ghost Rider, Ant-Man, Silver Surfer, War of the Worlds, Ka-Zar, even Phantom Eagle, and featuring THE SEVERIN SIBLINGS, LEE, FRIEDRICH, THOMAS, GRAINGER, BUSCEMA, and others, plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s Comics Code history, M. THOMAS INGE on Communism and 1950s comic books, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

Golden Age “Air Wave” artist LEE HARRIS discussed by his son JONATHAN LEVEY to interviewer RICHARD J. ARNDT, with rarely-seen 1940s art treasures (including mysterious, never-published art of an alternate version of DC’s Tarantula)! Plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s exposé on the Comics Code, artist SAL AMENDOLA tells the story of the Academy of Comic Book Arts, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

Second big issue on 3-D COMICS OF THE 1950s! KEN QUATTRO looks at the controversy involving JOE KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, BILL GAINES, and AL FELDSTEIN! Plus more fabulous Captain 3-D by SIMON & KIRBY and MORT MESKIN— 3-D thrills from BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, JAY DISBROW and others— the career of Treasure Chest artist VEE QUINTAL, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

1940s WILL EISNER/”BUSY” ARNOLD letters between the creator of The Spirit and his Quality Comics partner, art and artifacts by FINE, CRANDALL, CUIDERA, CARDY, KOTZKY, BLUM, NORDLING, and others! Plus Golden Age MLJ artist JOHN BULTHIUS, more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s History of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, cover by DANIEL JAMES COX and JASON PAULOS!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Order at twomorrows.com

Vol. 3, No. 128 / September 2014 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

PLEASE READ THIS:

Editorial Honor Roll

Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Proofreaders

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding

Cover Artists

This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

www.twomorrows.com

Jason Paulos & David James Cox

With Special Thanks to:

Heidi Amash Tom Anderson Ger Apeldoorn William Aronis Bob Bailey Rod Beck John Benson Mike Bromberg Bill Broomall Shaun Clancy Ray Cuthbert Craig Delich Robert A. Emmens Danny Fingeroth Shane Foley Rebecca FrazierSmith Jeff Gelb Janet Gilbert Don Glut Jennifer T. Go Grand Comics Database Randy Graves Robert Greenberger Larry Guidry George Hagenauer David Hajdu Alan Hutchinson Alex Jay Aaron Kaplan Sharon Karibian

Jim Kealy Mark Lewis Alan Light Jean-Marc Lofficier Jim Ludwig Doug Martin Bruce Mason Thomas H. Miller Brian K. Morris Sequart News (website) Amy Kiste Nyberg Dennis O’Neil Patrick Powell Gene Reed Tony Rose Randy Sargent L. Brian Stauffer Henry Steele Carol Strickland Jeff Taylor Stan Taylor Dann Thomas Steven Thompson Mike Tiefenbacher Carol L. Tilley Sean Turenen Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware Steven Willis

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Bhob Stewart

Contents Writer/Editorial: Thanks for Nothing!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Seducing The Innocent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Carol L. Tilley on the use (and misuse) of evidence in Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent.

Seal Of Approval: History Of The Comic Code – Ch. 5 . . . 30 The implementation of the Code in the mid-1950s, continuing Amy Kiste Nyberg’s 1998 study.

Special Interlude: “The Will Of William Wilson,” PP. Y & Z . . 53 The final pages of the long-long 1940s “Justice Society” story—first time in color!

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Whatever Happened To The Boy Of Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Michael T. Gilbert presents Shaun Clancy’s conversation with “The Superboy of 1940.”

Comic Fandom Archive—In Memoriam: Bhob Stewart . . . . 61 Bill Schelly on one of comic fandom’s brightest lights.

re: [correspondence & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #188 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 P.C. Hamerlinck with original Shazam! writer Denny O’Neil—plus more of Otto Binder’s memoir.

On Our Cover: For the second issue in a row, artists Jason Paulos and Daniel James Cox knocked themselves out, coming up with several different designs for our first (and perhaps last) cover ever to spotlight Dr. Fredric Wertham, “the scourge of comic books,” before they settled on this superlative rendition. For earlier potential versions of this cover, see p. 25. [Superman, Batman, Robin, & Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics; other art © 2014 Jason Paulos & Daniel James Cox.]

Above: Just this once, we’re putting a photo as well as an illustration atop our contents page— an oft-reproduced pic of Dr. Fredric Wertham perusing an issue of EC’s black-&-white semi-comics magazine Shock Illustrated #1 (Oct.-Nov. 1955); cover by Jack Kamen. This was Bill Gaines’ short-lived, non-Code successor to its color comic Shock SuspenStories, crossed with Psychoanalysis. Any bets as to what the Doc thought of it? [Shock Illustrated cover © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Eight-issue subscriptions: $67 US, $85 Canada, $104 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

Thanks For Nothing!

hought I’d pretty much said everything I wanted to say about Dr. Fredric Wertham and his half-baked 1954 screed Seduction of the Innocent in last issue’s writer/editorial.

But, maybe not quite. Actually, and I’m not the first to point this out, maybe people like me, whose main joy in becoming comics professionals was working on adventure-hero comics, should thank him. After all, both the publication of his book and the comicscentered hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency occurred in ’54, and between them they created an imperfect storm which led to the formation by year’s end of the Comic Magazine Association of America (or, as my eloquent artist friend Gil Kane used to refer to it, “the Cattlemen’s Benevolent Protective Association”) and its Comic Code. And it’s perhaps not a coincidence that, roughly a year later, an all-important editorial meeting at National/DC led to a half-hearted stab at resuscitating “The Flash,” once the most popular of the numerous super-heroes whose adventures DC had discontinued some years earlier. In other words, it’s possible to make an argument that, without Wertham and the Code between them putting an end to comic books that purveyed horror, violent crime, and sexual innuendo (and thus were more likely to appeal to older readers), DC might not have been casting about quite as fervently for less sophisticated concepts, with the result that someone came up with Showcase as a try-out mag for features in which the company didn’t have enough faith to simply launch in their own titles. Of course, there had been attempts all during the 1950s to revive the super-hero model that had mostly petered out by the late ’40s: DC’s own “Captain Comet” in 1951, then the spurt of short-lived costumed heroes revived or spawned after the early’50s success of The Adventures of Superman on TV.

But the fact remains: “The Flash” is the one that worked out, the one that led to more DC revivals (“Green Lantern,” “Justice League of America”), with the last-named concept leading directly to Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four and the whole spectrum since. Sure, the success of “The Flash” was due to all sorts of intangible factors (including the talent of the creative team composed of Julius Schwartz, Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, and John Broome). But maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have happened without that less than gentle 1954 nudge from Wertham and his ilk. Yeah, I know. Thanking Wertham is a bit like thanking the guy who pushed you off the dock so that you found out you could swim… or thanking a beachfront bully for kicking sand in your face and giving you an incentive to order that Charles Atlas course so that you could eventually kick the stuffings out of said bully. In that sense… and only in that sense… could I ever feel anything but repulsion toward the sloppy (and, as Carol L. Tilley details in this issue, often intellectually dishonest) methods that Wertham employed in his 1940s-50s assault on comic books. In the end, Ms. Tilley, along with Dr. Nyberg in her 1998 book Seal of Approval that we’re in the process of reprinting, is far more forgiving of the good Doctor than I can ever be. Yes, I admire his desire to work with the disadvantaged. But he was still out to gut an industry… and to a great extent he succeeded. That it survived, and eventually thrived, was not a consummation that he devoutly wished. So somebody else besides me is going to have to thank him. Be my guest. Bestest,

# COMING IN OCTOBER 129 EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS IN THE COMICS! How The Master Of Adventure Conquered Comic Strips, Comic Books, & Cyberspace!

Art © & all characters TM

Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

• Cover montage of ERB heroes by GRINDBERG, KALUTA, KANE, KUBERT, MANNING, MARSH, & WEISS! • Tarzan! John Carter of Mars! Pellucidar! Carson of Venus! The Land That Time Forgot! Edgar Rice Burroughs’ heroes in the comics medium—from the 1929 comic strips through comic books from United Features, Dell, Gold Key, Charlton, DC, Malibu, Marvel, & Dark Horse… to the ERB-Europe comic book line that never was… to today’s online strips from ERB, Inc.—examined by experts ALBERTO BECATTINI, HENRY FRANKE III, TRACY SCOTT GRIFFIN, DICK LUPOFF, STEPHAN FRIEDT, & JIM SULLOS! • Fabulous ERB-related comic art, some of it never seen before, by the above cover artists, plus FOSTER • HOGARTH • MAXON • CELARDO • LUBBERS • REINMAN • CARDY • GRELL • MORROW • BURROUGHS • GLANZMAN • ANDERSON • THORNE • AMENDOLA • The Brothers BUSCEMA • YEATES • MARCOS • KWAPISZ • PEGASO • FLOYD • MODER, et al.! (And some of the writers weren’t half bad, either!) • Plus—FCA with BINDER & BECK • MICHAEL T. GILBERT, & MORE!

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Eight issues in the US: $67 Standard, $82 First Class • (Canada: $85, Elsewhere: $104)

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

G N I C U D SE THE T N E C O N IN ham F re d r i c We r t

s n o ti a ic if ls a f e th d an s ic m o c n m e d n o c d e lp e that h

b y C a ro l L . T i l l e y And In This Corner… (Left:) Author Carol L. Tilley posing with vintage comic books at a recent exposition—and (on right) Dr. Fredric Wertham, the subject of her researches. Photo of Tilley by L. Brian Stauffer; photo of Wertham from Alan Light’s AllDynamic #4 (circa 1970), provided by Doug Martin.

[First published as the article “Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics,” by Carol L. Tilley, in Information & Culture, Volume 47, Issue 4, pp. 383-413. Copyright © 2012 by the University of Texas Press. All rights reserved.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Our cup runneth over! Just after we had finally arranged to serialize a reprinting of Amy Kiste Nyberg’s book Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (see p. 30), we were suddenly made aware—first by longtime fan John Benson, but soon afterward by various other folks—of a brand new article that had made quite a splash in the scholarly magazine Information & Culture (see more precise information on the previous page). Written by Carol L. Tilley, assistant professor at the University of Illinois’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science, it postulated that Dr. Fredric Wertham, the scientist who led the attack against comic books in the late 1940s and early 1950s, had—in the words of David Itzoff of The New York Times—“misrepresented his research and falsified his results.” Carol Tilley, as she will detail below (and again quoting from the Times’ description), “reviewed Wertham’s papers, housed in the Library

Abstract

sychiatrist Fredric Wertham and his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent serve as historical and cultural touchstones of the anticomics movement in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s. Although there have been persistent concerns about the clinical evidence Wertham used as the basis for Seduction, his sources were made widely available only in 2010. This article documents specific examples of how Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain.

Books do not have their impact upon the mass mind but upon the minds of those who mould the mass mind—upon leaders of thought and formulators of public opinion. The impact of a book may last six months or several decades. Books are the most enduring propaganda of all. —Memo from the United States Office of War Information, 1941 (1) For anyone interested in twentieth-century print culture— especially comics and similar forms of child-selected media— Fredric Wertham and his book Seduction of the Innocent serve as historical and cultural touchstones. Seduction, a rousing call for limitations on the sale of comics to children based on the author’s clinical evidence of the format’s detrimental links to juvenile delin-

of Congress, starting at the end of 2010, shortly after they were made available to the public.” I contacted Ms. Tilley, who acted as liaison between myself and the very helpful Rebecca Frazier-Smith, Journals Rights & Permissions Editor of University of Texas Press, Journals Division, the publisher of Information & Culture, to arrange for Alter Ego to present the article to an audience that otherwise might not have had a chance to read it. We have naturally made no changes of any substance in the text of the piece, keeping such spellings as “superhero,” etc. The captions which accompany the artwork and photos added for this reprinting, which are scribed by Ye Editor in A/E’s usual style, are naturally not to be considered as necessarily the opinion of Carol Tilley or her publishers. In the journal, footnote numbers were given in parentheses rather than as tiny raised digits. Thanks to Brian K. Morris for retyping the article onto a Word document for Ye Ed. quency and general children’s welfare, captured the American public’s imagination when it was published in April 1954. Sociologist C. Wright Mills, writing in the New York Times, called it “a most commendable use of the professional mind in the service of the public.” Margaret Martignoni, director of children’s work at the Brooklyn Public Library, writing in a letter that was excerpted for the book’s advertising campaign, called Seduction “‘must’ reading for thoughtful parents, teachers, librarians, social workers and all other adults concerned with children’s reading and with child development.” An advertisement for the book in the New York Times carried esteemed children’s book editor May Massee’s exclamation, “Thanks to you for publishing Dr. Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent. It is certainly well named… [f]rightening… [c]onvincing… overpowering.” Joy Elmer Morgan, editor of the National Education Association’s NEA Journal, selected it as the book of the year, recommending it to parents, teachers, and librarians. Although he faulted Wertham’s rhetorical strategies, child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim praised the book’s “irrefutable evidence” in a review in Library Quarterly. Literary critic Sterling North deemed it “the most important book of the year,” and fellow intellectual Clifton Fadiman wrote privately to Wertham that he knew “the book will do a lot of good.” (2) Within six months, the book had sold more than sixteen thousand copies in the United States, a figure Wertham’s literary agent believed would have been greater had the book not been discussed so extensively in various

Praise From The Masters (Left to right:) Some of the influential people who praised Dr. Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent upon its publication in 1954: C. Wright Mills (1916-1962), eminent professor of sociology at Columbia College, NYC, from 1946 until his death. May Massee (1881-1966), founding head of the juvenile books departments of Doubleday and Viking. Joy Elmer Morgan (1889-1986), American educator and author of Horace Mann: His Ideas and Ideals. Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990), esteemed child psychologist, noted as the author of The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Sterling North (1906-1974), writer, author of Rascal (about a pet raccoon), and one of the earliest severe critics of comic books. Clifton Fadiman (1904-1999), author and radio/TV personality, famous from such programs as Information, Please!; This Is Show Business; and What’s My Line? Unfortunately, no images were available for Margaret Martignoni, the author of The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature (1955)… but we suspect there were no comic book stories included in the latter.

Seducing The Innocent

Flags On The Play! Poet Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006) lived long enough to be twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Wikipedia refers to him as “an outspoken critic of censorship,” but apparently he made an exception for comic books. Super-hero mags like Standard’s America’s Best Comics, Vol. 4, #1 (a.k.a. #10, July 1944), were considered as having “violent and Fascist elements”— but the combination of their unabashed patriotism (some would term it jingoism) and the fact that | the American public had other things to worry about from 1941-45 blunted his and others’ objections. [© the respective copyright holders.] Incidentally, the flag being held by Pyroman on the cover by Golden Age great Alex Schomburg is that of Chiang Kai-Shek’s China, at a time when the U.S., Great Britain, the U.S.S.R., and China were often referred to as the “Big Four” powers; thanks to Jean-Marc Lofficier for that ID.

forums, including televised hearings of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. (3) After the conclusion of World War II, widespread public concern arose about the changing landscape of comics publishing. In the early 1940s, superhero titles dominated comics publishing. Some literary and cultural critics such as Sterling North and Stanley Kunitz objected to superhero themes because of their perceived violent and Fascist elements, but as many superheroes contributed to the war effort through their story lines, and because most adult Americans were preoccupied with the ongoing conflict, these objections never attained a critical mass. Superhero titles continued to be published following the end of the war, but publishers introduced new genres such as romance, jungle, horror, and true crime, which flourished. In part, publishers intended these new genres to capture the reading interests of more mature readers, especially veterans and other young adults who grew up on superhero comics but now wanted more substantive reading matter. That publishers intended these newer genres for a nonchild audience failed to keep young readers from devouring titles with deliciously provocative titles such as Untamed Love, Forbidden Worlds, and Shocking Mystery. One consequence of this young readership was that, throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, cities and other municipalities promulgated legislation that attempted to restrict

the sale of certain comics to adults only, while a variety of civic, professional, and similar organizations such as the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, the American Legion, and the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges articulated their concerns about the purported deleterious effects that comics had on younger readers. Wertham’s book and his earlier anticomics work were part of this landscape of concern. So although Wertham’s anticomics work was not the only factor that led to the 1954 creation of the Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) and its restrictive

Untamed, Forbidden, & Shocking! The early-1950s comics that Carol Tilley refers to as having “provocative titles” featured covers not much less so… as witness the photo cover—and cover copy!—of Quality’s Untamed Love #3 (May 1950), ACG’s Ken Bald art for Forbidden Worlds #1 (July-Aug. 1951), and Star’s Shocking Mystery Cases #50 (Sept. 1952—actually the first issue), fronted by the incomparable L.B. Cole. Thanks to Bruce Mason for the latter cover. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

editorial code—which aimed to stave off government intervention in the industry and persisted with modifications until January 2011— it is considered by most scholars and comics aficionados as central to these developments. (4) The psychiatrist’s work spurred an already galvanized public to agitate successfully for changes in the editorial and advertising content of comic books. The CMAA’s resulting code, in turn, crippled the successful comics industry by ensuring that comics that carried its imprimatur were But Hopefully Not The Last… free of offensive content such as poor grammar, excessive violence, The cover of Bart Beaty’s book and supernatural beings. (5) Even Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture (2010), though comics publishers also the first work to make use of Dr. faced increasing competition from Wertham’s papers at the Library the nascent television industry for of Congress. [Cover © the children’s attention, the CMAA’s respective copyright holders.] code effectively marked the end of comics’ reign as the most popular print medium among children in history. The popular whipping boy for this demise? Fredric Wertham. As comics scholar Jeet Heer noted in a recent Slate article, No wonder Wertham has often been caricatured by fans as a prissy, cold Germanic elitist who wanted to deprive American kids of their entertaining reading material. Catherine Yronwode, a popular historian and comic-book fan, spoke for many when she wrote, in 1983, “We hate [Wertham], despise him. He and he alone virtually brought about the collapse of the comic book industry in the 1950s.” Easy enough to mock, Wertham showed up in a brief and unsympathetic cameo in Michael Chabon’s [Pulitzer] prizewinning book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. (6) Although Wertham’s wife, Hesketh, transferred ownership of his extensive personal archive to the Library of Congress soon after his death in the early 1980s, Wertham’s papers there remained under an embargo until the late spring of 2010. Until 2010, it appears only historian Bart Beaty had been granted access to the psychiatrist’s manuscript collection; the resulting book, Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture, departed from much previous writing about Wertham in its generally favorable view of its subject and sought to rehabilitate Wertham’s popular and scholarly image. (7) My initial goal in using Wertham’s papers was not to discredit him; instead, I went in hopes of finding correspondence from librarians and teachers that might enhance my own research agenda on examining the relationship among children, gatekeepers of children’s reading, and comics during the midtwentieth century in the United States. The quantity of materials available in the Wertham collection is daunting: more than two hundred boxes of papers. More than twenty-five boxes specifically focus on Seduction of the Innocent and his related anticomics writings, although I have found relevant materials scattered throughout the remaining files. At present, I have spent twelve days onsite at the Library of Congress, sifting through this wealth of papers—case records, transcripts of treatment sessions, newspaper clippings, notes from telephone conversations, personal correspondence, and more. Within the first few hours of my examination of his papers,

many of which are filed to correspond with particular chapters in Seduction of the Innocent, I began to see patterns that both troubled and intrigued me. Wertham seems to have been an inveterate notetaker and underliner, often annotating documents to indicate that he was planning to use particular items in his writing. Thus, between the filing arrangements and his notes, it is possible to discern much about how he constructed his writings. Ultimately, I found that, despite its accolades and its central role in moving comics further to the cultural sidelines, Wertham’s Seduction included numerous falsifications and distortions. This article documents specific examples of how Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain. I argue that Wertham privileged his interests in the cultural elements of social psychiatry and mental hygiene at the expense of systematic and verifiable science, an action that ultimately serves to discredit him and the claims he made about comics.

Superheroes and Their Savonarola Fredric Wertham was a German-born American psychiatrist who specialized in forensic psychiatry. He devoted much of his practice in the 1940s and 1950s to the diagnosis and treatment of children identified by schools, social welfare agencies, law enforcement, and court officers as juvenile delinquents. These young people often came from impoverished homes in New York City neighborhoods rife with street gang activity and other criminal activity. Although a portion of the children Wertham treated had diagnosed neuroses or psychoses, many of them had behavior disorders, a catchall diagnosis that included truancy, shoplifting, and daydreaming. (8) Along with a somewhat nonspecific diagnosis, what almost all of Wertham’s young patients shared—and what he sought most to understand—was their pastime of and passion for reading comic books. Moreover, that his patients read comics was to Wertham’s mind both causal and symptomatic of the conditions he diagnosed. This belief fueled his work with young people and secured his popular legacy— Wertham died in 1981—as a secular Savonarola, eager to quash comic books and their publishers in an attempt to save the young people of America from illiteracy, delinquency, mental illness, and other certain dooms. (9) During the time Wertham sought to suppress comics reading, research and market surveys indicated that more than 90 percent of children and more than 80 percent of teens in the United States read comics, often avidly. (10) At ten cents each for most new issues compared to a typical two-dollar price for a juvenile hardcover book, comics were affordable print matter for young people. Unlike the “shallow and inane” content that characterized much of mainstream juvenile literature, comics gave young readers an opportunity to participate, at least vicariously, in “the rumbling realities” of the everyday adult world. (11) Comics also served as an important social currency for young people, who frequently developed elaborate trading procedures and shared purchasing arrangements. For instance, in her study of children’s readership of comics, psychologist Ruth Strang reported that a mother told her that “during one day sixteen children rang her doorbell, asking if they could trade comic magazines with her child.” (12) Another researcher remarked, “Comics are traded for junk, for things to eat, for other comics, or for different magazines.” (13) Of course, not all children read comics: among the children communication researchers Katherine Wolf and Marjorie Fiske interviewed, for example, one can find readers who found particular comics’ genres boring, others who outgrew comics altogether, and still others who identified comics as trash, “the sort of thing that children who are

Seducing The Innocent

not well brought up read.” (14) Children’s tastes in reading have never been monolithic; still, the pervasiveness of comics as reading materials points to this medium as the most dominant cultural force in children’s lives during the 1940s and 1950s.

and others railed against were a new innovation. Although newspaper comic strips had been collected into book format for resale as early as 1903 and into pamphlet format for promotional purposes as early as 1929, comic books did not begin to reach a wide audience until publishers introduced Superman and other original characters in the late 1930s. (20) Whereas in 1939 “twentythree weekly and comic periodicals which continue the adventures of the daily and Sunday funny paper characters” could be found on newsstands and in drugstores, by 1945 readers could select from more than one hundred comic book titles. (21) Sales figures for that year indicate that readers purchased almost twenty-five million comics each month, equal to the combined sales of the four best-selling noncomics magazines, including the Reader’s Digest and Ladies’ Home Journal. (22) A popular title such as Batman could easily sell more than a million copies for each issue. (23) By the early 1950s more than six hundred titles could be found on newsstands, and sales were as high as one hundred million new issues monthly. (24) In comparison, the top-selling children’s book of 1953, Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion Revolts, sold fewer than sixty thousand copies. (25) Public libraries in the United States during that same era circulated approximately four hundred million items annually, with approximately half of those items categorized as juvenile materials, although it is important to caution that neither sales figures nor circulation numbers are indicative of actual readership. (26) If anything, sales figures shortchange readership, as the pass-through rate for comics—that is, the number of people who may have read each issue that was sold— was between five and eight. (27) More recently, sales for the top three hundred comic book titles of 2011 totaled seventy-two million issues for the entire year. (28)

Most critics of comics, including Wertham, conceded that “not every comic book is bad for children’s minds and emotions.” Wertham, however, derogated these claims with statements such as the following: “All child drug addicts, and all children drawn into the A Joint Effort narcotics traffic as messengers, with John Mason Brown, literary whom we have had contact, were invetcritic who coined the erate comic-book readers.” (15) infamous phrase “the Certainly, though, the psychiatrist was marijuana of the nursery” to not alone in his crusade: throughout the refer to comic books. 1940s and early 1950s, librarians, educators, police officers, pharmacists, religious leaders, and many other concerned adults spoke out about children’s seemingly insatiable reading appetite for the inexpensive, four-color tales of superheroes, funny animals, jungle queens, and gangsters. (16) Even hyperbole was normal for many of the critics who railed against comics. Perhaps the best-known example comes from Sterling North, then a literary critic for the Chicago Daily News. Having just completed service as a member of the American Library Association’s Committee on Intellectual Freedom, North inaugurated the widespread criticism of comic books in May 1940. Writing in an editorial colorfully titled “A The United States’ entry into World War II dampened some of National Disgrace (and a Challenge to American Parents),” North the criticism for comics, even as sales of comics climbed, but as characterized comic books as a “poisonous mushroom growth” comics publishers sought to retain and grow readership in postwar that drained “the pockets of America’s children” in exchange for a America, comic books veered into increasingly mature, dark, and “hypodermic injection of sex and murder.” (17) Other examples gory thematic territories. Even though the format had never been abound. For instance, Stanley Kunitz, the future US poet laureate intended for a solely child audience, children nonetheless reprebut in 1941 the editor of the Wilson Library Bulletin, compared sented a significant portion of comics sales and readership. Thus, comics to Nazis, calling them “a training school for young impressionable minds” that could “spawn only a generation of Storm Troopers, Gauleiters, and coarse, audacious Supermen.” (18) John Mason Brown, a literary critic and columnist for the Saturday Review of Literature, famously deemed comics “the marijuana of the nursery, the bane of the bassinet, the horror of the home, the curse of the kids, and a threat to the “Audacious Supermen” future” in a 1948 radio Two of the most popular comic books of the early 1940s were Superman and Batman. Fred Ray illustrated the cover of Superman #13 episode of Town (Nov.-Dec. 1941); Bob Kane drew (and signed) that of Batman #8 (Dec. 1941-Jan. 1942). Even though Superman battled Nazis on Meeting of the Air. (19) poster-style covers, the editor of one library-oriented publication claimed that comics could “spawn only a generation of Storm The comic books that North, Wertham,

Troopers, Gauleiters, and coarse, audacious Supermen.” [© DC Comics.] Such comics greatly outsold even Walter Farley’s popular 1941 children’s novel The Black Stallion, but of course comics had more pictures—and weren’t they a little cheaper, to boot? Maybe if Farley had given his horse a secret identity as a Shetland pony…? [© the respective copyright holders.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

as the content developed beyond superheroes and funny animals, adult gatekeepers of children’s reading and culture renewed their attacks on the comics industry. Fredric Wertham, who had not spoken or written about comics during the earlier wave of criticism, entered the public debate over the suitability of comics as reading material for children in March 1948, when he organized a symposium, “The Psychopathology of Comic Books,” that included folklorist Gershon Legman and psychiatrist Paula Elkisch as speakers. (29) Although Wertham privately confided that same year to Judith Crist, the author of a 1948 Collier’s Magazine article about his anticomics work, that he “repeatedly thought that [he] could retire from the comic-book field,” he realized that he would “have to keep up this work for a while.” (30) In fact, Wertham became the leading public figure of the American anticomics movement of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He wrote and spoke prolifically on the subject of crime comics and their contributions to youthful delinquency and mental infirmity. For instance, he published articles on comics in periodicals as diverse as the Saturday Review of Literature, National Parent-Teacher, and Ladies’ Home Journal. (31) His comics-related speaking engagements included a meeting of the American Prison Association, the Summer Session Institute at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and a meeting of the Women’s National Book Association. Wertham’s expertise on comics caused him to be consulted by the United States Senate’s Committee on Organized Crime in 1950 and by its Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 as well as by the New York Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Publication of Comics in 1951. Seduction of the Innocent, published in early 1954 by Rinehart and Company, was the ultimate expression of Wertham’s thoughts on the impact of reading comics on children’s welfare. The book’s thesis, popularly remembered, is a simple one: reading crime comic books harms children’s moral, social, physical, and mental development. For Wertham, crime comics were not only those such as Crime Must Pay the Penalty, in which “crime” was a featured part of the title or contents; instead, for him, “crime comic books are comic books that depict crime, whether the setting is urban, Western, science-fiction, jungle, adventure or the realm of supermen, ‘horror’ or supernatural beings.” (32) Consequently, almost no sector of the comics-publishing industry was immune from Wertham’s critiques. A deeper reading of Seduction, however, demonstrates that Wertham’s thesis is more nuanced. Wertham viewed the violent content of comics and other mass media as a public health concern that demanded regulation. That children, in particular, encountered violent content in mass media was especially insidious, as it harmed “their ethical development,” which he believed was not a moral issue; rather, “orientation as to what is right and wrong is part of normal mental health.” (33) For Wertham, culture, as part of a greater social order, contributed to a person’s health and wellbeing. This holistic view of health, along with Wertham’s thesis in Seduction, conforms to his professional orientation as both a social psychiatrist and a mental hygienist. (34) These two fields complement one another: the first seeks to understand mental illness within social and cultural contexts, not simply behavioral and physical manifestations, while the latter endeavors to promote mental wellness, again with a focus on larger social and cultural factors. His intake questionnaire for the Lafargue Clinic in Harlem, which sought information about a patient’s family life, recreational pursuits, educational background, physical condition, and behavioral symptoms, exemplifies Wertham’s concerns. (35) Wertham’s apprenticeships, first in 1922 with Emil Kraepelin at his clinic in Munich and then for much of the remainder of the decade with Adolf Meyer at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns

As The Twig Is Bent… Dr. Wertham served his psychiatric apprenticeships first with Dr. Emil Kraepelin (left) in Munich, Germany, then with Dr. Adolf Meyer (right) at Johns Hopkins University in New York City.

Hopkins University, informed his approach to psychiatry. Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist, was a pioneer in psychiatric nosology whose influence is visible today in the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association. In addition to his contributions to the procedures of differential diagnosis of mental illness, Kraepelin seems to have posited neo-Lamarckian ideas about the role of addiction and mental illness in society (e.g., that alcoholism leads to broader social degeneration). (36) It seems unsurprising that Wertham might have been interested, then, in the societal consequences of young people reading about violent acts in comic books. Wertham’s second mentor, Meyer, was a Swissborn psychiatrist who served as president of the American Psychiatric Association and today is largely remembered for modernizing the practice of psychiatry through valuing recordkeeping and the taking of comprehensive case notes. Of particular importance in his influence on Wertham, “Meyer viewed mental disorders as a disorganization in a person’s habit system arising at a specific point in time for specific reasons. In his perspective, mental illness was only an extreme form of mental disorder; rather, mental disorder included many forms of socially inefficient behavior, such as criminality, pauperism, alcoholism, and vagrancy. By developing a psychiatry of adjustment [as opposed to one focused on neurology and brain lesions], Meyer broadened the scope of psychiatry to include all forms of socially undesirable behavior.” (37) Wertham clearly viewed comics reading as a form of socially undesirable behavior, at least among children. In turn, he believed, this behavior contributed to improper ethical development and poor mental health. Although Wertham is today frequently remembered as a caricature at best—a footnote in the annals of cultural criticism— his work on comics formed only a portion of his career. He had a lengthy career with the New York Department of Hospitals as a senior psychiatrist, including time as director of Bellevue’s Mental Hygiene Clinic. He wrote numerous books, including the National Research Council–funded The Brain as an Organ: Its Postmortem Study and Interpretation (1934) and popular profiles in criminology, Dark Legend: A Study in Murder (1941) and The Show of Violence (1949). His published research appeared in respected peerreviewed journals such as Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Psychotherapy, and Journal of Criminal Psychopathology. He testified at high-profile trials, including that of cannibalistic serial killer Albert Fish in 1935 as well as the 1951 Delaware desegregation hearings that helped lead to the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 overturn of segregated education in Brown v. Board of Education. The doctor also testified before a judge in an unsuccessful attempt to secure psychiatric

Seducing The Innocent

Crime After Crime The depiction of crime, “whether the setting is urban, Western, science-fiction, jungle, adventure or the realm of supermen, ‘horror’ or supernatural beings,” was what Wertham meant when he referred to “crime comic books.” Cover exhibits A through F: Crimes by Women #1 (June 1948) from Fox Comics; artist unknown. Jesse James #1 (Aug. 1950) from Avon Periodicals; art by Gene Fawcette. Planet Comics #55 (July 1948) from Fiction House; art by Joe Doolin. Exciting Comics #65 (Jan. 1949) from Standard/Nedor; art by Alex Schomburg. [Preceding 4 art spots © the respective copyright holders.] Captain Marvel Adventures #87 (Aug. 1948) from Fawcett Publications; art by C.C. Beck. [Shazam hero & Billy Batson TM & © DC Comics.] Adventures into the Unknown #3 (Feb.-March 1949) from American Comics Group. Penciler unknown; inks credited to Edvard Moritiz. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

Hilde Mosse, treated at other New York City venues such as Bellevue Hospital Center, Kings County Hospital, and Queens General Hospital. In many instances, the young people whom the psychiatrists saw in these settings tended to have much more extreme disorders that required hospitalization. For example, the young woman Wertham quoted as remembering about comics, “I like one where a man puts a needle in a woman’s eye,” was one of Dr. Mosse’s patients at Kings County. This teenager had been admitted because she wanted to kill her younger brother, a fantasy she had experienced consistently for more than six years. (41) But these other venues also served as sites for some of the group therapy and mental hygiene programs Wertham directed. For instance, both the Hookey Club and the Remedial Reading Clinic, which he documented in Seduction, were conducted at Queens General Hospital. Although Wertham signaled his indebtedness to his colleagues in the acknowledgments for Seduction, he never consistently indicated in the book which examples he drew from firsthand knowledge rather than his colleagues’ reports.

When There Was Definitely A Doctor In The House Dr. Wertham with children at the Lafargue Clinic. Photo from a piece by Robert A. Emmens, Jr., on the Sequart News website, 4-14-11.

treatment for Ethel Rosenberg, who was being held at Sing Sing Prison in solitary confinement prior to her 1953 execution for espionage; later he worked with the Rosenbergs’ two sons, helping secure their adoption. In 1946, encouraged by African American novelist Richard Wright, Wertham founded the Lafargue Clinic, a low-cost mental hygiene clinic in Harlem that was one of the first of its kind to provide comprehensive social and mental health services primarily to people of color.

Manipulating the Innocent: Wertham and the Clinical Evidence At the Lafargue Clinic, Wertham and his staff treated nearly fifteen hundred adults and juveniles between 1946 and 1956. Of the total patients, approximately one-third were children, and of these, approximately one-quarter were white; the majority were black and Latino. (38) The words and experiences of these children formed the basis for much of the clinical evidence presented in Seduction of the Innocent. Lafargue’s protocols for treating younger patients were connected to mental hygiene’s corollary field of child guidance. Child guidance clinics developed in the 1920s, initially to respond to growing social concerns about juvenile delinquency, although the mission for these clinics quickly expanded to treat conditions consistent with Meyer’s ideal psychiatric purview. Ralph Truitt, a psychiatrist who studied under Meyer and a leader in the child guidance movement, characterized the scope of conditions relevant to these clinics as including “undesirable habits” (e.g., masturbation and nightmares), “personality traits” (e.g., daydreaming and restlessness), and “undesirable behaviors” (e.g., truancy and disobedience). (39) Although typical child guidance clinics did not treat young people who had more severe disorders such as dementia praecox (i.e., schizophrenia), the Lafargue Clinic treated persons with both mild and severe maladjustments. According to one set of clinic statistics, calculated by a staff member by examining a sample of 250 charts, more than 70 percent of children under the age of sixteen treated at Lafargue had diagnoses of behavior problems, that is, those conditions Truitt identified as problematic rather than severe. (40) For the evidence presented in Seduction, Wertham also drew on the experiences of children he and his associates, including Dr.

The following examples document instances where Wertham seemed to place himself in an observational position where it was not warranted. Additionally, they highlight occurrences where Wertham edited and altered children’s statements and clinical presentations to make his rhetorical position more compelling to readers. Finally, the examples give evidence that Wertham inaccurately characterized his own clinical research and frequently failed to attribute ideas that he liberally borrowed from others. The examples presented here are not intended to be exhaustive; to correlate all of Wertham’s sources for Seduction, while perhaps technically possible given the quality and quantity of archival material he preserved, would be a labor of many years.

Eroticism and Wish Dreams Wertham found the gratuitous linking of violence and sexuality to be one of the most disturbing features of the comics he studied. Indeed, many of the male comics readers with whom he spoke were intrigued, if not outright stimulated, by the depictions of women that featured bondage or torture scenarios. In the chapter of Seduction about the relationship between comics reading and children’s psychosexual development, he recalled, with relative accuracy, that when he asked a group of boys “if they actually had a little girl in a lonely place, would [they] really like to tie her up, beat her and torture her. …Everybody smiled—and every hand went up.” (42) The incident he reported here occurred during a June 1948 meeting of the Comic Book Readers Club. One of the two girls who attended that day’s meeting brought a recent copy of Crime Reporter, a comic that ran for only three issues. Wertham asked each of the six boys present “whether he liked girls being tortured. Each says ‘Yes.’ ‘It is more exciting.’” Later he asked them if they liked seeing girls tortured in real life as well as in comics. “They all smile and Paul says, ‘I haven’t said a word.’” (43) Wertham embellished the context for his questions and, interestingly, chose to omit any mention of the Tijuana Bible—a cheaply produced erotic comic—that Paul brought with him. (44) In Seduction, Wertham proposed that homosexual men identified strongly with the Batman comics because of the camaraderie between the superhero and his younger sidekick. More specifically, Batman and Robin offered readers “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together.” (45) As part of his evidence for this identification, Wertham shared the insights of a young homosexual man who stated, “I think I put myself in the position of Robin. I did want to have relations with Batman.” (46) The young man from the anecdote was actually two men, ages sixteen and seventeen, who had been in a sexual relationship with one another for several

Seducing The Innocent

A Jinxed Comic? No matter which of the three issues of St. John Publishing’s Crime Reporter the young girl mentioned in Tilley’s text had brought to a 1948 meeting of the Comic Book Readers Club, Dr. Wertham would surely have disapproved. The cover of #1 (Aug. 1948) is by Bob Lubbers; those of #2-3 are signed by Matt Baker. Weirdly, if the Grand Comics Database has it right, the latter two issues are both dated Oct. ’48; but stranger things have happened. The lead feature in all issues was “Jinx Jordan, Crime Reporter.” [© the respective copyright holders.]

years and had realized they were homosexual by the age of ten. Wertham combined their statements, failing to indicate that the seventeen-year-old is the one who noted, “The only suggestion of homosexuality may be that they seemed to be so close to each other,” and omitting the phrase that followed, “like my friend and I.” (47) Further, Wertham did not make any mention that the two teens had found the Sub-Mariner and Tarzan to be better subjects than Batman and Robin for their early erotic fantasies. In the same chapter, Wertham introduced the case of a thirteenyear-old boy who was on probation and receiving counseling because he urinated in another boy’s mouth. (48) About him, Wertham wrote: “Like many other homo-erotically inclined children, he was a special devotee of Batman: ‘Sometimes I read them over and over again. They show off a lot. I don’t remember Batman’s name, but the boy’s name is Robin. They live together. It could be that Batman did something with Robin like I did with the younger boy. …Batman could have saved this boy’s life. Robin looks something like a girl. He has only trunks on.’” (49) The case file presents a different account. (Italics indicate text that was omitted from or changed in Seduction.) My favorites are the war comics. I have read Batman. I liked it once but not so much now. They show off a lot. I don’t know Batman’s name but the boy’s name is Robin. They live together. It could be that Batman did something with Robin like I did with the younger boy. Batman could have saved this boy’s life. He may have made him take his thing in his mouth. Robin looks something like a girl. He has only trunks on. I read CRIME Does Not Pay, also Superman. A close comparison of the texts reveals that Wertham gave much greater weight to the boy’s readership of Batman than the case transcript indicated. Whereas Wertham remarks that the boy read these comics repetitively, if not obsessively, and that his

readership was contemporaneous with his therapy, the boy places his Batman readership in the past. A comparison reveals other, less obvious changes. For instance, the elision that Wertham documented actually comes after, not before, the sentence “Batman could have saved this boy’s life.” Although this is a small deviation that in other circumstances could be overlooked as a mistake, in Wertham’s case it belies a more systematic carelessness in his treatment of evidence. Finally, Wertham claimed that the boy had homosexual tendencies and that those tendencies correlated with the boy’s interest in Batman. Yet as the textual comparison indicates, the boy’s interest in Batman lay in the past. Moreover, Wertham failed to inform his readers that, prior to the boy’s arrest, the other boy had sodomized him. Wertham also believed that comics offered girl readers their own lesbian wish dreams. For example, he wrote, “I have seen an elaborate, charming breakfast scene, but it was between Batman and his boy, complete with checkered tablecloth, milk, cereal, fruit juice, dressing-gown and newspaper. And I have seen a parallel scene with the same implications when Wonder Woman had breakfast with an admiring young girl.” (50) It was comic book images of another strong woman, Sheena, that Dorothy, a thirteenyear-old African American girl and a habitual truant from an impoverished family, described as enjoying. (51) According to the book and the case notes, Dorothy read jungle comics with strong females like Sheena as well as crime comics, including Penalty, which she regretted never showed the criminals getting away with their crimes. Wertham quoted Dorothy saying about jungle comics, “I like to see the way they jump up and kick men down and kill them!... Sheena got a big jungle she lives in and people down there likes her and would do anything for her.” (52) In the case notes, Wertham commented that the images of strong women reinforced “violent revenge fantasies against men and possibly creates these [Continued on p. 15]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

If Wishes Were Fishes… Whether it was “Bob Kane’s” infinity cover for Batman #8 (Dec. 1941-Jan. 1942), actually drawn by Fred Ray & Jerry Robinson, or Win Mortimer ghosting Kane on a jungle scene for Batman #72 (Aug-Sept. 1952) closer to the publication date of Seduction of the Innocent, Dr. Wertham felt that Batman and Robin offered readers “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together”… a suggestion sure to raise hackles in the 1950s. If not for the demise of most comic book super-heroes in the late ’40s, he could also have pointed to Captain America and Bucky… The Human Torch and Toro… Mr. Scarlet and Pinky… The Shield and Dusty… and don’t get him started on Cat-Man and The Kitten! Thanks to Rod Beck for cover art. [© DC Comics.] Two teen boys who were prime interviewees, however, said they preferred Prince Namor, as per perhaps Sub-Mariner #32 [June 1949], the last issue on sale before Seduction (cover by Bill Everett)… or the jungle hero of Tarzan #1 (Jan.-Feb. 1948) with its Jesse Marsh cover, or maybe the likes of Tarzan #30 (March 1952) with its photo of Lex Barker as the Ape-Man. Thanks to Bruce Mason & Tony Rose for art. [Sub-Mariner cover © Marvel Characters, Inc.; Tarzan covers © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

Seducing The Innocent

A “Frightening Image” For Youngsters (Left:) Carol Tilley’s footnotes reveal (see p. 26) that the breakfast idyll of Wonder Woman and “an admiring young girl” occurred in Wonder Woman #49 (Sept.-Oct. 1951), with art by H.G. Peter and script probably by Robert Kanigher. We, too, were outraged when we beheld this panel. Will those comic book fiends stop at nothing to corrupt our children? Bob Bailey, Carol Strickland, and Sean Turenen collaborated to get us this scan. (Center left:) Wertham found Wonder Woman a “frightening image” for youngsters—maybe especially for boys, the way she was always hauling Steve Trevor around (although, you’ll notice, he hasn’t dropped his pipe!). Doc postulated that such “revenge fantasies [for girls] against men” may “create these violent anti-men (and therefore homosexual) fantasies.” We give up! We can’t argue with that kind of logic! The cover of Wonder Woman #5 (June-July 1943) is by H.G. Peter. Thanks to Rod Beck. (Below:) In the interest of fairness, we’re tossing in a splash panel that even one who is skeptical of Dr. W.’s thesis might find of questionable taste: one of many spanking sequences in early “Wonder Woman” stories, this one with Etta Candy of the Holliday Girls doing the honors in Sensation Comics #31 (July 1944). Reproduced from the hardcover Wonder Woman Archives, Vol. 4. Art by Peter; script probably by William Moulton Marston. We should point out, though, that by the time Seduction of the Innocent was published a decade later, this type of scene was rare if not nonexistent, after Robert Kanigher had replaced the late co-creator Marston as writer by 1947—which is why we had to go back to the mid1940s to find this last art sample. [© DC Comics.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

Another Role Model Shot To Hell! (Above:) “Sheena and the other comic book women… are very bad ideals for [girls],” Wertham maintained. Can’t see why, looking at the cover of Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics #148 (June 1951), probably by Maurice Whitman, and the “Sheena” splash page therefrom, with art credited to Robert Hayward Webb & Jay Disbrow; scripter unknown. Comics historian Hames Ware reports a “long, rambling, but wonderful phone conversation” with Webb in the early 1960s, wherein the artist revealed that, though he illustrated numerous “Sheena” tales, he rarely drew the jungle queen herself, considering that not to be his strong suit. Webb, who liked to have all three of his names used in his credits, told Hames that he usually left the main work on Sheena faces and figures to inkers like David Hames or Ann Brewster or to other artists… which in this case might have been either inker Disbrow or someone else in the S.M. Iger shop. The Sheena solo title that ran from 1942-52 is currently being reprinted in the multi-volume hardcover series Roy Thomas Presents Sheena, Queen of the Jungle; see PS Artbooks’ ad on p. 52. Thanks to Henry Steele for the Jumbo cover artist ID. [Sheena, Queen of the Jungle TM Galaxy Publishing, Inc., & Val D’Oro Entertainment, Inc.]

Crime Must Pay A Dime! (Right:) The “Penalty” comic that one 13-year-old girl professed to like was doubtless Ace Magazines’ Crime Must Pay the Penalty, represented here by the cover of issue #34 (Sept. 1953), with pencils credited to Jim McLaughlin. Unlike in the title logo of Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay, here “Penalty” rather than “Crime” is the biggest word. You’d think that would have made Wertham and friends happy… but noooooo…! Thanks to Rod Beck. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Seducing The Innocent

The Not-So-Headless Captain Marvel, Kafka for Kiddies, and Love Comics Richard, an eleven-year-old Caucasian boy, was brought to Lafargue by his mother, who claimed the boy had “wild imaginations” and engaged in rough play with neighborhood children. (54) In Seduction, Wertham painted a picture, colored with copious quotations from the boy, of a life debased by comics: he delighted in depictions of bondage, mock-threatened playmates with eye gouging and hanging, and scratched a child in the face. All of these actions, Wertham proposed, could not be explained adequately in existing books on child psychiatry or guidance; instead, comics were “a new kind of bacillus” for which psychiatrists could provide a prophylaxis. (55) In the case notes, Richard himself supported the idea that comics promote problematic behaviors: “I think something else about story and adventure comics. I think they shouldn’t have them on the stands, it is bad for children. When they buy the comic books they start thinking all sorts of things, playing games. I played such games because I got them from the comic books. That’s why I think children shouldn’t have them.” (56) That Richard engaged in the activities Wertham described or even that he spoke many of the words Wertham attributed to him is not in dispute, but a careful comparison of his case as presented in Seduction of the Innocent with the archival notes demonstrates how Wertham manipulated evidence to persuade readers of the ill effects of comic book reading on children’s behavior. For instance, in the book Richard says, “If I had a

You May Also Like… One 13-year-old delinquent who liked Batman and Robin also read Crime Does Not Pay and Superman. Seen here are a George Tuska splash page from CDNP #73 (March 1949) and the Wayne Boring/Stan Kaye cover of Superman #62 (Jan.-Feb. 1950), which guest-starred none other than Orson Welles, who in 1938 had “panicked a nation” (well, a number of people, anyway) with his “Invasion from Mars” radio broadcast. Thanks to Jim Amash for the former art, and to Rod Beck for the latter. [CDNP cover © the respective copyright holders; Superman cover © DC Comics.]

[Continued from p. 11] violent anti-men (therefore homosexual) fantasies…. Sheena and the other comic book women such as Wonder Woman are very bad ideals for them.” Yet Wertham omits from Seduction—and seemingly from his analysis—a revealing story about Dorothy’s everyday reality. In the case notes, she related an incident in which her aunt was accosted by gang members, taken to a rooftop, and robbed of less than one dollar. Wertham also declined to mention in Seduction that Dorothy—in addition to being habitually truant— was a runaway and a gang member, was sexually active, and had both a reading disability and low normal intelligence. On the final page of Dorothy’s case notes, Wertham instead wrote: “She would be good and non-aggressive if society would let her—Comic Books are part of society.” (53) Most telling of all, however, is a key fact Wertham omitted from Seduction: Dorothy was Dr. Mosse’s patient, not his, and as she was hospitalized at Kings County Hospital, where he did not practice, he would have never spoken with or observed her.

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

younger brother… I wouldn’t want him to read the horror comic books like Weird Science, because he might get scared. I don’t think they should read Captain Marvel. Look at this one with all the pictures of the man without his head!” In the case notes, however, Richard referred not to “horror comic books” but to “fiction comic books,” and Captain Marvel is not mentioned until a later session. Although Richard did remark about a headless man, he Dr. Hilde Mosse. indicated only a page in Captain Marvel #101 Thanks to Danny (October 1949); the case notes include Fingeroth. Wertham’s comments that “there are 5 pictures like this on one page.” Readers of Seduction are free to use their own “wild imaginations” in visualizing what could be a potentially gory decapitated man. In reality, though, it is simply Captain Marvel himself; he has been splashed in the face with an invisibility potion. Finally, nowhere in Seduction did the psychiatrist provide the richer context for Richard that he professed to believe was key to understanding the etiology of a patient’s disease. Consequently, readers are not privy to knowing that Richard’s mother is actually his stepmother, that she is also a patient at Lafargue, that he has stolen from her, that he often cries,

Beetlemania The last Golden Age issue of Blue Beetle, published by Fox Features, was #60 (Aug. 1950). Not a Kafkaesque “Metamorphosis” of man into bug in sight, either on the anonymous cover or inside—just a flashing insect-shaped signal—though Blue Beetle was indeed a crime comic and advertised itself as such. Thanks to Rod Beck. [Blue Beetle now TM DC Comics.]

that he has a scar on his cheek from a fight, or that his paternal grandmother had once attempted suicide. Although any of these issues may have been worth investigating in relation to the boy’s behavior, Wertham’s file for his case—at least as preserved in the archival record—demonstrates that comics were the principal focus for the therapeutic sessions, even remarking that the boy was “anxious to explain comic books.” (57)

Losing Face Pretty scary, huh, kids? The “headless man” referred to by one juvenile in his interview with Dr. Wertham was merely Captain Marvel with his head rendered invisible by the crook Ali Shamm. From “The Invisibility Trap,” written by Otto Binder and drawn by C.C. Beck & Pete Costanza, from Fawcett Publications’ Captain Marvel Adventures #101 (Oct. 1949). Thanks to P.C. Hamerlinck. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

In another passage from Seduction, Wertham described a sevenyear-old boy, Edward, who had been having nightmares induced by reading Blue Beetle comics. The boy described the Blue Beetle as “like Superman. He is a beetle, but he changes into Superman and afterwards he changes into a beetle again.” (58) Commenting in the text, Wertham wrote, “It is not difficult to understand that a child stimulated to fantasies about violent and sadistic adventures and about a man who changes into an insect gets frightened. Kafka for the kiddies!” (59) Although Wertham described Blue Beetle as a “very violent crime comic book,” he could not have studied it closely: the Blue Beetle is a man, not an insect. (60) Moreover, Edward neither fantasized about the Blue Beetle nor had nightmares about him. The case notes, which depart significantly from

Seducing The Innocent

Seeing Double? One 15-year-old boy had plenty to say about Fox’s Crimes by Women #2 (Aug. 1948), Prize’s Headline Comics #41 (aka Vol. 5, #5, May-June 1950), and Ace’s Crime Must Pay the Penalty #15 (Aug. 1950)—but Dr. Wertham preferred to make it appear as if two different boys had made the comments. The photo-cover Headline issue, incidentally, was edited by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. [© the respective copyright holders.]

the report in Seduction, state: “Boy says he reads Blue Beetle. Father says he does not read that at home, he saw it at a friend’s house. Boy says he does not remember anything about the nightmares.” (61) Wertham also counseled a thirteen-year-old African American girl, Vivian, whom he pronounced “an expert on love comics,” which, her mother purportedly stated, “she reads… all the time.” (62) Through Vivian’s example, Wertham sought to demonstrate that romance comics inspired criminal acts. According to Seduction, her mother brought Vivian to Lafargue because “she had stolen some money from a lodger,” although the case notes also identify her as indifferent in school and a liar. (63) To make the connection between theft and the romance comics, Wertham writes, “I asked her about stealing in love comics. She laughed, ‘Oh, they do it often.’” (64) The evidence from the archival material fails to support the connection. Rather, it indicates that Wertham falsified statements made by both the girl and her mother. For instance, the exchange with Vivian that Wertham purportedly quotes actually reads, “The story where somebody steals is in Crime Does Not Pay. In the Love Comics they sometimes steal.” (65) He created the illusion of dialogue and even emotion—in itself this does not warrant a high level of concern, as readers can reasonably expect that a psychiatrist and his patient would engage in conversation, and perhaps he remembered her laughter—but as he did in the example provided in this article’s introduction, he also distorted the facts. Wertham transforms that act of stealing in romance comics from “sometimes” to “often.” Further, the mother actually reported that her daughter was reading comics less avidly than she had before, as the family now had a television set.

Carlisle and the Crime Comics Carlisle, a fifteen-year-old boy, received counseling from Wertham for chronic truancy, although he also admitted to petty thievery and gang membership. In one of his sessions with

Wertham, Carlisle brought several comics with him, including Crimes by Women #2 (August 1948), Headline Comics #41 (May/June 1950), and [Crime Must Pay the] Penalty #15 (August 1950). During the session, which like many of Wertham’s sessions was transcribed, Carlisle commented on the comics, saying about Headline Comics, “There’s one that looks sexy. Her headlights are showing half way.” [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Unless the boy was talking about an interior page, he was probably referring to the cover of Crimes by Women #2.] About Crimes by Women he remarked, “Her legs are showing above her knees. Her headlights are showing, with a gun in her hand smoking, as though she had already shot somebody—with hate and disgust for the cop.” About a different image in the same comic, Carlisle noted, “When you see a girl and you go see her headlights, and she is beaten up, that makes you hot and bothered because you see parts that you shouldn’t be shown…. If she will take a beating from a man, she will take anything from him.” Finally, about Penalty he said, “It shows how to commit burglaries, holdups, a gangster has a hand on the girl’s shoulder. He is going to work his way down to her headlights.” (66) Yet in Seduction Wertham reported Carlisle’s words so that they appear to be spoken by two boys taking part in a group therapy session: At some of the sessions of the Hookey Club, when there were only adolescent boys present, no younger ones and no girls, discussions about comic books were sometimes pretty outspoken. One boy discussed the comic book, Crimes by Women. “There is one that is sexy! Her legs are showing above her knees and her headlights are showing plenty! She has a smoking gun in her hand as though she had already shot somebody. When you see a girl and you see her headlights and she is beaten up, that makes you hot and bothered! If she will take a beating from a man she will take anything from him.” Another boy defended Crimes by Women and showed a copy of Penalty which he said was worse. “It shows how to commit burglaries, holdups. A

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

gangster has a hand on a girl’s shoulder. He is working his way down to her headlights.” (67) In this example Wertham not only fabricated the context and one of the speakers but also elided and conflated comments about specific images. Carlisle was an important source of information for Wertham; at least fifteen single-spaced transcribed pages of sessions with Carlisle are part of Wertham’s research materials for Seduction. For instance, Carlisle makes an appearance as a thirteen-year-old boy who shares with Hookey Club members that when young readers saw an advertisement in comics for a kitchen knife set, “the kids immediately know what to use them for. They buy them and split them up. In the schools where I was, the boys use them. They have straps and strap them on their legs.” (68) In another passage, Carlisle, here reported to be a fourteen-year-old member of the Hookey Club, was the source of the story about the shoeshine boys’ protection racket. Wertham changed small details. For example, the thirty-five or forty boys that Carlisle noted became twenty-five in the book. Similarly, Carlisle stated that the scheme lasted for four months, which Wertham changed to a less definite “several.” (69) He was also the source for the example of how comics inspire young people to steal women’s purses. Wertham quoted Carlisle in part: “In the comic books it shows how to snatch purses. You should read them if you got the time. [To me.] It shows a boy going to a woman and asking her where the church is. She naturally drops her arm and goes waving. So you just grab the purse and run.” The quotation is generally accurate, although Wertham substituted “boy” for Carlisle’s more evocative “runt, a shrimp about my size.” Most important, Wertham omitted the beginning of Carlisle’s anecdote in which he says that although he has read about robbery in comics, he also “saw it in the movies. Movies help a lot.” (70)

Looking beyond Children’s Files Wertham’s characterization of his own research is also troubling. In Seduction he described his work as “clinical research” consisting of “large case material.” (71) In his testimony before the Senate subcommittee, Wertham described the number of children he had studied as part of his comics investigation as “more than 500... a year” for a total of “many thousands.” (72) These figures are inconsistent with treatment data from the Lafargue Clinic. For example, the total number of children under the age of sixteen who were examined at the clinic between 1946 and 1956 was fewer than five hundred. (73) Of course, Wertham still practiced psychiatry at Queens General Hospital and elsewhere during a portion of these years, so it is possible that some of the young people whose cases formed part of the basis for his arguments in Seduction were seen at these other facilities; unfortunately, the archival record does not adequately support this option. Moreover, he inaccurately characterized the Hookey Club at Queens General Hospital, writing in Seduction that he founded it “at the beginning of World War II” and that “the usual age range of members… was from thirteen to sixteen.” (74) As early as 1948, however, Wertham seemed unclear about the club’s chronology and composition, as he requested information about it from one of his associates at Queens, who informed him that it “started in the spring of 1944. After a summer vacation, it started again in the following fall, and ended with vacation in 1945. The club was dropped for summer vacation in June 1946. We never did revive it. The ages were from 11 to 17.” (75) A separate but similar club, the Comic Book Readers Club, began in May 1948 and appears to have continued irregularly through 1952. A preliminary survey of the available transcripts of these two groups suggests that comics dominated the discussions

Love And Legman Folklorist and author Gershon Legman (shown teaching origami in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1954—and a copy of his best-known book, the privately printed Love and Death (1949). According to Wikipedia, that tome argued that “American culture was permissive of graphic violence in proportion to, and as a consequence of, its repression of the erotic.” The book, which contained a chapter attacking comic books as harmful to children, was labeled as obscene materials by the U.S. Post Office; the resultant trial over the matter is cited as a reason for his departing the United States for France in 1953. To clarify one of Tilley’s remarks in the text: EC publisher William M. Gaines accused Legman of ghostwriting some of Wertham’s work on comics in the “Are You a Red Dupe?” page reprinted in A/E #124 & 126. [Book cover © Estate of Gershon Legman.]

only infrequently and seldom without some encouragement from Wertham, which seems to contradict his assessment that the club was “one of the most revealing channels of information about the influence of comic books.” (76) Instead, the “many thousands” of children Wertham claimed to have studied likely included a large number for whom he had only anecdotal knowledge, such as the eight-year-old niece of a Mrs. Axelrod, who was either a client or a staff member at Lafargue. (77) The woman reported to Wertham on a conversation she had with her niece on how many comic books she purchased; Wertham reported this anecdote in Seduction without acknowledging that it was gathered secondhand. (78) Similarly, he recounted an anecdote wherein “an eight-year-old girl said to her mother, ‘Let’s play a game. Someone is coming to see us. I’ll stamp on him, knock his eyes out and cut him up.’” As with the previous example, this one was provided to Wertham secondhand: a private patient reported to him that her niece had said these things. (79) Only on occasion, such as with the examples of what young boys had learned about delinquency from comics, did Wertham provide some attribution— here, “a very experienced youth counselor”—when he did not have firsthand knowledge. (80) It seems, however, that even among the young people to whom Wertham had direct access, reading comics was seldom a significant clinical issue even by his standards. In statistics for Lafargue representing a period of several years, only 26 of a total of 133 patients age fourteen and younger were designated as “comic book cases.” (81) The psychiatrist also appropriated ideas from peers and acquaintances without offering any attribution. He claimed, for instance, to “have seen children vomit over comic books,” but this assertion was actually suggested to Wertham by his confidant Gershon Legman, the folklorist whom comics publisher William

Seducing The Innocent

Gaines famously—and somewhat accurately—accused of being Wertham’s ghostwriter. (82) Legman even suggested the example that Wertham used to frame this claim: “Suppose a candy factory sells lollypops and one batch of lollypops is bad.” (83) In another example, Wertham asserts early in Seduction, “Superman not only defies the laws of gravity, which his great strength makes conceivable; in addition he gives children a completely wrong idea of other basic physical laws. Not even Superman, for example, should be able to lift up a building while standing on the ground, or to stop an airplane in midair while flying himself.” (84) Yet, this statement was not original to Wertham; instead, his notes reveal the source to be “an Electrophysicist who has two children age 4 and 8” whom Wertham met at a friend’s house. (85) One of the most extensive instances of Wertham’s failure to attribute the source of his material also demonstrates his willingness to alter details to fit his rhetorical need. I found a good opportunity to study what one might call the cultural role of comic books in small stores in very poor neighborhoods where immigrants or migrating minorities have moved into a section of the city. For example in a small candy store frequented almost entirely by Puerto Ricans who had moved into the district there is no other reading matter aside from comic books. But of them there is a large secondhand supply limited to the violent and gruesome and sexy kinds. There are always children around, including very young ones, and this is their first contact with American culture. They cannot even speak English, so of course they only look at the pictures. They have not yet heard that the experts of the comic-book industry have found that comic books teach literacy, so they don’t learn to read from them. But here their little money is taken away from them. Late in the evening, and into the night, children collect at this store, which is also a place for that much hushed-up phenomenon child prostitution of the youngest and lowest-paid kind. (86) It is quite possible that Wertham himself never saw or visited this store, as his colleague Dr. Hilde Mosse provided him with this report almost verbatim. Although her report did mention prostitution, Wertham added “incl. childhood” in the report’s margin. (87)

Discussion Seduction of the Innocent is filled with examples like the preceding ones in which Wertham shifted responsibility for young people’s behavioral disorders and other pathologies from the broader social, cultural, and organic physical contexts of these children’s lives to the recreational pastime of reading comics. Wertham often played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics, even leading some of his contemporaries to raise concerns about the way in which he marshaled evidence in support of his assertions. Indeed, several months before Seduction was published, Vernon Pope, who at the time was head of public relations for DC/National Comics, wrote to psychiatrist Lauretta Bender, a member of DC/National’s editorial advisory board, to get her opinion on whether the comics publisher should try to counter “some of [Wertham’s] most blatant distortions? I’ll bet some of those illustrations, which are presented as current examples, are well over 5 years old.” (88) Even the legal counsel for the United States Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which called Wertham as a key witness in the hearings it held on the contributions of crime comic books to juvenile delinquency, viewed Wertham’s arguments and evidence as problematic: “He represents the extreme position among the psychiatrists and disapproves on psychiatric grounds of many crime comics which ‘the

middle of the roaders’ do not believe make any significant contribution to juvenile delinquency…. The line of questioning will be to determine on the basis of Dr. Wertham’s experience whether and to what extent his clinical findings have taken into account the other causative factors in the child’s background, i.e., broken homes, environment, etc.” (89) A more sympathetic party, Bertram Beck, an esteemed psychiatric social worker who led the Special Juvenile Delinquency Project for the United States Children’s Bureau, a federal agency charged with investigating a variety of children’s social welfare issues, found fault with Wertham’s approach in Seduction, despite his general agreement with the doctor’s thesis. In a letter to Wertham from April 1954, Beck wrote: “Your treatment of contrary evidence and, in fact, anyone who disagrees seems to me to be as unscientific as you demonstrate the defenders of the comic book have been. These lapses, inaccuracies, and misinterpretations seem more unfortunate to me since they will alienate some of the professional support which you should have.” (90) Wertham, however, did not shy away from alienating those persons who questioned his expertise, evidence, or conclusions, even if they might have proved useful for his efforts to regulate comics sales. For example, in his letter of reply to the president of the Hawaii Congress of Parents and Teachers, who had been somewhat critical of Seduction, Wertham wrote, “You ask me whether I am ‘an authority of the techniques of learning to read.’ Yes, I am.” (91) When the executive editor of Woman’s Home Companion wrote to inquire about the source of Wertham’s evidence for an anecdote in Seduction that featured the magazine, his response was a single, teasing sentence: “I’m awfully sorry you haven’t kept your records because, as you well know, a physician is not at liberty to divulge his sources.” (92) Here, Wertham seemed to apply doctor-patient privilege more broadly than medical ethics guidelines ever intended. Wertham’s treatment of evidence in Seduction and his responses to questions about his comics-related research were indicative of a larger pattern of spurious and questionable behaviors. Gabriel Mendes, in his historical examination of the Lafargue Clinic, notes that “throughout his entire career in psychiatry Wertham would continuously fail to observe the codes of professionalism that marked one as a candidate for institutional leadership and prestige in the wider world.” (93) To support his assertion, Mendes points to archival evidence that demonstrates Wertham had problems working collegially with others at the Phipps Clinic during the 1920s and that he misrepresented his position and status to colleagues at the Munich Institute Warning Voices when he was (Left:) Bertram M. Beck, who back in the day employed there tactfully chided Dr. Wertham for his “treatment of later that decade. contrary evidence and, in fact, anyone who Mendes also disagrees [with you],” was the director of the Special describes that in Juvenile Delinquency Project of the United States Children’s Bureau in the 1950s. He died in 2000. the Delaware desegregation (Right:) Dr. Gabriel Mendes, now assistant professor hearings in which of ethnic studies at the University of California – San Diego, in an article titled “A Deeper Science,” Wertham testified castigated Wertham for “continuously fail[ing] to on behalf of the observe the codes of professionalism.” National

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

trists, including Wertham, helped establish the physiological dimensions of the field. But assembling all of the pieces of information to arrive at a fuller understanding of a patient’s condition and its potential causality relied on the expertise and discretion of individual psychiatrists. (97) Even had Wertham provided others with access to his “evidence,” it was still in many ways his professional prerogative to tell the stories he wanted to tell. Yet, in light of the source evidence now available for independent verification, Wertham’s book appears clearly to be an attempt at cultural correction rather than an honest report of scientific inquiry, whether from a psychiatric or a social sciences perspective—a conclusion that has long been the source of speculation. (98) Although his work contains no overt references to Frankfurt School theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Wertham’s rhetoric advances a similar argument. For him, mass culture and capitalism, as embodied by the coarse world of comics, was not perhaps a triumph of Fascism over true art and culture but a real threat to a healthy society. Wertham was not a cultural conservative, but he did equate comics and comics reading with a broader social and cultural failure. (99) As he wrote in Seduction:

Clinically Speaking Maybe Dr. Wertham (seen above right) saw himself in the vein of two-fisted prison psychiatrist Dr. Tom Rogers, the hero of Ziff-Davis’ comic book Crime Clinic, who sometimes used, er, unorthodox methods in dealing with criminals and societal problems. The cover of issue #5 (Summer 1952) was painted by major pulp-mag artist Norman Saunders. Thanks to Rod Beck. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Jack Greenberg, the NAACP’s attorney and the person who had sought Wertham’s help, recalled the psychiatrist as “temperamental and imperious, and ‘everything had to be precisely as he wanted it.’” (94) Wertham’s irascibility was evident in the transcript of a 1955 meeting of the New York State Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Publication of Comics at which he repeatedly evaded requests to answer questions directly. (95) So what of the distortions, falsifications, and misrepresentations that pervade Wertham’s case against comics? The publisher’s note that opened Seduction of the Innocent framed the book as “the result of seven years of scientific investigation” and deemed Wertham as possessing an “expert opinion… based on facts, facts that can be demonstrated and proved.” (96) For much of its history and despite scattered efforts such as the experimental psychology of Wilhelm Wundt, psychiatry cannot be considered an exact science with standards of evidence that resemble other biological and medical sciences. Only since the 1950s, with the introduction of clinical drug trials, can psychiatric evidence be more widely viewed as systematic and rigorous; even then, the emphasis is on therapeutic intervention rather than on etiology. Of course, Kraepelin and others such as Meyer helped systematize psychiatric information gathering and record keeping, while other psychia-

Is it possible to take a child’s mind “too seriously”? Is anything to be gained by the current cheap generalization that healthy normal children are not affected by bad things and that for unhealthy abnormal children bad things do not make much difference either, because the children are bad anyhow? It is my growing conviction that this view is a wonderful excuse for adults to do whatever they choose. They can conceal their disregard for social responsibility behind a scientific-sounding abstraction which is not even true and can proceed either to exploit children’s immaturity or permit it to be exploited by whole industries. (100) Although its possible relationship to the Frankfurt School bears exploration, Wertham’s argument and even its construction seem indebted to his mentor Kraepelin. Medical historian Eric Engstrom proposes that Kraepelin’s later stance—which Wertham would have likely encountered personally during his apprenticeship in Munich—was increasingly focused on social and cultural explanations for mental disease. As Engstrom writes, for Kraepelin, “high culture and ‘life-experiences’ threatened not only to countermand Darwinian laws of natural selections by shielding human beings from their environment, but also to impinge directly on the development of germ cells. Kraepelin viewed the effects of culture as contributing to a deterioration, indeed to the degeneration of the individual and the ‘race.’” (101) In Wertham’s view, comic books threatened both social and cultural integrity. Additionally, Engstrom notes that Kraepelin marshaled a vast system of informants to provide him with psychiatric material for his research, and “he appears to have few qualms about drawing on the observations of officials not trained in psychiatry. This use of information could never have satisfied his own critical standards of clinical observation.” (102) Again, Wertham—perhaps quite unconsciously—adopted the practices of his mentor, collating the reports of a network of observers to advance his rhetoric. Meyer’s influence is not wholly absent in Wertham’s logic. In fact, Meyer’s admonition that “if the facts [of the case] do not constitute a diagnosis we must nevertheless act on the facts” could be seen as a spur to Wertham’s desire to incite action on comics, because even if

Seducing The Innocent

Comic Books—Er, Excuse Us, Graphic Novels— Go Legit! (Clockwise from above left:) This recent American Library Association poster uses images of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, all painted by Alex Ross, as an exhortation to read. [© DC Comics.] The Penguin Book of Comics, by George Perry & Alan Aldridge (1967 English edition seen at top right, 1971 revised American edition at lower right), contained both historical text and black-&-white reproduction of comic strips and comic book pages. It was but the start of Penguin’s involvement with comics and graphic novels. Thanks to Jim Kealy for the English cover and to Aaron Kaplan for the American version. [Characters on covers TM & © their respective trademark & copyright holders.] Jeff Smith’s cover for a Scholastic edition of one of his popular Bone volumes. [© Jeff Smith.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

venues. In particular and despite its one-time place at the head of children’s print culture, it has been little represented in areas such as book history, print culture, and children’s literature. (104) In John Hench’s recent and admirable Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II, from which this article’s epigraph is drawn, comics are excluded from his discussion of the propaganda efforts made by the Office of War Information (OWI) even though the OWI extensively studied and experimented with comics in strip and book format early in the war. (105) In Anne Lundin and Wayne Wiegand’s edited volume Defining Print Culture for Youth: The Cultural Work of Children’s Literature, only a single essay even mentions comics, and then only in the context of individuals’ reading histories. In Dell Comics Are Goody Two-Shoes Comics Carl Kaestle et al.’s volume Literacy in the United States: As Carol Tilley points out, in 1954-55 Dell Comics self-righteously refused to join the Comic Magazine Association of Readers and Reading since 1880, America or to accede to its Comics Code Authority. Seen here are two of Dell/Western’s licensed comics: Carl Barks’ cover for Donald Duck #26 (Nov. 1952) and the photo cover of Gene Autry Comics #66 (Aug. ’52). Dr. Wertham, comics are glossed twice, and in of course, did count Western comics as “crime comics.” Thanks to Tony Rose for the covers. [Donald Duck cover both instances the reference is to © Walt Disney Productions or successors in interest; Gene Autry photo © the respective copyright holders.] newspaper comic strips, not comic books. (106) Children’s elements of his reporting and interpretation of it are specious, literature scholars tend to distance themselves from comics as well. Wertham’s clinical evidence did confirm that young people read As children’s literature professor Charles Hatfield noted a few comics. (103) years ago, “Children’s literature scholars have not acknowledged comics as a foundational element of [children’s culture]… and have In the more than half a century that has elapsed since the publibeen slow to put aside assumptions about the Otherness of comics cation of Seduction of the Innocent, much has changed in the cultural vis-à-vis the literary tradition.” (107) That scholars continue to landscape. Libraries and schools throughout the United States have neglect or marginalize the historical realities of comics, their turned to comics as sources of shared reading for classroom assignreaders, and the medium’s social milieu is regrettable. ments and as inducements for reluctant readers. Comics characters

appear on promotional posters for reading that are distributed by the American Library Association. Teachers and librarians participate in comics conventions, and comics vendors and programming can be found at library and educational conferences. Programs and tools encourage young people to create their own comics. Mainstream book publishers such as Scholastic and Penguin distribute comics, albeit in long form, not the pamphlet form familiar to Wertham. Many of Hollywood’s most lucrative film properties are based on superhero comics that the young people in Wertham’s Hookey Club might have read. Yet, as the epigraph for this article proposes, books are enduring propaganda. Wertham’s argument about comics in Seduction of the Innocent, grounded inconsistently in frequently spurious clinical evidence, has cast a long shadow over the place of comics in society. Consequently, many persons, influenced—often unknowingly—by Wertham’s popular rhetoric, continue to view comics as childish, violent, oversexed trash. That shadow is visible, too, in academe. True, in the past few decades scholarship on comics has shifted, slowly though steadily, from the margins toward the center of humanities and social sciences research. Still, it is often ghettoized in specially created journals and conferences rather than included in more catholic

For historians of the role of information in society and culture, the deceptions Wertham perpetrated raise questions in a number of areas. For instance, were his distortions acceptable because he seemed to have the welfare of children in mind? In instances where information from sensitive—and hence not easily revealed— resources such as medical intake records and treatment reports is used to bolster arguments, how can publishers and readers ensure the authenticity and reliability of that information? Similarly, as Wertham’s book was intended for a popular audience, was he bound to the same standards of evidence as if he were writing for an academic one? Likewise, how can we be certain that children’s voices are recorded, filtered, and reported accurately by adult mediators? In contemporary culture, it is arguably more difficult to perpetrate fraud or even practice creative deception in writing; the cases of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, memoirist James Frey, and essayist John D’Agata, who is the subject of a recent book on fact checking, bear witness to that assertion. (108) Even so, to what degree can we accept evidence presented for any rhetorical purpose? Although adults read comics, too, for many young people growing up in the United States during the midtwentieth century, comics were a primary means for them to engage with the world around them. Comic books and comics reading were more than a marketing phenomenon, more than

Seducing The Innocent

cultural junk, more than a pastime, more than a pathology. Fredric Wertham wanted to curtail that engagement in a significant manner. That he cloaked his rhetoric in the guise of science and professional authority makes his claims more egregious. I want to be clear, however, that my intent in highlighting Wertham’s falsifications is not to add my name to the list of the psychiatrist’s detractors. In fact, I find myself conflicted about Wertham. Having examined thousands of pages of documents that he created and collected, I discovered that he had a genuine passion for children and their welfare, though it is difficult to document that passion meaningfully. At the same time, he gave readers a clear indication that rhetoric must trump evidence: commenting about a colleague, Wertham wrote, “Neutrality— especially when hidden under the cloak of scientific objectivity— that is the devil’s ally.” (109)

Notes 1. Quoted in John B. Hench, Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 70. 2. Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent (New York: Rinehart & Company, 1954); C. Wright Mills, “Nothing to Laugh At,” New York Times, April 25, 1954, BR20; Margaret Martignoni to Dudley Frasier, March 10, 1954, box 123, folder 7, Fredric Wertham Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC (hereafter Wertham Papers); advertisement for Seduction of the Innocent, New York Times, April 26, 1954, 23; Joy Elmer Morgan, “Seduction of the Innocent,” NEA Journal 43 (1954): 473; Bruno Bettelheim, review of Seduction of the Innocent, Library Quarterly 25 (1955): 129–30; the quote from Sterling North comes from advertisements for Seduction of the Innocent taken out by Rinehart and Company (see, e.g., “[Advertisement: Seduction of the Innocent],” New York Times, April 26, 1954, 23); Marie Loizeaux, “Talking Shop,” Wilson Library Bulletin 28 (1954): 884; Clifton Fadiman to Fredric Wertham, August 17, 1954, box 124, folder 3, Wertham Papers. 3. Rene de Chocor to Fredric Wertham, August 5, 1954, box 124, folder 3, Wertham Papers. In comparison, the book would have needed to sell more than seventy-three thousand copies in cloth and paper combined to be ranked among the top ten nonfiction bestsellers for 1954, according to Alice Hackett’s 70 Years of Best Sellers (New York: Bowker, 1967). Sales might indeed have been higher: Wertham claimed that Seduction had been optioned by the Book of the Month Club (BOMC) as one of its summer selections but that the offer was rescinded because of pressure by comics publishers (see James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s [New York: Oxford University Press, 1986]). Clifton Fadiman, then a member of BOMC’s editorial board, sent Wertham a postcard in August 1954, stating in part, “Sorry the thing worked out the way it did. I know the book will do a lot of good” (August 17, 1954, box 124, folder 3, Wertham Papers). Interestingly, Fadiman’s first wife, Pauline (they divorced in 1949), was editor of the Child Study Association of America’s (CSAA) journal; Wertham had a great dislike for the CSAA, primarily because of CSAA staff member Josette Frank’s advisory work with DC/National Comics. 4. For scholarly perspectives, consider Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage; Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). For

popular perspectives, consider, for example, David Hajdu, The TenCent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America (New York: Macmillan, 2009); Stephen O’Day, Seduction of the Innocent, 2011, http://www.lostsoti.org. There is also a documentary film, Diagram for Delinquents, focusing on Wertham, scheduled for a 2012 release (the Website http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sequart/diagram-for-delinquents has additional information). 5. Not all publishers sought the CMAA’s approval: Dell Comics, which specialized in comics featuring funny animals and properties licensed from other media (e.g., Donald Duck, Gene Autry), was a notable exception. Furthermore, as Nyberg argues in Seal of Approval, other factors such as distribution problems contributed to the evisceration of the comics industry. Whatever the exact proportions in the constellation of factors that the comics industry faced in 1954, the industry looked quite different in subsequent years. Specific data about the changes in new titles and related publication details can be found in Jean-Paul Gabilliet, Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books, trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010). 6. Jeet Heer, “The Caped Crusader: Fredric Wertham and the Campaign against Comic Books,” Slate, April 4, 2008, http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2008/04/the_caped_c rusader.html 7. Bart Beaty, Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005). Prior to Wertham’s death, historian James Gilbert interviewed Wertham, who also granted Gilbert access to a portion of his personal papers. See Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage. 8. Statistics for Wertham’s Lafargue Clinic indicate that more than 70 percent of the children treated there had “behavior disorders,” a diagnosis that did not exist for adults (“Statistics—Lafargue Clinic 1946 to 1956,” March 6, 1956, box 52, folder 15, Wertham Papers). J. Wallace Wallin’s Personality Maladjustments and Mental Hygiene (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949) provides insights into thencontemporary views of childhood behavior disorders.

Horror In The Women’s Magazines Part of the first page—and accompanying photo—from Judith Crist’s “Horror in the Nursery,” from Collier’s Magazine (Aug. 17, 1948). In that article, the author, who later became well known as TV Guide’s movie critic, was basically a mouthpiece for Fredric Wertham’s ideas on comic books. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

9. Wertham acknowledged this comparison in Seduction, 15. 10. Cf. David T. Armstrong, “How Good Are the Comic Books?,” Elementary English Review 21 (1944): 283–85, 300; Clara Louise Kessler, “Leisure Time Interest Questionnaire,” Illinois Libraries 30 (1948): 168–74; W. W. D. Sones, “Comic Books Are Going to School,” Progressive Education 24 (1947): 212. In addition, see Carol L. Tilley, “Of Nightingales and Supermen: How Youth Services Librarians Responded to Comics between the Years 1938 and 1955,” PhD diss., Indiana University, 2007. 11. Julia L. Certain, editorial in Elementary English Review 18 (1941): 160; Gweneira Williams and Jane Wilson, “They Like It Rough: In Defense of Comics,” Library Journal 67 (1942): 204. 12. Ruth Strang, “Why Children Read the Comics,” Elementary School Journal 43 (1943): 336. 13. Margaret Frost, “Children’s Opinion of Comic Books,” Elementary English Review 20 (1943): 330. 14. Katherine M. Wolf and Marjorie Fiske, “The Children Talk about Comics,” in Communications Research 1948–1949, ed. Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), 24. 15. Wertham, Seduction, 10, 26. 16. For additional information about concerns about comics during this time period, see, for example, Tilley, “Of Nightingales”; Hajdu, The Ten-Cent Plague; and Nyberg, Seal of Approval. 17. Sterling North, “A National Disgrace (and a Challenge to American Parents),” Chicago Daily News, May 8, 1940, 56. 18. SJK [Stanley J. Kunitz], “Libraries, to Arms!,” Wilson Library Bulletin 15 (1941): 671.

The Plague Years Dr. David Hajdu, professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, New York City, and the cover of his 2008 study The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. Dust jacket illustration by Charles Burns; jacket design by Susan Mitchell. This generally excellent book deals with the Wertham Era. Photo by Michelle Heimerman. [© David Hajdu.]

19. American Broadcasting Company, “Town Hall: What’s Wrong with the Comics?,” March 2, 1948. An audio excerpt of Brown’s comments—complete with audience laughter—can be heard at http://www.archive.org/details/WhatsWrongWithTheComics.

24. “The Hundred Million Dollar Market for Comics,” Publishers Weekly 165 (1954): 1906.

20. For additional information about the early comics industry, see, for example, Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890– 1945 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); and Ron Goulart, The Adventurous Decade (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1975).

26. Robert D. Leigh, The Public Library in the United States: The General Report of the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950).

21. The quote is from Florence Brumbaugh, “Children’s Choices of Reading Materials,” Elementary English Review (1939): 226. 22. Harold C. Field, “Are the Comic Books a Problem?,” New Jersey Library Association Bulletin 13 (1945): 75–83; Carl H. Melinat, “Magazine Best Sellers,” Wilson Library Bulletin 21 (1946): 171–72. 23. Harry E. Childs to Josette Frank, February 5, 1942, box 24, folder 239, Child Study Association of America records, Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota.

25. “Farley Leads the List,” Publishers Weekly 165 (1954): 898.

27. Field, “Are the Comic Books a Problem?” 28. The Comics Chronicles, “Comic Book Sales by Year,” accessed January 13, 2012, http://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html. 29. The papers from this symposium were published later that year in the American Journal of Psychotherapy 2 (1948). 30. Judith Crist, “Horror in the Nursery,” Collier’s Magazine 121 (1948): 22–23, 95–97; Fredric Wertham to Judith Crist, August 17,

Seducing The Innocent

“On Our Cover”–The Prequels When Ye Editor asked busy Australian artist Daniel James Cox for a cover for this issue which depicted Dr. Fredric Wertham surrounded by the five elements of Superman, Batman/Robin, Wonder Woman, crime, and horror, all utilizing art taken from actual DC comics, the illustrator came up first with the layout at left. He grafted Wertham’s likeness onto the contorted face in Edvard Munch’s famous painting “Scream” and surrounded it with four of the five elements. Looked good to Ye Ed; he said, “Go for it!” Then, however, Daniel decided he’d rather try a far more photographic image of Wertham—and Roy T. liked that one even better. Soon, however, becoming increasingly swamped with his film-related work, Daniel brought in his colleague Jason Paulos as a collaborator, and between them they produced the excellent cover which graces this issue. One thing about it—you can’t fault these guys for being lazy! Thanks, fellas! [Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, & other excerpted art elements © DC Comics; other art © 2014 Daniel James Cox.]

1948, box 116, folder 6, Wertham Papers. 31. A staff correspondent for the Ladies’ Home Journal stated that the magazine had been “deluged with so many additional orders” for reprints of Wertham’s 1953 preview of Seduction of the Innocent that production and distribution costs had become prohibitive (Holly W. Butler to Fredric Wertham, February 8, 1954, box 123, folder 7, Wertham Papers). 32. Wertham, Seduction, 20. 33. Ibid., 347. 34. Wertham discussed his professional orientation in the opening chapter of Seduction, but these ideas permeate his writing. For additional information on his approach to social psychiatry and mental hygiene, see Gabriel N. Mendes, “A Deeper Science: Richard Wright, Dr. Fredric Wertham, and the Fight for Mental Health Care in Harlem, NY, 1940–1960,” PhD diss., Brown University, 2010.

35. “Conference—Tuesday, March 25, 1947,” box 51, folder 11, Wertham Papers. 36. Eric J. Engstrom, “‘On the Question of Degeneration’ by Emil Kraepelin (1908),” History of Psychiatry 18 (2007): 389–404. 37. Johannes Coenraad Pols, “Managing the Mind: The Culture of American Mental Hygiene, 1910-1950,” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1997, 14. 38. “Statistics—Lafargue Clinic.” 39. Ralph P. Truitt, “Community Child Guidance Clinics,” in The Child Guidance Clinic and the Community, ed. Ralph P. Truitt et al. (New York: Commonwealth Fund Division of Publications, 1928), 5–6. 40. “Statistics—Lafargue Clinic.” This report suggests that a total of 455 children under the age of sixteen were treated at the clinic during the ten-year period documented. An undated report, probably from 1950, based on an actual count of cases offers a

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

In Seduction, Wertham sometimes uses patients’ first names, but often patients are described only in terms of age, gender, and, occasionally, race. 49. Wertham, Seduction, 192, ellipses in original. 50. Ibid., 236. The story Wertham described is “Little Miss Wonder Woman,” from Wonder Woman #49 (September/October 1951).

Two More Things About “Wonder Woman” Stories That Dr. Wertham Didn’t Much Care For

51. “Dorothy P. – 6/13/XX,” box 109, folder 12, Wertham Papers; Wertham, Seduction, 42–43.

(Left:) Bondage. In Comic Cavalcade #26 (April-May 1948), the Amazon princess is tied up (as so often happened) with her own magic lasso—this time by the daughter of one of her staunchest foes. This panel and the following ones are drawn by H.G. Peter; the writer is probably Robert Kanigher.

53. “Dorothy P. – 6/13/50,” box 109, folder 12, Wertham Papers.

(Below right:) A further example of younger females admiring Wonder Woman—in this case in her identity as Lt. Diana Prince. Two not-quitesequential panels featuring the collegiate Holliday Girls, from Comic Cavalcade #28 (Aug.-Sept. ’48). [© DC Comics.]

58. Wertham, Seduction, 106.

different picture: the clinic treated 133 children under the age of fourteen, including 13 in 1950. Depression was diagnosed in more than one-third of these cases and organic brain disease in more than 10 percent of them. See “Children under 14—total cases—133 (13 of these in 1950),” box 52, folder 15, Wertham Papers. 41. Wertham, Seduction, 43; “Norma E. [Note from Dr. Mosse, 3/23/50],” box 109, folder 12, Wertham Papers. 42. Wertham, Seduction, 184. 43. “Comic Book Readers Club—Session No. 45 – June 2, 1948,” box 121, folder 4, Wertham Papers. 44. The book Paul brought was Bag O. Nuts Presents Uncle Bim and Millie, which appropriated characters from the well-known Gumps comic strips. 45. “Comic Book Readers Club—Session No. 45.” 46. Ibid. 47. Box 111, folder 1, Wertham Papers. 48. “Case—1/18/XX,” box 111, folder 1, Wertham Papers. Although these records are publicly accessible, I have omitted patients’ surnames and provided only partial file dates—in instances of an individual’s records rather than group transcripts— in both the text and the citations to protect their and their families’ privacy. In cases involving sexual abuse, I have omitted all names.

52. Wertham, Seduction, 42.

54. “Richard B. – Age 11 – #M3307,” box 110, folder 1, Wertham Papers; Wertham, Seduction, 87–88. 55. Wertham, Seduction, 87. 56. “Richard B. – Age 11.” 57. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

Seducing The Innocent

Triumph-erate Dr. Wertham, seen here in his later years in his office with a kitten (whose name may have been Web)—plus the covers of several hardcover collections that belie his statement in Seduction of the Innocent: “I have never come across any adult or adolescent who had outgrown comicbook reading who would ever dream of keeping any of those ‘books’ for any sentimental or other reason”: A couple of vintage Bob Kane figures graced the hardcover Batman Archives, Vol. 2 (1991), which collected the “Batman” stories from Detective Comics #51-70 (May 1941-Dec. 1942). There are at least two dozen volumes in DC’s Archives series that include stories featuring Batman—most with Robin! [© DC Comics.] Crime Does Not Pay, Vol. 6 (2013), is the latest—so far—of Dark Horse’s quality collections of the famous/infamous Lev Gleason/Charles Biro/Bob Wood “true crime” comic books, and brings the series up to 1945-46. Cover credited to Charles Biro. [© the respective copyright holders.] EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt, Vol. 1 (2006) is part of only the latest of several reprintings of EC’s classic horror, crime, science-fiction, war, and humor comics to come out in recent decades. This current series was begun by Russ Cochran and is now being continued by Dark Horse. This edition contains stories from 1950-51. Cover art by Al Feldstein. [© William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.] Not only have comics (and their descendants/clones “graphic novels”) survived and prospered and developed up to the present day—but even many of the original stories that Wertham so strenuously condemned between 1948 and 1954 are being reprinted, often in hardcover collections.

Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics

60. Ibid. 61. “Edward P. – Age 7 ½ – #M2413 – 10/9/XX,” box 110, folder 1, Wertham Papers. 62. Wertham, Seduction, 41. 63. Ibid., 40; “Vivian J., Age 13 – #M2884 – 2/5/XX,” box 109, folder 12, Wertham Papers. 64. Wertham, Seduction, 40. 65. “Vivian J., Age 13.” 66. “Carlisle C., Age 15, #A85135, 5/22/XX,” box 111, folder 3, Wertham Papers. 67. Wertham, Seduction, 178. 68. Ibid., 215. The actual quote is, “Kids immediately know that they can put them in the shoulder holster or they have straps and strap them on their legs” (“Carlisle C., Age 15, #A85135, 5/12/XX,” box 111, folder 3, Wertham Papers). 69. Wertham, Seduction, 157–58; “Carlisle C., Age 15, #A85135, 4/5/XX,” box 111, folder 3, Wertham Papers. 70. Wertham, Seduction, 171; “Carlisle C., Age 15, #A85135, 4/24/XX,” box 111, folder 3, Wertham Papers. 71. Wertham, Seduction, 20, 118. 72. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books): Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the United States, 83rd Cong., 2nd sess., 1954, 93. 73. “Statistics—Lafargue Clinic.” 74. Wertham, Seduction, 68. 75. A. Heise to Fredric Wertham, July 19, 1948, box 121, folder 2, Wertham Papers. 76. Ibid.; Wertham, Seduction, 68. Based on the numbering at the top of many of the transcripts, the group transcripts available in box 121, folders 2 and 4 of Wertham’s papers do not appear to represent the complete record of meetings. Of those included in these folders, approximately one-third of them contain discussions of comics. The club likely ended in 1952, as Wertham resigned his position at Queens effective August 1, 1952 (see Fredric Wertham to Queens General Hospital, June 30, 1952, box 35, folder 15, Wertham Papers). 77. Note (Mrs. Axelrod at Lafargue, December 1950), box 109, folder 12, Wertham Papers. 78. Wertham, Seduction, 39. 79. “Note—10/50,” box 110, folder 1, Wertham Papers. 80. Wertham, Seduction, 169–71. Interestingly, this counselor was Hal Ellson, who went on to write juvenile delinquency stories such as Duke (Scribner, 1949) and Jailbait Street (Monarch, 1959). See Hal Ellson to Wertham, February 7, 1949, box 115, folder 10, Wertham Papers.

Write What You Know! The “very experienced youth counselor” whom Wertham quotes on p. 18 of this issue was apparently Hal Ellson, then or in the near future the author of novels centered around juvenile delinquency, such as 1949’s Duke, his first novel. (Seen here is the paperback edition, of course). Doc W. provided a cover blurb for Ellson’s 1950 novel Tomboy, originally published by Scribner’s. [© the respective copyright holders.]

81. “Children under 14—total cases.” 82. Wertham, Seduction, 306. Note (source Legman), July 5, 1948, box 113, folder 1, Wertham Papers. For information on Gaines, see “Are You a Red Dupe?,” in Haunt of Fear #24 ( July-August 1954), which was published by Bill Gaines and EC (Entertaining Comics). 83. Note (source Legman), n.d., box 113, folder 1, Wertham Papers. Although I have been unable to do a close comparison of extant drafts of Seduction, it may be that Wertham intended to rely on Legman’s ideas to an even greater degree. In a letter to Legman in which he recounted his experiences with Rinehart & Company’s attorneys, Wertham wrote, “Among other things they objected to quite a number of things that I had quoted from you, so all that had to go” (Fredric Wertham to Gershon Legman, August 20, 1954, box 3, folder 14, Wertham Papers). 84. Wertham, Seduction, 34. 85. Note, n.d., box 109, folder 12, Wertham Papers. 86. Wertham, Seduction, 261–62. 87. A handwritten note on the report indicates that the store was on the south side of 21st Street between Second and Third Avenues, presumably in Manhattan. “Report from Dr. Mosse,” box 112, folder 3, Wertham Papers. 88. Vernon Pope to Lauretta Bender, October 23, 1954, folder 6, Lauretta Bender Papers, Brooklyn College Library Archives and Special Collections. 89. “Background statement—Dr. Fredric Wertham” (n.d., but ca. 1954), box 171, folder “Witness Lists and Backgrounds,” Records of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, 10E3/16/11/2, National Archives, Washington, DC. 90. Bertram Beck to Fredric Wertham, April 16, 1954, box 123, folder 7, Wertham Papers.

Article Title Topline

91. Fredric Wertham to J. Ralph Brown, December 29, 1954, box 125, folder 3, Wertham Papers.

and Cataloging, ed. Robert G. Weiner (Jeffersonville, NC: McFarland, 2010), includes a variety of LS- and IS-related work.

92. Fredric Wertham to Helen C. Otis, April 4, 1954, box 125, folder 3, Wertham Papers.

105. Hench, Books as Weapons (Hench’s book was awarded the 2011 DeLong Book Prize from the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing); Steve Barkin, “Fighting the Cartoon War: Information Strategies in World War II,” Journal of American Culture 7 (1984): 113–17.

93. Mendes, “A Deeper Science,” 61. 94. Ibid., 180. 95. New York State Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Publication of Comic Books, “Transcript of Proceedings 4 February 1955,” box 211, folder “Comics material—pamphlets, articles, books, etc.,” Records of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, 10E3/16/11/2, National Archives, Washington, DC. 96. Publisher’s note in Wertham, Seduction, n.p. 97. Of particular use in understanding the nature of psychiatric evidence is Stefan Priebe and Mike Slade’s edited volume of essays, Evidence in Mental Health Care (London: Brunner-Routledge, 2002). 98. See Beaty, Fredric Wertham, for more about historical and contemporary concerns about Wertham’s methods, evidence, and conclusions. The last half of chapter 4 contains most of this discussion. As I continue to do work in Wertham’s manuscript collection, I have found some evidence that Wertham’s editorial contact at Rinehart & Company, Jean Crawford, was responsible for suggesting at least some of the deletions in Wertham’s original reporting of quotations from patient case files. Whatever the extent of Crawford’s role, Wertham still had authorial and professional agency to correct, revise, or otherwise remediate these editorial suggestions, and it appears that he chose not to do so. For examples of Crawford’s suggestions, see Manuscript Copy C, box 116, Wertham Papers. 99. Beaty, Fredric Wertham. Beaty clearly establishes that Wertham was not a cultural conservative. 100. Wertham, Seduction, 48. 101. Engstrom, “‘On the Question,’” 393. 102. Ibid., 395. 103. Adolf Meyer, Collected Papers (Volume II) (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951), 146, as quoted in D. B. Double, “What Would Adolf Meyer Have Thought of the Neo-Kraepelin Approach,” Psychiatric Bulletin 14 (1990): 472–74. 104. The corollary disciplines of library science (LS) and information science (IS) have been a little more accepting of comics. For example, the recent volume of essays titled Everyday Information: The Evolution of Information Seeking in America, ed. William Aspray and Barbara M. Hayes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), contains a chapter on comics, “Active Readership: The Case of the American Comics Reader,” by George Royer, Beth Nettels, and William Aspray. Another recent volume, Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History,

For Your Reading Pleasure… A Wertham-starring cartoon of relatively recent vintage, drawn by Marcel Walker and found by Ye Editor on the Project Basement website. [© Marcel Walker or successors in interest.]

106. Anne H. Lundin and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Defining Print Culture for Youth: The Cultural Work of Children’s Literature (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2003); Radhika Parameswaran, “Reading Nancy Drew in Urban India: Gender, Postcolonialism, and Memories of Home,” in ibid., 169–95; Carl F. Kaestle, Helen Damon-Moore, Lawrence C. Steman, Katherine Tinsley, and William Vace Trollinger Jr., Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991). 107. Charles A. Hatfield, “Comic Art, Children’s Literature, and the New Comics Studies,” Lion and the Unicorn 30 (2006): 378. 108. John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, The Lifespan of a Fact (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012). 109. Wertham, Seduction, 351.

Amy K. Nyberg

Seal Of Approval:

The Latest Installment Of Our Serialization of The 1998 Book On Comics Censorship A/E

by Amy Kiste Nyberg

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the past two issues, Dr. Nyberg’s groundbreaking work on comic book censorship has taken us first through the spring 1954 hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency as it zeroed in on crime comics (and maybe a few headlines along the way), afterwards taking an extended look at the life and career of comics’ greatest critic, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, author of numerous articles and finally of the 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent. These factors between them caused the formation by the comic book publishers later that year of the Comics Magazine Association of America and the implementation of a Comics Code Authority to which they would all submit their work for its “seal of approval,” thereby hopefully staving off the wrath of Senators and psychiatrists and the general public.

Once again, we mention up front that Seal of Approval is extensively “footnoted” in the MLA (Modern Language Association) style, which lists book, article, or author/editor name, plus page numbers, between parentheses in the main text rather than at the foot of a page. E.g., “(Hart 154-156)” refers to pp. 154-156 of whichever work by an author or editor named Hart appears in the bibliography, which will be printed a couple of issues from now. When said parentheses contain only page numbers, it is because the other relevant information is printed in the main text almost immediately preceding the note. In addition, the book contains a bare handful of footnotes treated in the

The Comics Code Gives Comics A Facelift! (Above:) Back in A/E #105’s “Tales from the Code” coverage, we printed this same combination of photo and comic book splash page—but this time we can display the latter in color! Judge Charles F. Murphy, first administrator of the Comics Code Authority (some newspapers referred to him as “the comic book czar”), is seen circa late 1954, displaying “before” and “after” versions of art from the story “Sarah” done for Timely/Atlas’ Uncanny Tales #29 (March 1955), the first issue to bear the seal of approval. The yarn was originally drawn by Joe Sinnott, but we’ve no idea if he drew the altered version of Sarah; the scripter, too, is unidentified. The printed splash is courtesy of Dr. Michael J. Vassallo; sadly, Sinnott’s original version probably no longer exists in any form. In case you want to check out the story as published, MJV reminds us that it was reprinted in Dead of Night #6 (Oct. 1974). [Page © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

more traditional sense; these can be found at the bottom of the relevant page. We have retained such usages and spellings from the book as “superhero,” an un-capitalized “comics code,” “E.C. and DC,” et al. In the captions we have added, however, we have reverted to our customary style. Naturally, said captions do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Dr. Nyberg or of the University Press of Mississippi, the original publisher of the book—the original print edition of which can still be obtained from UPM at www.upress.sate.ms.us. Our thanks to Dr. M. Thomas Inge, under whose general editorship the volume was originally published in

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

1998, as part of UPM’s Studies in Popular Culture series, for his help in obtaining permission to reprint the book in full… to Williams Biggins and Vijah Shah, past and present acquisitions editors at the U. Press of Mississippi, for their cooperation and encouragement… and to Brian K. Morris for retyping the text in a Word document for Ye Editor. [Text ©1998 University Press of Mississippi.] Now, it’s back to 1954 once again… well, after a brief stop in 1948…

Chapter 5

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

he idea of a self-regulatory code was nothing new for the comic book industry. The publishers had already made one attempt, through the trade association known as the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers, to police themselves following Wertham’s first assault on the industry in the late 1940s. In addition, a number of the companies had their own editorial codes, often formulated with the help of child guidance experts. But such measures were not enforced strictly enough to satisfy comic book critics, and under the threat of government action (whether real or imagined) the industry once again set out to appease public opinion with a self-regulatory code. Not all publishers cooperated. William Gaines, publisher of the controversial E.C. comics, proved to be a thorn in the side of the new association, and Dell Comics refused to have anything to do with the association or the code. But by and large, the industry strategy was successful in convincing the public that the “comic book problem” was solved.

submitted before being reproduced for publication), and while the association originally considered appointing a commissioner to oversee the code, that task fell to Schultz. The money for the reviewers was raised by a “screening fee” charged by the association for each title submitted by a publisher. For titles with a circulation of 500,000 or more, the publisher paid one hundred dollars; for titles with a circulation of 250,000 to 500,000, the publisher paid fifty dollars; there was no fee for screening titles with a circulation under 250,000. One large publisher, Dell Comics, noted that under the proposed fee schedule, it would cost them three thousand dollars a month to participate in the screening system (Senate Hearings 70-71). As in the later association, membership was open to publishers, distributors, printers, and engravers. Initially about a third of the publishers joined. These included: Premium Service Company, Famous Funnies, Hillman Periodicals, Parents’ Institute, Lev Gleason Publications, McCombs Publications, The Golden Willow Press, Avon Periodicals, Ace Magazines, Orbit Publications, Superior Comics, and Consolidated Magazines (Senate Hearings

As noted in chapter 2, the impetus for the adoption of the comic industry’s first code in 1948 came from Fredric Wertham’s attack on comic books published in Collier’s and in the Saturday Review of Literature in the spring of 1948. The comic book industry responded by announcing on July 1, 1948, that it had adopted a regulatory code, similar to that of the film industry, to be enforced by the ACMP. While it may have been modeled on the film code, the ACMP code was nearly identical to an in-house code adopted by Fawcett several years earlier. The six points of the code dealt with sex, crime, torture, language, divorce, and ridicule of religious and racial groups (see “The ACMP Code”). [NOTE: See A/E #125.] When the code was announced, the comics trade association launched a membership drive and also distributed copies of the code to local societies, civic groups, and comics distributors (Senate Hearings 70). The code was the work of Henry Schultz, the attorney for the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers, whose credentials included membership on the New York City Board of Higher Education and chairmanship of the board of trustees of Queens College. In its coverage of the code, The New York Times noted in an article December 6, 1948, that an advisory committee was selected to assist Schultz. It included Dr. Charles F. Gosnell, New York state librarian, John E. Wade, retired superintendent of schools of New York City, and Ordway Tead, chairman of the Board of Higher Education of New York City. The committee warned against the dangers of censorship and released the following statement: “Censorship would be a dangerous and an illegal method of dealing with the situation…. As in any of the other media, the way forward is the strengthening of the process of self-regulation within the industry” (“Librarian Named” 37). Initially, the association hired office staff to review the comics “in the boards” (the phrase used to describe the original pages

A Slave To Love Around the time Avon Periodicals joined the Association of Comic Magazine Publishers at the end of 1948, its Slave Girl Comics #1 (cover-dated Feb. 1949) was hitting the nation’s newsstands. We don’t know if its Howard Larsen-drawn cover would’ve have passed muster with the ACMP’s “comics code” (printed in A/E #125)—but is it just a coincidence that there was only one more issue (dated April ’49?) starring Malu the Slave Girl? Scripter unknown. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for the artist ID and to Bruce Mason for the art. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

The Shazam Express

70-71). The president of the ACMP, Phil Keenan of Hillman Periodicals, whose company published titles such as Crime Detective, Real Clue, and Western Fighters, warned the public not to expect changes overnight. Because of early deadlines, improvements would not be noticeable immediately (“Code for the Comics” 62). Almost immediately, however, the association ran into trouble. Many of the largest publishers refused to join the association because they felt their in-house codes were adequate and because they did not want to be affiliated with some of the more marginal publishers in the industry. Some publishers found subscribing to the code too expensive and dropped their membership. Others objected to the changes being mandated by Schultz’s office. And still others simply went out of business, not because of the code standards but because of the highly competitive and glutted comic book market. It was not long before the ACMP could no longer afford the staff necessary for prepublication review of comic books, and the code review system gradually was abandoned. In the early 1950s, the remaining members adopted a provision agreeing they would do their own censoring and decide for themselves which comic books were eligible for the association’s seal (Senate Hearings 70-71). By the time the Senate conducted its comic book hearings in April 1954, that membership had been reduced to only three publishers and a handful of distributors and printers. When Schultz appeared before the Senate subcommittee, the association staff consisted of Schultz and a general secretary, with a budget of fifteen thousand dollars a year. The association published a newsletter that collected newspaper clippings critical of the industry and circulated it to members of the industry. In addition, the association members still met occasionally to discuss industry and business concerns (Senate Hearings 77). Schultz attributed the failure of the association to the lack of support from the larger publishers. Schultz, testifying before the Senate subcommittee in 1954, commented: “The reason it has not succeeded, I think, is the failure or refusal of some of the larger and better publishers who, while they themselves do not publish comic books which might be in this category, did not recognize their responsibility to the total industry by staying with the organization in its inception and formulating practices and rules which would have become a bible for the industry” (Senate Hearings 77). Even before the formation of the ACMP and the adoption of a code in 1948, most of the larger comic book publishers had an inhouse code in place. These codes were often drawn up with the

Two members of the Fawcett Publications advisory board that wrote its 7-point code sometime during the 1940s (the year is uncertain) were Sideonie “Sidy” Gruenberg and Prof. Ernest G. Osborne, seen in photos, whose credentials are detailed in the text. The third, Prof. Harvey Zorbaugh, was pictured in A/E #124. While the companies’ private codes tended to focus on what was forbidden, there were also positive stories such as the feature-length tale “The Freedom Train” in Captain Marvel Adventures #85 (June 1948). It spotlighted the actual locomotive then traveling the country, so Americans could actually see some of the most priceless documents of their history—and not even Dr. Sivana was going to stop that! Cover by C.C. Beck; script by Otto Binder; interior art by C.C. Beck & Pete Costanza. Thanks to the Bruce Mason & P.C. Hamerlinck for the CMA pages. [Shazam hero & Dr. Sivana TM & © DC Comics.]

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

Children of New York University; and Professor Ernest G. Osborne, a psychologist and president of education and executive officer of the community center of the Teachers College, Columbia University. Fawcett’s code was essentially the same code later adopted by the ACMP, with provisions dealing with portrayal of crime and law enforcement, nudity and depiction of the human body, and vulgar language. It forbade scenes of sadistic torture, ridicule or attack on any religious groups, and humorous or glamorous treatment of divorce. The final provision outlawed the use of dialects or devices “in a way to indicate ridicule or intolerance of racial groups” (Organized Crime Hearings, Committee Print 128-29). Lev Gleason Publications, while it did not have an inhouse code, had employed police officers as consultants, including Mary Sullivan, former chief of the Women’s Bureau of the New York Police Force (Organized Crime Hearings, Committee Print 137).

The “Marvel Comic” Age Of Comics We’ve never seen a photo of psychiatrist Jean A. Thompson, who prepared Timely’s own private comics code in 1948, but there are certainly plenty of references to her in the company’s comics of that era—which were then going through a brief phase of carrying a “Marvel Comic” circle on their covers. Thompson reviewed Timely’s mags for a little less than two years, however. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

assistance of advisory boards composed of educators and psychiatrists who were paid a consulting fee for their services. The comic book publishers used these boards of experts to help stave off criticism of their publications.

Once the ACMP code was in the works, other companies saw the wisdom of implementing an in-house review. Beginning June 1, 1948, Marvel Comics Group hired Dr. Jean A. Thompson, a psychiatrist and consultant to the Board of Education of the City of New York. She prepared a code that was distributed to the company’s art and editorial departments. Between June 1, 1948, and November 30, 1949, every comic book title published by Marvel was submitted to Thompson for review. Marvel was forced to dispense with Thompson’s services in late 1949 when the company experienced some financial difficulties (Organized Crime Hearings, Committee Print 118-19). The Marvel code contained a “Statement of General Purpose” along with guidelines for content of stories, use of language, artistic depiction of the body and of crime and horror, and recommendations for handling sensitive subjects such as religion,

One of the oldest codes in existence was that adopted by National Comics Publications. Jack Liebowitz, vice president of National, noted that the company had adopted its code “long before there was any criticism of comic magazines generally.” The eight-point policy suggested that the company could provide “interesting, dramatic, and reasonably exciting entertainment” without resorting to objectionable devices such as portrayal of the female figure in exaggerated form. In addition, the code specified: “Good people should be good, and bad people bad, so that no confusion can exist in the reader’s mind. Heroes should act within the law, and for the law.” The code also contained several guidelines for depicting crime and violence, including: “No character may be shown being stabbed with a knife or subjected to a hypodermic injection. Acts of mayhem are forbidden. The picturization of dead bodies is forbidden” (Organized Crime Hearings, Committee Print 150-51). Beginning in 1940, National appointed an editorial advisory board that included the following experts: Dr. Lauretta Bender, associate professor of psychiatry, School of Medicine, New York University; Josette Frank, consultant on children’s reading, Child Study Association of America; Dr. W. W. D. Sones, professor of education and director of curriculum study, University Marriage Counseling, Anyone? of Pittsburgh; and Dr. S. Harcourt Peppard, director of The Harvard husband-and-wife team of Sheldon & Eleanor Glueck (seen here in a 1929 photo) the Essex County Juvenile Clinic, Newark, New Jersey. had been studying juvenile delinquency since the 1930s. EC publisher William M. Gaines (seen on p. 44) hoped their researches would vindicate comics like his Shock SuspenStories While the board had no censorship powers, they made #13 (Feb.-March 1954), whose art depicted a couple whose relationship probably needed recommendations to the editors (Organized Crime some work. Cover art by Jack Kamen. [Cover © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.] Hearings, Committee Print 151). Fawcett Publications had a seven-point code developed by a three-person board. The board included Sidonie Gruenberg, director of the Child Study Association of America; Professor Harvey Zorbaugh, psychologist and director of the Clinic for Gifted

Contrary to Gaines’ quoted memory, however, the new Comics Code would not “ban the words weird, horror and terror from any comic magazine.” Only “horror” and “terror” were expressly forbidden, and that was only on covers—but the fact that the word “weird” was not a part of the title of any Code-approved comic book for decades after the implementation of its rules suggests that the publishers felt, if they didn’t outright know, that the Authority would disallow its use under the Code’s so-called “elastic clause.”

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

Elliot Caplin. Nyberg’s text uses the spelling “Elliott.” We have corrected it.

John Goldwater, circa 1943. Thanks to Mike Tiefenbacher.

alcohol, gambling, and reading had on children. divorce. Like most media Gaines believed that a codes, the Marvel code research study done by specified that stories should the Gluecks would not glorify the criminal or provide a definitive crime, should praise lawanswer to the question of enforcement officers, and effects, vindicate the comic The First Shall Be Last—In One Way Or Another should always show the book industry, and allow Toby publisher Elliot Caplin (left) & Archie president John Goldwater (right) took active criminal being properly business to continue as parts in the 1954 organizational meeting of what became the Comic Magazine punished. Vulgarities of usual. Gaines also hoped Association of America. Toby Press, however, would leave the industry after a Felix the speech were to be avoided to interest the American Cat issue dated June 1955; seen here is the photo cover of its final issue of John Wayne because they were too Civil Liberties Union in Adventures (#33, May ’55). Archie Comic Publications, Inc., of course, would survive quickly and easily imitated the industry’s censorship to the present day; pictured is the cover of Archie Comics #72 (Jan.-Feb. 1955), the last by children. Horrible and fight (Reidelbach 28). pre-Code issue, the work of an unidentified artist. The cover of Archie #73 was seen sadistic scenes were to be in A/E #123. [JWA cover © the respective copyright holders; The other publishers, avoided, including scenes of Archie cover © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.] however, were not interwounding with severe ested in looking at what bleeding. A final caution they perceived as a long-term solution. They desired more read, “Avoid showing that which may subject the child to nightimmediate action in order to stem the tide of negative public mares” (Organized Crime Hearings, Committee Print 123-24). opinion. Their solution, modeled on what had worked for other But neither the in-house codes nor the ACMP’s attempt at media—especially the film industry—was to adopt a code. While industry self-regulation was enough to silence the criticism of the the exact wording of the code would need to be worked out, the industry following the Senate subcommittee’s investigation of consensus was that the horror and terror books would have to be comic books. Publishers conceded something more was needed. sacrificed as proof that the industry meant business. As Gaines William Gaines, publisher of E.C. Comics, took the credit for noted years later: “And it was always an ironic thing to me that I setting events into motion that would result in the creation of a was the guy who started the damn association and they turned new trade association for the industry. Dismayed by the way the around and the first thing they did was ban the words weird, Senate hearings had gone in April, he sent out a letter to most of horror and terror from any comic magazine… those were my three the major comic book publishers. It began, “If fools rush in where big words” (Gaines interview). angels fear to tread, then I suppose E.C. is being pretty foolish. We The association held an organizational meeting on August 17, may get our fingers burned and our toes stepped on.” In his letter, 1954, at the Biltmore Hotel in New York.* Thirty-eight publishers, Gaines suggested several strategies to battle the growing support engravers, printers, and distributors attended. Elliot Caplin acted for comic book censorship. Gaines began to meet individually with as chairman of the meeting, stressing that time was of the essence the major publishers. The comic book publishing business was since government officials, citizen committees, and newspapers all highly competitive, and the men who ran it were not friends with over the country were talking about the comic book industry. John one another, but they saw the wisdom of what Gaines was Goldwater, publisher of Archie Comics, reported on the activities proposing and agreed to a meeting (Reidelbach 28; Stuart). of the Special Committee on Organization. That committee recomGaines’s idea was to hire experts in the field of juvenile delinmended that the association be empowered to establish and quency to do research on the effects of comic books, and he had in enforce a code governing the industry in both editorial and advermind the husband-and-wife research team of Sheldon and Eleanor tising content of comics magazines; that a symbol or seal be Glueck of Harvard. They began working the field of juvenile delindesigned; and that a public relations campaign be undertaken to quency with an important study in the 1930s, One Thousand Juvenile inform the public, wholesalers, and newsstand dealers about the Delinquents. In it, they suggested that family disintegration was the new steps taken for self-regulation. These recommendations were most important factor in juvenile delinquency. The Gluecks’ two incorporated into the CMAA’s official bylaws (CMAA Files postwar works, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency and Delinquents in [minutes, 17 Aug. 1954]). the Making, developed their theories about family environment Those attending the organizational meeting discussed estabrather than external influences as a cause of delinquency (Gilbert lishing a $200,000 budget, with half of that sum allotted to public 132-33). It was clear from the Senate subcommittee hearings that relations efforts. Monroe Froehlich, Jr., presented a fee schedule little scientific research had been done on the effects comic book that listed the contributions of various members, based on the

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

number of titles each company published, printed, or distributed. The organizational committee, consisting of Goldwater, Caplin, and Froehlich, had already drafted a code (“Comics Publishers Organize” 3). But Caplin was concerned that it should not be made public until the individual whom the CMAA selected as code administrator had an opportunity to review the code and make recommendations. Those at the organizational meeting approved the principal of establishing a code and agreed to eliminate horror and terror comics. In addition, they agreed that although crime comics would not be eliminated, special consideration should be given in the code to the format of crime comics (CMAA Files [minutes, 17 Aug. 1954]). The Comics Magazine Association of America became a legally recognized entity on September 7, 1954, when it was incorporated. The articles of incorporation listed six directors: Elliot Caplin, Toby Press; Allen Hardy of Allen Hardy Associates; Harold A. Moore, Famous Funnies; Stanley Estrow, Stanhill Publications; Jack Liebowitz, National Comics; and Monroe Froehlich, Magazine Management Company. The attorney for the association was Henry Schultz, who had served as the executive director of the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers, founded in the late 1940s. Taking their cue from what had proved successful for the film industry, the comic book industry sought a “czar” with the proper credentials to administer their new code. Leo Holland of the Independent News Company, a distributor subsidiary of National Comics, announced on August 21, 1954, that a search for the czar was under way, noting that the office would be modeled after Hollywood’s self-censoring office. The logical choice for the post was Fredric Wertham, the longtime critic of the industry, but Wertham turned the offer down (Gilbert 107). Given Wertham’s feelings about the publishers and the comic book industry, it is surprising the industry even approached him with an offer, although enlisting him as a comic book censor would have been a great public relations coup. On September 16, the industry appointed Judge Charles F. Murphy to a two-year contract with an annual salary of seventeen thousand dollars (CMAA Files [letter to Murphy, 1 Oct. 1954]). He took his post October 1, 1954. The publishers also promised a code would be completed by November 15 (Harrison 1). Prior to taking the job, Murphy had served for nine years as a New York City magistrate. He was active in a number of programs aimed at preventing juvenile delinquency. Murphy, 44, was married and had three children. He said of his job: “I have been given a free hand by the Association to act and make decisions in the public interest. I am using this free hand forcefully.” About the code, he commented, “It is, I assure you, the strongest code of ethics ever adopted by a mass media industry and incorporates recommendations made from all quarters” (CMAA “Fact Kit”). The comic book publishers intended Murphy to be nothing more than a figurehead; one industry representative called him “a not-verybright political hack who was selected mostly because of his *Much of the information in this chapter comes from archival sources and interviews. The files of the Comics Magazine Association of America contained some documents about the origins of the code, reports, and the minutes of the various meetings of the CMAA. Those files are located at the Comics Magazine Association of America, New York, New York, and are designated in the text as “CMAA Files” followed by a description of the source and the date in brackets. The newsletters of the CMAA also were a valuable resource. I was able to locate a collection of them at the State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. They are cited in the text as

Judge Not... Another shot of Judge Murphy, probably at the same event where he displayed the page from Uncanny Tales. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn. [© the respective copyright holders.]

religious faith,” and the public relations firm hired to handle the CMAA’s campaign described him as “a practical man who would recognize the problems of selling comic books in a declining market” (Gilbert 107; Finn 175). Murphy took the job very seriously, however. The comic book publishers had structured the comics code authority, the code enforcement arm of the Comics Magazine Association of America, to be independent from the other operations of the association in order to give their comics czar credibility. Although Murphy’s salary was paid by the publishers, it was understood that he could work free of interference from individual association members. However, the publishers intended for him to ignore all but the most obvious code violations. Instead, Murphy had his staff review the material carefully and demand changes for any infraction of the code, however minor. Murphy did not need to be as strict as he was; there was little oversight on the part of the public as to how well the code was being enforced. Most critics saw the code as a cut-and-dried document, but in fact, it required a great deal of interpretation, and that job fell to Murphy. He failed to understand that all that the publishers required was the appearance of selfregulation to appease most critics. His strict interpretation of the code set him against the publishers. His zeal was one reason that his contract was not renewed by the association at the end of two years (Goldwater interview). The code adopted by the Comics Magazine Association was formulated in consultation with the public relations firm of Ruder “CMAA Newsletter,” followed by the date. In addition, material was taken from unpublished interviews with the following: Leonard Darvin, former executive director of the CMAA, telephone interview with author, 7 June 1993; John Goldwater, former president of the CMAA, personal interview with author, 29 July 1992; William Gaines, interview with John Tebbel, 4 August 1986; Lyle Stuart, remarks at a memorial service for William Gaines, transcribed by John Tebbel, 5 June 1992; Elliot Caplin, member of the organizing committee of the CMAA, telephone interview with author, 11 July 1994.

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

The Way Of The Outlaw (Left side of page:) The entire text of the 1954 Comics Code, as re-typed and reprinted back in Alter Ego, Vol. 1, #10, circa 1970. [© the respective copyright holders.] (Above:) Because Avon Periodicals reprinted tales from Jesse James #8 (Aug. 1952) less than three years later, in Jesse James #22 (April-May 1955), it’s possible to judge the effects of the early Comics Code on these two versions of the same panel. The reprint’s anonymous script and Everett Raymond Kinstler art were severely altered, forcing the mag’s editors to white out part of the black plate, and print one panel totally in black-&-white, though they mostly re-used the original color plates for printing. In fact, all dialogue in that panel was eliminated. But then, we’ve always been surprised that the Comics Code ever allowed outlaws Jesse James and Billy the Kid to headline comics in the first place! Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

and Finn. The firm’s name appears across the bottom of the galley proofs of the code sent to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. In creating a public relations campaign for the new trade association, David Finn wrote later: “The purpose of such efforts is not to create an atmosphere in which the reforms demanded by critics will be made; it is to find a way to make the smallest possible concessions necessary to end the controversy” (Finn 174). As an avid reader of comic books in his own childhood, Finn sided with his clients’ view that Wertham’s position “was psychologically, sociologically and legally unsound” (175). Finn worked closely with Schultz, whom he called “an outstanding figure in the field of civil liberties,” and together they stressed in their public relations campaign the “evils of censorship” implicit in any proposed legislation. The industry’s new program of self-regulation, designed around its refurbished code of ethics, was the only practical solution (175).

The Code Wind Will Blow… (Clockwise from top left:) Ten months before the Comics Code went into effect, Timely/Atlas’ Marvel Tales #123 (May 1954) could still portray skeletal walking-dead on a fairly horrific cover drawn by Harry Anderson. However, around the time of the founding of the CMAA, publisher Martin Goodman obviously saw the claw-writing on the wall and had editor Stan Lee tone things down: we suspect that Russ Heath’s giant-taloned-hand cover for MT #130 (Jan. ’55) might’ve been too strong for the Code’s taste… but the “Five Fingers!” cover of #131 (Feb. ’55) might well have gotten through the Code Authority… and the “Man Who Wasn’t!” cover on #132 (March ’55) clearly sailed through with little or no problem. The artists of the latter two covers are unidentified. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert & Bob Bailey for the cover scans. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Elliot Caplin, one of the members of the special organizational committee that drafted the first code, recalled that he relied heavily on the Hays film code in formulating the comics code (Caplin interview). A sideby-side comparison of the film code and the comics code shows that the comics code was organized along the same lines as the film code, and much of the language of the film code was incorporated into the comics code. In addition, the ACMP code and the in-house codes drawn up by individual publishers clearly influenced the 1954 comics code.

The comics code consisted of forty-one specific regulations that CMAA President John Goldwater, one of the publishers of Archie Comics, labeled as “problem areas” in comic books. He added: “Taken together these provisions constitute the most severe set of principles for any communications media in use today, restricting the use of many types of material permitted by the motion picture code and the codes for the television and radio industries” (Goldwater, Americana 24).

It is not surprising that the bulk of the comics code dealt with the two topics which had brought the ire of the public down around the heads of the publishers: crime and horror. Part A of the code was devoted to regulating the content of crime stories and Part B was aimed at horror comics (see CMAA Code 1954). Crime comics could continue to be published under the guidelines drawn up by the comic book trade association, but all such titles had to adhere to strict rules concerning the presentation of such stories. Without ever admitting that depiction of crime led young readers to become juvenile delinquents, the code nonetheless placed an emphasis on portraying crime in a negative light, on creating respect for established authority, on depicting commission of crime in such a way that young readers would not be tempted to imitate

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

Lorna Was A Tough Cookie On the cover of Timely/Atlas’ Lorna, the Jungle Girl #11 (Jan. 1955), the Sheena-style heroine wielded a mean knife, courtesy of penciler Jay Scott Pike (with inking possibly by Syd Shores)—but on Joe Maneely’s code-approved cover for #12 (March ’55), it stays in its sheath even though a threat is drawing near. By #13 (May ’55), Lorna began often using a lasso instead of a knife or spear; art by Syd Shores. Maybe the lion on that cover was likewise altered into more of a “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer… smiling lion,” as Nyberg quotes Judge Murphy as saying about a different piece of art? Thanks to Steven Willis for the cover art. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

what they read, and on making sure that the excess violence was purged. Many of the twelve guidelines governing crime comics were simply different ways of stating these principles. Part B was much shorter, simply because horror comics were to be eliminated almost entirely. By the time the code was adopted in 1954, the popularity of crime comics had already peaked, to be replaced with elements of horror and terror. By sacrificing the horror comics, publishers hoped to demonstrate their sincerity of purpose in self-regulation. The sections of the comics code dealing with dialogue, religion, costume, and marriage and sex were of secondary concern to critics who objected to the violence depicted in comics, but many of the conservative critics were actually more offended by depictions of sexual liberty than by violence. The code’s moral provisions were meant to answer the criticisms of the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency and other groups pushing for wholesome juvenile comics (Gilbert 105). The publishers were anxious to make sure that comic books would be offensive to no one, and they followed the broad outline of the film code in these areas. For example, the film code forbade the use of obscenity and profanity. The comics code went one step further, adding a warning about use of slang, since it was felt that good grammar should be used in comic books in order to promote the medium’s educational value. There were also regulations for how advertising in comic books was to be handled. Despite promotional campaigns directed at companies which sold products such as breakfast cereal, the comic book industry was not very successful in generating income from these “legitimate” advertisers. Instead, their advertising consisted mainly of items sold by mail order companies. The comics code also left a loophole for the code administrator with this catch-all provision: “All elements of techniques not specifically mentioned herein, but which are contrary to the spirit and intent of the Code, and are considered violations of good taste or decency, shall be

prohibited.” This gave the code administrator broad powers of censorship that went far beyond the explicit prohibitions. Under these guidelines, it was clear that code-approved comics would tone down the violence and the sex. Beyond that, however, the code spelled out ways in which comic book content would also uphold the moral values of society. There was never to be any disrespect for established authority and social institutions. Good always triumphed over evil, and if evil had to be shown, it was only in order to deliver a moral message. Content would foster respect for parents and for honorable behavior. With these provisions, the publishers were playing to the conservative critics who were just as concerned about morality as they were about violence, or perhaps more so. The enforcement of the new code was the responsibility of the Comics Code Authority office under the direction of Judge Murphy. It was based on a system of prepublication review. The entire contents of a comic book had to pass through the office before it could be printed. All comic books approved by Murphy’s office were entitled to publish the “Seal of Approval” on their cover. At the beginning, the code was administered by Murphy and five trained reviewers, all women. The five included: Sue Flynn, a publicist for thirteen years with the Department of Agriculture and the Voice of America; Marj McGill, a recent graduate of Albertus Magnus College who had done social work while going to college and who had specialized in juvenile delinquency; Esther L. Moscow, librarian and researcher; Dr. Joan Thellusson Nourse, professor in the Department of English at Hunter College and a lecturer and writer on the theater; and Dene Reed, an editor in the story department in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a number of years (“Comics Czar” 47; New York Hearings [1955] 27-28). In a press conference held in December 1954, Murphy said that the staff had excised more than 5,656 drawings and

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

rejected 126 stories during the short time the code had been in effect. The staff examined artists’ sketches and suggested changes to deemphasize terror and violence and edited the word balloons in order to delete sexual innuendo and unnecessarily strong language. Murphy told reporters that more than a quarter of the changes involved reducing “feminine curves to more natural dimensions” and having clothing cover “a respectable amount of the female body” (“Comics Czar” 47).

standards in children’s reading material was an extension of the mother’s role. Also, women could be expected to be more stringent in their censorship duties, since women were judged by society to be the weaker sex, more emotional, and thus more easily upset by objectionable content. In addition, the code could be seen as an effort to feminize and domesticate the unruly world populated by comic book characters. In place of violence and rampant sexuality, there would be order and respect.

Material was submitted on “boards,” the basic drawings that were completed before plates or engravings were made for publication. If a page was approved, it was stamped by the reviewer. If not, it was returned to the publisher with a list of corrections to be made. Pages were photographed to ensure that changes were not made by publishers once approved artwork left the code office. The reviewers examined an average of nine books a day, a total of more than 260 pages (CMAA “Fact Kit”). While testifying before a hearing conducted in February 1955 by the New York legislative committee that had been studying comic books since 1949, Murphy described his job as “a time consuming, back-breaking, ulcer producing, artery-hardening job. I hope l can last out the two years of my contract.” He explained that rather than hiring editors, artists, and writers who were familiar with comic book techniques, he felt that choosing reviewers who were not “steeped in the habits and traditions of the old comic book technique” would enable the reviewers to bring a fresh approach to the job. He interviewed more than one hundred individuals for the job and selected five women “because I felt that they were more sensitive to the situation.”

Murphy showed the New York committee examples of the types of material rejected by the staff. In one adventure story, a drawing of a woman carrying a spear was changed; in the final version, the spear was taken out. In another, a hunter in the jungle is surrounded by lions, with the mouth of the lion “predominant.” That drawing of the lion was replaced because the staff thought it was too ferocious, “and you have now the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reproduction, the smiling lion.” In another story, a bony hand lifting a chess piece was thought to be too gruesome, and the hand was changed to “the ordinary hand as we know it.” Comic book westerns also were modified. In one panel, a character was being kicked. The staff required the publisher to remove that panel. In another, a drawing showing a man with an arrow through him was deleted, since the code was interpreted to mean that arrows, hatchets, or bullets were not to be shown piercing the body.

It is interesting that comic book censorship was judged to be a woman’s task. Certainly the idea was tied in with notions of motherhood and the fact that in postwar America, caring for children was primarily a mother’s responsibility. Enforcing

Legislators remained unconvinced by Murphy’s display; the chairman noted that “the committee is still concerned over the fact that the product, by and large, still continues to present themes of violence.” Murphy answered that the cleanup of the industry could not be accomplished overnight, and that comic books carrying the code seal were just starting to be released on newsstands because it took two to three months for comics to be published once they were reviewed. Murphy saw his job as a process of reeducating publishers: “I think we are both agreed, and were at the time, that

Let’s Wrassle! The panel at left, from a Mort Meskin-drawn story in Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s Boys’ Ranch #5 (June 1951), published by Harvey Comics, was altered when the story was reprinted in the Code-approved Witches Western Tales #30 (April 1955), seen at right, so that the attacking Indian was no longer holding a tomahawk. Writer unknown. The uncensored panel appeared most recently in Marvel’s 1990s hardcover reprinting of the six issues of Boys’ Ranch, one of Simon & Kirby’s proudest achievements, and it is taken from that book here. [© Estates of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.]

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

“Tomahawks For Two” Top comics creators Joe Simon (standing) and Jack Kirby in a 1940s photo, plus: (Right:) In A/E #105 we printed the action page in S&K’s Bullseye #6 (June 1955) in which tomahawks had obviously been removed from the hands of both Bullseye and the Indian warrior he was fighting. Here’s that tale’s splash page, on which the same “tomahawkectomy” has been performed. Love that story title! Thanks to Jim Kealy & Tom Anderson. (Bottom right:) Jim Ludwig, who supplied this page from Bullseye #7 (Aug. ’55), points out that tomahawks were clearly in evidence in several panels in that follow-up issue. Jim says, though, that the braves wielded only clubs on some earlier pages, which may have been a compromise change. Both these issues, incidentally, were published by Charlton after S&K’s self-owned company, Mainline, went belly-up. Writers of the “Bullseye” stories uncertain. [© Estates of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.] (Bottom left:) Bonus! Artist Joe Sinnott has pointed out that knives were removed from the story “The Sioux Strike” which he drew for Kid Colt Outlaw #50 (Oct. 1959). Scripter unknown. Thanks to Joe and to Sharon Karibian. Incidentally, Sharon tells us that story was reprinted in 1972 in Two-Gun Kid #107. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

you just could not go in like Carrie Nation and destroy an industry and a business which employs thousands and thousands of people— destroy it overnight—that it was a question of education. You had to re-educate the writers and editors and artists with respect to what I thought the Code meant” (New York Hearings [1955] 72). Murphy believed the code was successful. In a speech before the annual meeting of the Association of Towns of the State of New York in February 1956, he noted his office had examined 15,000 stories and dealt with the resulting “interpretive problems” faced in enforcing the code. He concluded, “But regardless of difficulties, the code has been enforced, and the public everywhere is voicing approval” (Murphy, “Role” 245).

Nobody Bugs Us—We’ve Got Our Own Code! Publisher George Delacorte, Jr., and editorial head Helen Meyer of Dell Comics felt that, if they joined the CMAA and submitted to its Comics Code, they’d merely be helping to legitimize “inferior products” by other companies, as the former put it. Around the time Meyer was testifying to a New York legislative committee and Dell was publicizing its own “Pledge to Parents,” its Warner Bros.-licensed Bugs Bunny #41 (Feb.-March 1955) was on the newsstands. Art by Ralph Heimdahl. Thanks to Rod Beck for the scan. [Bugs Bunny TM & © Warner Communications or successors in interest.]

The association’s public relations firm also believed the new code had accomplished what the industry had set out to do. The code allowed the critics to believe that they had won the battle. At the same time, the code prohibited only the most extreme forms of violence. David Finn later wrote: “It was clear that the change would create no serious obstacles to the continued publication of the same basic material which had always characterized their product. It was also clear that the industry had solved its problem without coming to grips with the basic social issues implicit in its business” (176).

While the role of the code administrator was often seen in a negative light by editors, writers, and artists, Murphy tried to stress that the trade association was also “very much interested in encouraging new and progressive developments in the field” (“Role” 248). The creation of the CMAA marked the first time the comic book publishers had come together with any show of solidarity. They could have used the new organization to address other industry issues, such as distribution and retail sales, to much greater effect than they did. Efforts at cooperative marketing strategies aimed at helping comic books compete with television and targeting comics at new audiences to expand readership could have had a tremendous impact on economic health of the industry. Instead, the publishers poured most of the resources of the organization into the code and the public relations blitz that accompanied it. Support for the new organization was not unanimous in the industry. Dell Comics, whose sales amounted to about a third of all comics sales, refused to join. George Delacorte explained that Dell had resigned from the earlier association because members refused to adhere to a strict code. In a statement issued after the CMAA was formed, Delacorte said: “I could not allow the Dell Comics name to be used as an umbrella for some of the inferior products we deemed then, and deem now, unsuitable and unpublishable for our children … If one publisher outside the Association can do nearly half the entire comic book business without resorting to publishing any ‘questionable’ comic, then the twenty-eight members of the new group doing the other half can benefit from the high example set for them” (New York Hearings [1955] 90-91). Helen Meyer, executive vice president of Dell Publishing Company,

The March Of Crime Nyberg says the publisher of Classics Illustrated “maintained that its adaptations of literary classics were not comic books.” A look at this powerful page drawn by Rudy Palais for its version of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment (CI #89, Nov. 1951) pretty much clinches that Gilberton was simply attempting to avoid “guilt by association” with the likes of Lev Gleason and Charlie Biro (who by then had launched a comic that utilized the same Dostoyevsky title). It was probably the same reasoning that had led Gilberton, four years earlier, to change the name of their series from Classic Comics to Classics Illustrated. Scripter unknown. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [© 2013 First Classics, Inc.; all rights reserved.]

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

testified before the New York legislative committee in February 1955. She told the committee that in response to pressure to join the association, the company had decided instead to launch a “Pledge to Parents” campaign. Beginning March 1955, the pledge would be printed in all comics published by Dell and would read: “The Dell trademark is, and always has been, a positive guarantee that the comic magazine bearing it contains only clean and wholesome juvenile entertainment. The Dell code eliminates entirely, rather than regulates, objectionable material. That’s why when your child buys a Dell Comic you can be sure it contains only good fun. ‘Dell comics are good comics’ is our credo and our constant goal” (77). But Meyer suggested that the association be given a chance to prove itself. After six months, she told legislators, it will be obvious whether the publishers are really sincere about eliminating comics with violence (95). Another publisher that refused to join was Gilbertson Publications, which published Classics Illustrated. Gilbertson maintained that its adaptations of literary classics were not comic books. The third publisher who initially did not join the association was William Gaines of E.C., who tried to continue to distribute comic books without the association seal. He did discontinue his horror line and began publishing a line called “New Direction” comics. Those titles included: Piracy, Valor, Impact, Extra, Psychoanalysis, M.D., and Incredible Science Fiction. But wholesalers would not handle the material; it was simply returned, often with bundles of comics unopened. Gaines did join the association, but disputes with the reviewers, along with poor sales on the new titles, drove E.C. out of the comic book business entirely in 1955. Between 1954 and 1956, several of the major publishers of comic books went out of business, but the best-known “casualty” of the code was Gaines’s E.C. Comics. Gaines, who would rebuild his company as publisher of Mad magazine, inherited E.C. from his

father Max, who has been called by many the father of the modern comic book. In 1947, the elder Gaines was killed in a boating accident, and his twenty-five-year-old son took over a company that was $100,000 in debt. William Gaines, then an education student at New York University and newly divorced, moved in with his mother, finished his studies, and took over as head of the failing Educational Comics (Reidelbach 10-12). One of Gaines’ first moves was to beef up his father’s line of kiddie comics. He hired a new artist, Al Feldstein, and by the end of 1949 the company was producing crime and western comics (Jacobs 73). His next step was to create, in 1950, a new line of horror comics. The company changed its name from Educational Comics to Entertaining Comics as Crypt of Terror, Haunt of Fear, and Vault of Horror joined the E.C. lineup. The new magazines sold well, and within a year E.C.’s financial problems were over (Jacobs 74-75). The E.C. horror line, like all successful comic book ideas, was copied by other publishers, and by 1954 there were more than forty horror titles a month being published (Benton, Horror Comics 25). As a “pioneer” of the horror genre, Gaines was targeted by critics of the medium in the comic book controversy. One such attack came in an exposé on the comic book industry in the Hartford Courant, published in February 1954, two months before the Senate subcommittee’s investigation of comic books (see chap. 2). Six weeks after running the exposé, the Courant reported it was still receiving letters on the subject, all favorable. The only unfavorable letter the newspaper received was from Gaines himself, who accused the Courant of presenting a biased picture. Editor and Publisher noted: “The same publisher hit back by running full page ads in his comic books declaring that the group most anxious to destroy comics are the Communists,” referring to the editorial cartoon that had angered the Senate subcommittee. The magazine also printed the Courant’s response: “Thus do the sellers of literary sewage justify their profits from the debauch of youth…. But the jig is now up for the panderers of dirty comic books, and this Red scare is a frantic rearguard action from a discredited and soon-to-be deactivated phase of publishing. Their end is in sight and they know it” (Towne 11).

Tales From The Crypt Of Terror EC’s most famous horror title began life as Crypt of Terror #17 (April-May 1950)—but, for reasons uncertain, with issue #20 (Oct.-Nov. ’50) the title was changed to Tales from the Crypt. Both covers by Johnny Craig. It’s well known that in late 1954 EC was about to launch a fourth straight-horror title, again named Tales from the Crypt, when things fell apart. Thanks to Steven Willis for the art. [© William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

Gaines’s unwillingness to bow to the inevitable made him vulnerable to continued attacks. When his fellow publishers ignored his suggestions on how to deal with the industry’s problems, he struck out on his own, attacking the Senate subcommittee and launching a letter-writing campaign by E.C. readers in summer 1954, before the CMAA was organized, in an effort to keep his company aﬂoat. After his appearance before the Senate subcommittee, Gaines received a

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

Pleas, Pleas, Me John Benson, current editor/publisher of the legendary EC fanzine Squa Tront, was kind enough to send us both the “emergency” edition of the EC Fan-Addict Club Bulletin (left) that is quoted by Nyberg, and which was mailed to its thousands of members—and (right) a virtually identical plea that was printed in some of EC’s comics, including Shock SuspenStories #18 (Dec. 1954-Jan. 1955), that series’ final issue. John adds, “[The plea] appeared in some other titles, but not all of them. Some went straight to the ‘death’ announcement.” [© William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

routine letter from its chairman, Senator Hendrickson, thanking him for his testimony. He fired back a reply, telling Hendrickson that the approach of the committee was neither impartial nor scientific and that its treatment of him had been unfair. He complained that he had been scheduled to testify in the morning, was told he would be the first witness in the afternoon, and was “shunted aside” when Dr. Wertham showed up and forced to wait until 4 p.m. before he testified. He noted that his four-minute statement was rudely interrupted, commenting, “I need not tell you that this was far from the kid-glove patience accorded Dr. Wertham—who spoke for hours on end—much of his contribution being obvious gush designed solely to increase the sale of his book.” He continued: “The headline-seeking carnival staged by your Committee has given fuel to those in our society who want to tar with the censor’s brush. As a result, my business together with the entire comics industry has been severely damaged. Since this was so obviously an objective of your Committee, I trust it will give you some satisfaction” (Gaines to Hendrickson). In a draft of a reply that was never sent, Senator Hendrickson wrote: “For some time I had before me your letter attacking the integrity of the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency and charging it with bias in its investigation of the comic book industry. Had opportunity offered, I would have replied to it on the ﬂoor of the Senate.” Hendrickson noted he did not believe Gaines spoke for the entire industry: “While you are falsely charging us with attempting to wreck an industry, other publishers and distributors are giving concrete evidence of the sincerity of their concern for youth by discontinuing the publishing and distribution of objectionable comics” (Hendrickson to Gaines [draft]). The speech to which Hendrickson alluded was drafted but never delivered. In that speech, Hendrickson wrote: “Recently, I received a vicious letter from one of the so-called comic book publishers who attacked the integrity of this subcommittee and who charged, among other things, that we are out to destroy the comic book industry.” He summarized the testimony Gaines had given at the hearings, concluding: “This is the calm, deliberate thinking of a so-called ‘comics’ book publisher who attacks a United States Senate Subcommittee that is under mandate to explore and shed light upon possible causes of juvenile delinquency in the United States.” Next, Hendrickson took Gaines to task for encouraging youngsters to write to the subcommittee in defense of comics. The

senator wrote: Now, I do not object to youngsters writing to their Congressmen. In fact, I welcome it. But I do object to his inferring in this bulletin to thousands of young people that Congressional investigations are conducted because ‘November is coming.’ And I most strongly object to his deliberately misinforming these youngsters as to the opinion about crime comics of authorities in this field, including Doctor Robert H. Felix, Director of our National Institute of Mental Health. It’s malicious, Mr. President, to attempt to discredit the integrity of the Senate in the eyes of American youth. (Hendrickson papers) Hendrickson concluded the draft of his speech by saying that no attack upon the subcommittee “by a publisher whose own product evoked consternation and revulsion at our hearings” would deter the committee from continuing its investigation into any facet of the media that may be contributing to the “juvenile delinquency scourge.” The “bulletin” to which Hendrickson referred was The FanAddict Club Bulletin, which was started in November 1953 and mailed to nine thousand charter members. The bulletin, as described by one historian, was “friendly, newsy, and innocuous. Births and marriages among E.C.’s staff and freelancers were announced, and a trading post for old E.C. comics was set up.” In the June 1954 issue of the bulletin, mailed to the seventeen thousand subscribers, the address of the subcommittee was printed and fans were urged to begin a letter-writing campaign (Reidelbach 24, 28). The bulletin began: “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BULLETIN! This is an appeal for action!” In describing the threat, the bulletin noted: “The congressmen get frightened… November is coming! They start an investigation. This wave of hysteria has seriously threatened the very existence of the whole comic magazine industry.” That hysteria, the newsletter argued, was caused by a small minority who oppose comics, adding: “The voice of the majority… you who buy comics, read them, enjoy them, and are not harmed by them… has not been heard!” The bulletin urged readers to write “a nice, polite letter” and encouraged youngsters to get their parents to write or add a P.S. to the letter “as the Senate Subcommittee may not have much respect for the opinions of minors.” The appeal was signed “Your grateful editors (for the

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

Vaulting Away From Horror In late 1954, EC publisher William Gaines publicly announced that his company was discontinuing all of its horror-style titles. At that press conference, he held up a copy of Vault of Horror #39 (Oct.-Nov. 1954), with cover by Johnny Craig—seen better at left. The mags canceled were Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, and Shock SuspenStories—while Weird Science-Fantasy would metamorphose into Incredible Science Fiction. Thanks to Steven Willis for the cover. [VOH cover © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

whole E.C. Gang).” (Box 168 National Archives). The same plea was published as an editorial that ran in the E.C. line, and the Bulletin and editorials generated an estimated three hundred to four hundred letters from children, teenagers, and adults (Hendrickson to Levy). The subcommittee kept a separate tally of those who mentioned the E.C. Fan-Addict Club in their letters. The list compiled included the name of the letter writer, state of origin, his or her age (if known), whether the letter favored or opposed horror comics, and relevant comments (usually who else in the family or neighborhood favored horror comics). On the list were 217 names of people writing in support of horror comics and twenty-seven who were opposed to horror comics, but liked other comics (“Survey of E.C.”). The major themes of these letters were that comic books do not cause juvenile delinquency, that crime comics actually teach children that crime is bad, and that readers of comics should decide for themselves what to read. While there are a smattering of postcards in the files, most of the messages are long, handwritten letters. In some cases, a parent obviously wrote or typed the letter for the child to sign, and many parents followed the suggestion in the editorial, adding postscripts to their children’s letters. Occasionally, a letter would be signed by an entire neighborhood group of children. The letters were mailed to the subcommittee in two waves. The first group came in response to the call to action in the Bulletin and was from younger readers. The second wave resulted from the editorials in the E.C. line of comics and included many adult readers. Many of the letters rephrased the information given in the editorial, quoting the experts and attacking the so-called “dogooders” who wanted to rid the country of comic books. But other

letters were more clearly the opinions of the writers. One young man from Idaho wrote the subcommittee: “Please do not crucify my favorite pass-time [sic] … How can anyone truthfully say that reading a magazine actually gives them an urge or an idea to kill? With all of the ‘love magazines’ being printed, I am surprised we aren’t all professional lovers, if that’s the case” (Beard letter). One mother offered her own explanation for the anti-comic book sentiment: “I think that the only thing they have against these comics is just that they can’t get the kids to help around the house because they are too interested in the comics and that the mothers get tired of picking up a bunch of books” (Thomas letter). A young woman wrote that the comic books were the only entertainment that she and her young daughter could afford, and “the most enjoyment for us is to go to bed early in the evening and read a funny book or two” (Scheffer letter). A thirteen-year-old boy asked the senators to “let the kids read what they want and what they like” and concluded, “Besides, if you do take them off [the stands], you’ll have every kid in the country on your back” (White letter). The impact of the Senate investigation was mentioned in quite a few letters by readers who were no longer able to find the comics they used to read on the newsstands; retailers had removed the controversial titles from their racks. The letter-writing campaign, however, was a lost cause long before the letters even reached the Senate subcommittee. Two days before the announcement of the formation of the new trade association, knowing the CMAA would mean the end of his E.C. horror comics, Gaines announced he was discontinuing his line of comics “because this seems to be what American parents want.” In reality, Gaines was told by his wholesalers that they simply would not handle the controversial E.C. horror titles any longer. To take their place, Gaines introduced seven titles he labeled his “New Direction” comics (Jacobs 112-13; Reidelbach 30). Distributors, however, aware of Gaines’s notoriety, refused to handle the E.C. line without the “Seal of Approval” on the cover, and Gaines joined the association. Gaines’s New Direction comics were not selling well, due in large part to distribution problems, his relations with the CMAA were strained, and Gaines never really reconciled himself to

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

publishing the type of comic book allowed under the guidelines of the code. His relationship with the CMAA was stormy and shortlived. Gaines was clearly unhappy with the way the association was being run. He met individually with several of the publishers but they were apparently unwilling to buck the association. Gaines pushed for greater accountability on the part of the association; the association agreed to meet more frequently “so members could be apprised of the activities of the association” (CMAA Files [minutes, 26 Apr 55]). He publicly attacked the association, despite having an agreement with the CMAA not to do so (CMAA Files [minutes, 23 June 55]). In August 1955, E.C. business manager Lyle Stuart wrote a letter to James Bobo, then general counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, asking the senators to investigate the CMAA, claiming the “autocratic, self-appointed group has subverted the good intentions of the Kefauver Committee into a monopolistic instrument” and suggesting that the association was working to destroy small publishers. Stuart told Bobo in his letter that there were publishers willing to testify about what the association had done to squeeze them out of business (Stuart to Bobo). The letter to Bobo was inspired, in part, by the latest dispute between Gaines and the CMAA reviewers, a disagreement that was to drive Gaines out of the comic book publishing field. The dispute centered around an issue of Incredible Science Fiction, a title that had survived from his previous line with a name change (it was formerly entitled Weird Science-Fantasy). As Gaines remembered it,

one of the stories was rejected, and Gaines decided to reprint another E.C. story in its place, called “Judgment Day.” The story had an antiracism theme and dealt with a planet of robots who had applied for admission to the pre-Star Trek version of a galactic federation, but the society of robots who lived on the planet had a policy of segregation based on what color the robot was. The hero of the story, who gets back into his spaceship, decides the robot planet is not ready to join the rest of the galaxy. In one panel, the character removes his helmet and the reader discovers the hero is black. Perspiration dots the character’s face. The code reviewers, citing the code provision that “ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible,” apparently decided that a perspiring black character somehow violated code guidelines. Gaines, who said he had already decided to leave comics publishing and was simply printing the last of the work completed for his company, fought for the story: “We had to take the perspiration off his forehead. Swear to God. That’s what the code said. No sweat on this man’s face. Needless to say we wouldn’t. And I threatened to go to court. And I raised such a stink they said, oh, all right. So I got it through. And that was the end of the code as far as I was concerned” (Gaines interview). Another version of the story suggests that Gaines was unable to get code approval of the story and simply printed the comic with the code seal anyway (Benton, Comic Book 115). A third account of the dispute, given in the letter from Stuart to Bobo, suggests that the story was turned down by Murphy because it conflicted with

Judge Not… The story “Judgment Day,” written by Al Feldstein from a plot by Bill Gaines and drawn by Joe Orlando, first appeared in EC’s Weird Fantasy #18 (March-April 1953), and was reprinted as a substitute for another story in Incredible Science Fiction #33 (Jan-Feb. 1956), the last color comic book Gaines ever published. The first and last pages are reprinted here from a Russ Cochran archive volume. Thanks to Tom Anderson. [© William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

Let’s Take It Nice And EC One by one, the remaining non-horror titles of Bill Gaines’ small but once-transcendent EC empire bit the dust. Shown, with dates and artists listed, are the finalissue covers of: Psychoanalysis #4 (Sept.-Oct. 1955; Jack Kamen)… Piracy #7 (Oct.-Nov. ’55; George Evans)… Aces High #5 (Nov.-Dec. ’55; George Evans)… Extra! #5 (Nov. Dec. ’55; Johnny Craig)… Impact #5 (Nov.-Dec. ’55; Jack Davis)… Valor #5 (Nov.-Dec. ’55; Wally Wood)… Panic #12 (Dec. ’54-Jan. ’55; Jack Davis)… M.D. #5 (Jan. ’56; Johnny Craig)… Incredible Science Fiction #33 (Jan-Feb. ’56; Wally Wood)… plus the cover of the black-&-white, magazine-style Mad #27 (April ’56; Jack Davis, with frame by Harvey Kurtzman & Bill Elder). There was a five-month gap between Mad #26 & 27 due to internal problems, probably including editor/writer Harvey Kurtzman’s resignation and his replacement by former EC horror/SF editor Al Feldstein; but after that, it was all smooth sailing for Mad for the next few decades. [Mad cover © E.C. Publications, Inc.; other covers © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

the code administrator’s religious beliefs. Stuart wrote: “Just today we had a story turned down. It was a harmless story for a sciencefiction magazine. But in the story an automaton thinks and talks. Nobody is hurt. There is no violence. But the story was turned down because to suggest that an automaton can think is contrary to Judge Murphy’s religious beliefs that only man was granted a soul and the ability to think by his Creator” (Stuart to Bobo). Gaines’s departure from the CMAA was noted in the CMAA Board of Directors’ minutes of December 14, 1955, this way: “On motion by Mr. Liebowitz, it was decided to accept the oral resignation of Entertaining Comics, made on October 25, 1955, and the executive secretary was instructed to notify this firm of this decision” (CMAA Files [minutes, 14 Dec. 55]). There is no question that Gaines was made a scapegoat both by comic book critics and by the industry itself. The eccentric young publisher had, in the eyes of the other publishers, done a lot of damage to the comic book industry in refusing to take a conciliatory tone in his dealings with the public, and his headlinegrabbing performance during the Senate hearings was a public relations disaster for the industry. Perhaps more on the mark, Gaines had taken a small, financially ailing company and built a highly profitable business that many of his fellow publishers

envied and tried, without nearly as much success, to imitate. Driving Gaines out of business with the comics code was good publicity, and if other publishers also fell victim to the code, those who survived would certainly be in a stronger economic position. The comic book market was glutted in the 1950s, and pruning out the undesirable elements made good business sense. The Senate subcommittee turned a deaf ear to Gaines’s complaints because they had little sympathy for the publisher and little concern for the economic hardships brought about by their investigation into the industry. The senators were all too happy to point to their accomplishments once the code was in place and to wash their hands of comic books. Other publishers also left the field, though with less fanfare than E.C. One was Comic Media, which had started in 1951 with two romance comics and had expanded into westerns, war comics, crime titles, and horror comics, including Horrific and Weird Terror. Notes comic book historian Mike Benton, “The covers of both books often featured either a corpse’s face or a leering maniac’s head that had been shot, stabbed, or otherwise colorfully disfigured” (Comic Book 100). In late 1954, the company discontinued its horror titles and sold its romance and western titles to other companies. Fiction House, which specialized in offering readers half-dressed heroines in exotic locations, found themselves

Last Tango In Four Colors Two last issues: Weird Terror #13 (Sept. 1954) from Comic Media, drawn by future Marvel star Don Heck… and Fiction House’s Kaänga Comics #20 (Summer 1954), featuring the Tarzanic hero of Jungle Comics, drawn by Maurice Whitman. The cover of Fiction House’s last-ever comic book published, Jungle #163, was depicted in last month’s Alter Ego. Thanks to Steven Willis and Bruce Mason for the covers. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

No High-Fives In ’55 Although the cover dates on two of these five covers read “1956,” the decisions of these companies to exit the comic book field would’ve all been made in ’54 or ’55. Here are some final or near-final covers: Star Publications’ Popular Teenagers #23 (Nov. 1954, cover by L.B. Cole; there may have been a Star mag or two with a ’55 cover date)… United Features’ Comics on Parade #105 (Feb. ’55, featuring comic strip stars Nancy and Sluggo)… Eastern Color’s Tales from the Great Book #4 (Jan. ’56, reprinting Jack Lehti’s newspaper comic strip)… Sterling’s Captain Flash #4 (July ’55), featuring solid super-hero art by future Justice League penciler Mike Sekowsky… Stanley Morse’s Flying Aces #5 (May ’56). The cover artist on the latter mag is unidentified. See PS Artbooks’ ad on p. 74 for info on how to order a hardcover copy of Roy Thomas Presents Captain Flash, which reprints all four issues plus two Sterling horror comics. Thanks to Steven Willis for cover art. [© the respective copyright holders.]

put out of business by the code as well. Their last title was Jungle Comics No. 163, cover-dated summer 1954 (Benton, Comic Book 11920).

before the advent of the code with two crime-and-horror titles, tried to make the transition with watered-down horror and mystery stories, but failed (Benton, Comic Book 145-46).

Several more companies ceased publishing in 1955, including some that had been in business since the late 1930s, and for the first time, no new publishers entered the comic book business. Eastern Color Printing Company, the first company to publish comic books, went out of business. Its problem was not the code, but the depressed state of the industry due to the bad publicity generated by the Senate hearings and the controversy more generally. United Features, another long-lived company, decided to leave the publishing business in 1955 as well, selling its top three titles to St. John Publishing and canceling the rest (Benton, Comic Book 112, 150). Stanley Morse, who published comics under four company names, also shut down in 1955. His line, too, had depended heavily on titles that would no longer pass muster (Benton 54). Sterling Comics, which was started in 1954 right

Other companies went out of business for reasons unrelated to the code. Star Publications went out of business in 1955 when Jerry Kramer, one of the partners in the company, died. The other partner, L.B. Cole, went on to work as an art director for Classics Illustrated in the 1950s and Dell Comics in the 1960s (Benton, Comic Book 145). The next year was not any brighter. Several more publishers went out of business, including Ace Magazines, Avon Comics Group, and Quality Comics Group. These three were the casualty of an industry-wide depression that had more to do with the upheaval in the distribution side of the business than the code. The leading distributor of comic books in the United States was the American News Company. The company was the target of an antitrust suit brought against it by the Department of Justice in

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

Deep-Sixed In ’56? Well, Not Quite All… Ace Magazines’ Complete Love Magazine, Vol. 32 #4 (aka #191, Sept. 1956) with its photo cover… Avon Periodicals’ Peter Rabbit #34 (Aug.-Sept. ’56), cover signed by Frank Carin… Lev Gleason’s Shorty Shiner #3 (Oct. ’56), with an anonymous cover, a whimper not a bang for the former publisher of Crime Does Not Pay, Daredevil, and Boy Comics… and Quality’s Blackhawk #107 (Dec. ’56), sporting cover art by Richard Dillin & Chuck Cuidera. The latter pair would continue rendering the colorful aviator’s adventures without missing a beat when ownership of the character (and his six-man aerial squadron) was sold to National/DC. Thanks to Rod Beck & Tony Rose for the last two covers. [Blackhawk TM & © DC Comics; other covers © the respective copyright holders.]

1952. The company distributed magazines to most of the estimated 110,000 retail magazine outlets in the United States. In addition, its wholly-owned subsidiary, Union News Company, owned and operated newsstands at railroad stations, bus terminals, airports, subways, parks, hotels, and office buildings. American News had approximately four hundred branch offices throughout the United States. Its subsidiary, Union, was the largest magazine retailer in the country. The lawsuit charged that American and Union had conspired to monopolize the national independent distribution of magazines, primarily because Union refused to sell or display magazines that were not distributed through its parent company and because it forced publishers who wished to have their magazines sold at Union outlets to sign contracts giving American exclusive national distribution rights (U.S. v. American News). Under the consent decree in 1955, Union News agreed to buy, sell, and display magazines on the basis of its own interests, not giving preferential treatment to magazines distributed by American News Company (Peterson 92). As a result, American News Company lost many of its mass-circulation clients to other distributors and pulled out of national distribution in August 1955 (Peterson 93). This left many of the comic book companies without a national distributor. Although there were thirteen national distributors of comics in the mid- 1950s, American was by far the largest. At the time it ceased operations, American distributed nearly three hundred comic book titles, more than half the output of the comic book industry (Senate Interim Report [1955] 45). While some of American’s clients, such as Archie Comics and Dell Comics, were able to find other outlets (or, in Dell’s case, start their own distribution company), many of its clients went out of business during that period. Martin Goodman’s company, which weathered the storm to become Marvel Comics—the industry leader in the 1980s—was also hurt by the demise of American. Goodman, who

had split with Kable News Company to start his own distribution company, Atlas, decided in the post-code period to sign a deal with American. When American abruptly ceased national distribution, Goodman was forced to sign a distribution deal with DC Comics, which limited the company to only eight titles, a mixture of war, western, romance, and teen titles (Daniels Marvel 80-81). In 1956, the strongest comics companies were Dell, National (DC), Harvey, Charlton, and Archie. Dell Comics was the largest comics publisher in the world during the 1950s, selling more than three hundred million comic books annually. Its line of Disney character comics and other comics aimed at the younger audience was so wholesome that the company successfully resisted the pressure to join the Comics Magazine Association (Benton Comic Book 109). The CMAA was never able to get Dell Comics to change its position on the code, but not for lack of trying. The subject was hashed out at an executive committee meeting May 9, 1957, and it was decided that the CMAA president should address the problem in the next newsletter. John Goldwater’s editorial in the July 1957 CMAA Newsletter noted that while 90 per-cent of the industry supported the code, “the continued omission of two publishers from their ranks is a source of concern” to the members, who “recognize a danger to the stability of its structure inherent in such

Creation And Implementation Of The Comics Code

Riding High? (Right:) We’ve found relatively few errors of fact in Dr. Nyberg’s book—but it would appear that the information she quotes (from a 1964 source) about American News Company “pull[ing] out of national distribution in August 1955” is far too early. As Dr. Thomas G. Lammers reported in his article “Atlas Shrugged” in A/E #49, ANC announced on May 17, 1957, “that it was closing its Wholesale Periodical Division, presumably as a negotiated settlement of [a] lawsuit” filed against it by one of its former clients, Dell Publishing Co. Since Timely publisher Martin Goodman had abandoned his own Atlas distribution company in late ’56 to sign with ANC, his timing was exactly right (or rather, exactly wrong) to suddenly leave him unable to get his comics onto newsstands. This forced him to quickly sign a disadvantageous deal with the National/DC-owned Independent News, which would allow him for the foreseeable future to publish only eight comics per month. To illustrate: seen at near right is John Severin’s cover for Kid Colt Outlaw #74 (cover-dated July 1957), which still sports the Atlas globe, which appeared on a number of Goodman’s comics during the brief interim when his comics were actually being distributed by ANC—while the Joe Maneely-drawn cover of Kid Colt #75 (Nov. ’57) sports the “IND” symbol (for “Independent”) in the upper left-hand corner. Dr. Michael J. Vassallo tells us that perhaps the two issues of any single title closest in time during the distribution switchover were Patsy Walker #72 and 73 (Sept. & Oct. 1957): the Atlas globe one month, the letters “IND” the next. Thanks to Steven Willis for the cover art. For the next few years, Goodman was definitely no longer “riding high” as in this photo that had appeared in the Oct. 1953 issue of his pulpish magazine Male. Thanks to Stan Taylor. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“A Game Of Hearts”—Not To Mention Arms And Legs (Left:) Among other things, our next installment of Seal of Approval will spotlight changes to art and story made at the Comics Code Authority’s behest from late 1954 onward, augmenting examples we showcased particularly in A/E #105 & 113. In addition, comics historian John Benson has written an article examining, in depth, alterations made by the Code in romance comics published by Harvey Comics; it will appear in a future issue of A/E. Meanwhile, as a teaser, here are both the original and Code-approved versions of a pair of panels from the story “A Game of Hearts” as printed first in True Love Problems and Advice Illustrated #20 (March 1953), then in TLPAI #41 (Sept. 1956). Of the reprint rendition, John writes: “In the first panel, the man’s hand has disappeared from her neck. (Where is it now?) In the second panel, his arm is now outside hers and—contrary to the unchanged caption—she no longer has her arms around him. Instead, he’s got dirt all over the back of his shirt. It’s a bit mysterious as to why it was thought that removing his legs makes the scene more modest. As usual, her neckline is raised and her hemline lowered. And in both panels their lips have been redrawn so that they’re no longer meeting. There are at least 17 additional minor changes in other panels on this same page, including removal of the man’s chest muscles.” We think John’s scans and analyses will provide a welcome insight into the way the folks at the Comics Code thought, a couple of years after the Code’s implementation. John Benson, incidentally, is the author of Confessions, Romances, Secrets, and Temptations: Archer St. John and the St. John Romance Comics (Fantagraphics Books, 2007). [© the respective copyright holders.]

Seal Of Approval—Chapter 5

Five Alive! “In 1956, the strongest comics companies were Dell, National (DC), Harvey, Charlton, and Archie.” We’ll close this fifth chapter of Amy Kiste Nyberg’s Seal of Approval with a quintet of 1956 covers from those firms: Uncle Scrooge #14 (June-Aug.), by Carl Barks… Superman #106 (July) by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye… Casper the Friendly Ghost #48 (Sept.) by Warren Kremer… Space Adventures #21 (Aug.) by Dick Giordano & Vince Alascia… and Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #27 (Nov.) by an unknown artist. Thanks to Tony Rose, Steven Willis, Rod Beck, & Bruce Mason for the cover art. [Uncle Scrooge cover © Disney Productions; Superman cover © DC Comics; Archie cover © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.; other covers © the respective copyright holders.]

division.” He suggested that the example set by those publishers who refused to join might influence other publishers “to avoid the discipline and expense of code supervision, thus creating a risk that neither the public nor the industry can afford.” He added that the division created confusion in the public and reduced the stature and stability of the industry. He concluded: “All comics publishers, without exception, owe it to themselves and to the public and the industry … to share in the responsibility of keeping the Code and its enforcement machinery strong … [Publishers] can exercise this responsibility only by joining the Comics Magazine Association of America” (Goldwater, “Editorial”). When this strategy failed, CMAA Vice President Jack Liebowitz suggested at the board’s July 11 meeting that a more personal, informal approach to Dell might work. Dell, however, remained firm in its decision not to join the association. For National Comics, which had never published anything but the tamest crime and horror comics, it was business as usual after the implementation of the code. Harvey dropped its horror titles and introduced a number of characters aimed at a very young readership, including Baby Huey, Little Dot, Hot Stuff, Casper, and Richie Rich, who at one time had thirty-eight separate titles devoted to his adventures, more than any other American comicbook character (Benton Comic Book 127). Charlton Comics, which weathered the comic-book recession because it also published other types of magazines, bought up titles as other publishers went out of business in the mid-1950s, including a line of romance, western, and horror comics from Fawcett Comics. Charlton published dozens of western, romance, science fiction, adventure, and war comics during the late 1950s (Benton, Comic Book 98-99). Archie was the leading publisher of the popular teen comics, and

the company continued to add Archie titles throughout the 1950s. The clean-cut world of Archie and his gang posed few problems for code reviewers (Benton, Comic Book 95). The comics code of 1954 succeeded where earlier efforts had failed because it represented a concerted effort on the part of the publishers to act. Negative publicity provided the Comics Magazine Association of America the enforcement mechanism that earlier attempts lacked—the distributors. Their refusal to carry most non-code comics gave publishers no alternative but to join the association and abide by its rules. The impact of the code was not felt until 1955-1956, since most of the comic books on the newsstands in early 1955 were actually created prior to the implementation of the code. But gradually the type of comic book that had caused so much trouble for the industry disappeared, and what remained were romance, teen, and funny animal comics. But dissatisfaction with the code was expressed by the member publishers of the Comics Magazine Association almost as soon as the ink on the code was dry, and between 1954 and 1989 the publishers would rewrite the comics code twice to bring the code in line with the changing social and business climate. Coming in A/E #130: Evolution of the Comics Code.

[NOTE: Due to the Edgar Rice Burroughs coverage, there will be no Seal of Approval chapter in A/E #129.]

TwoMorrows Apps! For Apple or Android devices

https://itunes.apple.com/us /app/id767332506?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com. presspadapp.twomorrows publishingcomicbooks

https://itunes.apple.com/us /app/id739680744?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com. presspadapp.alterego

https://itunes.apple.com/us/ app/id739028056?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com. presspadapp.backissue

https://itunes.apple.com/us /app/id720724963?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com.press padapp.jackkirbycollector

https://itunes.apple.com/us /app/id739698959?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com. presspadapp.draw

https://itunes.apple.com/us /app/id739048849?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com.press padapp.comicbookcreator

https://itunes.apple.com/us/ app/id739668659?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=com. presspadapp.brickjournal

BOOKS

C o l l e c t o r

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a registered trademark of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D'Oro Entertainment, Inc.

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999 Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails FREE – online searchable database – FREE www.bailsprojects.com – No password required

A quarter of a million records, covering the careers of people who have contributed to original comic books in the US.

$500,000 $500,000 PAID PAID FOR FOR ORIGINAL ORIGINAL C COMIC OMIC A ART! RT! COLLECTOR COLLECTOR PAYING PAYING TOP TOP DOLLAR DOLLAR FOR FOR “ “ANY ANY YA AND ND A ALL” LL” O ORIGINAL RIGINAL C COMIC OMIC B BOOK OOK A AND ND C COMIC OMIC S STRIP TRIP A ARTWORK RTWORK FFROM ROM T THE HE 1 1930S 930S T TO OP PRESENT! RESENT! C COVERS, OVERS, P PINUPS, INUPS, P PAGES, AGES, IIT TD DOESN’T OESN’T M MATTER! ATTER! 1P PAGE AGE O OR RE ENTIRE NTIRE C COLLECTIONS OLLECTIONS S SOUGHT! OUGHT! CALL CALL OR OR EMAIL EMAIL ME ME ANYTIME! ANY YTIME!

3 330-221-5665 30-221-5665 m mikeburkey@aol.com ikeburkey@aol.com O OR RS SEND END YOUR YOUR LIST LIST TO: TO: We’re not sure quite when this Don Newton-drawn 1970s panel of Batman and Robin appeared—but Dr. Wertham would definitely not have approved. [© DC Comics.]

MIKE MIKE BURKEY BURKEY

H4 4266 P.O. P .O. BOX BOX 455 455 • RAVENNA, RAVENNA, O OH 44266 CASH IS IS WAITING, WAITING, S O HURRY!!!!! HURRY!!!!! CASH SO

Special A/E Interlude—“The Will of William Wilson” These final two pages (“Y” & “Z”) of the never-published 1943-45 “Justice Society of America” tale “The Will of William Wilson” would have met Fredric Wertham’s definition of a “crime comic”—but surely The Psycho-Pirate’s rationale for his plot to defeat the JSA belongs more in the category of EC Comics’ Psychoanalysis. [Continued on next page]

“The Will Of William Wilson,” Continued For more on this long-lost and still incomplete story by writer Gardner F. Fox and various artists (with Martin Naydel drawing this finale), which was once scheduled for publication in 1946 in DC’s (or AA’s) All-Star Comics #31, see the four volumes of Roy Thomas’ and TwoMorrows’ All-Star Companion. Thanks to Larry Guidry for the 21st-century coloring. [© DC Comics.]

Fred Guardineer (“Zatara” and often cover artist for early issues of Action Comics drew the Superman figure at left, which we swiped from Action Comics #15 (Aug. 1939). [© DC Comics.]

Whatever Happened To The Boy Of Tomorrow?

Whatever Happened To The Boy Of Tomorrow? by Michael T. Gilbert

hough Superboy (sans costume) made a brief appearance in Superman #1 (June 1939), he didn’t rate his own feature until More Fun Comics #101 in January 1945. However, years earlier, on July 3, 1940, thousands of New Yorkers had been introduced to a flesh-and-blood Boy of Steel. Three judges (including iconic strong man Charles Atlas!) were tapped to pick a real live Superboy and Supergirl in a Superman Day contest at the New York World’s Fair which had opened in Queens the previous year. Dozens of children and teens participated, and two lucky contestants were chosen. 11-year-old Maureen Reynolds was named the official Supergirl of the event, while Bill Aronis, age 15, was crowned the world’s first Superboy. Bill Aronis, now in his late 80s, contacted the Superman through the Ages website in 2006, introducing himself as the winner of the Superboy contest. Comic historian Shaun Clancy recently contacted Bill and taped some of Mr. Aronis’ memories of that day—including a visit to the DC offices in 1940, as well as getting the ol’ hard-sell from comic book pitchman Charles Atlas. We think you’ll find it fascinating. Take it away, Shaun!

William Aronis Interview (11/11/13)

Interview Conducted by Shaun Clancy Transcription by Steven Thompson VOICE: Hello? SHAUN CLANCY: Hi, is William Aronis there? VOICE: Yeah, hold on. [pause]

Simply Super! (Above:) Lou Zimmerman drew this nifty 1940 Superman Day poster. [Superman TM & © DC Comics.]

ARONIS: That’s me. SC: Hi! Have you seen that article I just mentioned? ARONIS: Where did you see this article? SC: I have an October 25th, 1940, Family Circle magazine... ARONIS: No, I didn’t, but a year ago, somebody else called me from California, and he saw something about me, also.

WILLIAM ARONIS: I am— Hello? SC: Hi, William? ARONIS: Yeah. SC: Hi, this is Shaun Clancy in Seattle. I was reading a Family Circle magazine from 1940, and there’s a William Aronis in it on winning a trophy at the Superman Day at the New York World...

Leapin’ Lizards! (Left:) Superboy makes his (sort of) debut in Superman #1 (June 1939), courtesy of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. [© 2014 DC Comics.] (Right:) A “Legion of Super-Heroes”? Photo of a gaggle of would-be Super-Boys from the 1940 contest.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

SC: Oh! Well, what a coincidence. ARONIS: He came to my house. SC: Oh, do you still have the trophy? ARONIS: Oh, yeah, I got all my trophies. All my weightlifting trophies. SC: I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you were into.... So you met Charles Atlas at the Fair?

Man of Scrap Metal! Bill Aronis holds his Super-Boy trophy. Note the cute Superman on top!

ARONIS: Yeah, I met him. [laughs] He’s a stinker!

SC: [laughs] Well, he’s gone now, but, yeah, I actually sent away for his program when I was 15, so that helped me get into weightlifting also. But I’m actually a comic book fan, not a weightlifting fan, although I did both. Did you ever get to meet Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, and do you have pictures? ARONIS: Uh, yeah. After the World’s Fair event, Charles Atlas asked me to come down to his office in downtown Manhattan, and guess what he wanted to do? SC: What? ARONIS: Here I am, a 15 year-old-kid in the middle of the Depression, and he wanted to sell me his course for $25. [Shaun laughs] Yeah! How was I gonna get $25?

SC: Did you stay in touch with Maureen? ARONIS: No, I lost contact with her, but years later I was in Cleveland, Ohio, at a weightlifting contest. And I was up in the balcony, because I didn’t lift at that time, and this woman comes up and stares, yelling, “Hey, Bill!” It was Maureen! [both laugh] What had happened was, she’s a sports fan, and she used to hang out at Madison Square Garden. When she saw the weightlifting contest, she thought maybe I might be Supertot! there. She went backstage and Siegel and Shuster’s Babe of Steel they told her I was up in the from Action Comics #1 (June 1938). audience and I met her then, but [©DC Comics.] I never saw her again after that! I tried to find her—on the computer, you know—but she must have gotten married, and... SC: Changed her last name, right. That’s what I figured, too. ARONIS: Well, there is a way to find married women. I found two girls I used to know, but it’s very difficult. SC: Did you go into the weightlifting profession, or did you actually...? What happened to you after all this? ARONIS: I took advantage of the G.I. Bill. I went to television school. I was one of the first TV servicemen in New York City in 1948. I got a job with Philco. I don’t know if you ever heard of it. SC: Yeah, of course. Philco radios. And televisions. ARONIS: I eventually ended up at IBM for 32 years. I got in on the ground floor of the computer industry. I retired in ’87. SC: Does this mean you were in the service? Because you were only 15 at the time [of the Fair]. ARONIS: I joined the army when I was 18. I was in the 101st

SC: Right! [laughs] Wow! ARONIS: And another time, I went to Joe Shuster’s office, where they’d do up the comics and everything... SC: Right. ARONIS: Just the one time. Nobody paid any attention to me after the event was over. SC: I see. And what did you do to win this trophy? ARONIS: Not a damn thing. [laughs] What happened was... at the World’s Fair grounds, which was Flushing Meadows... it was only a few miles from where I lived. There was a pavilion down at the end of the Fair in front of the pool and all the judges were up on stage—some notable people from the Opera—but the real judge was Atlas. Anyway, they called out the names and then they said, “Will the boy in the green shirt step forward?” Well, guess what? I’m color-blind. I didn’t realize it was me. [laughs] Anyway, Maureen Reynolds and me, she won the Super-Girl and I won the Super-Boy. And that was the end of it.

Not Quite Superboy In the original comics, Kal-El (originally Kal-L) didn’t become Superboy, but only donned a costume when he became an adult. Here are Clark and his adoptive parents from Superman #1 (June 1939.) Story by Siegel; art by Shuster. [©DC Comics.]

Whatever Happened To The Boy Of Tomorrow?

picked us up, took us to England, and then from England they took us to France. I was a replacement and not in first. SC: Wow. I have a video—a movie—a silent movie—of the New York World’s Fair event of Superman Day, but it’s of like a sack race, a sprint... ARONIS: Yeah. SC: You didn’t participate in...? ARONIS: No, I didn’t participate in any of that stuff. [laughs] I was a weightlifter. I started when I was 14. SC: What made you want to do that? ARONIS: I really don’t remember how I got started. There used to be a second-hand magazine store in those days. I think I stumbled upon a Strength and Health magazine from York, Pennsylvania. That got me started. SC: Well, I know there were a lot of weightlifting magazines out there. Joe Weider was doing one, I believe, too. Jack LaLanne was around, too, wasn’t he? Gorgeous George, wrestling, all that stuff... ARONIS: Yeah, I used to watch Gorgeous George. He got his start right here in New York. He was the first one to come out with all these sensation dress-ups and everything. I remember him.

Lookit Me, I’m A Star, Ma! Superboy, now in costume (perhaps comics’ first example of “retroactive continuity”), finally got his own series beginning in More Fun Comics #101 (Jan. 1945), after previously appearing in several flashbacks in “Superman” stories. But he still didn’t yet rate a cover! Art by Joe Shuster & the Shuster shop. [© DC Comics.]

Airborne Division, but I never saw combat. They didn’t send me in. When we went overseas, I almost got killed. We had a shipwreck. This ship hit us. You know where the bulkhead is? SC: Yeah. ARONIS: Well, I was in the second bulkhead. It’s a lucky thing the door was closed between the first and second, because we lost 78 guys in the first bulkhead at 4 o’clock in the morning. [NOTE: Actually 68 men there and one on deck, according to records. 69 total lost, as well as 40 more on the French ship that hit his. —Steve Thompson.] SC: Wow. ARONIS: That delayed me, I think, from being actually sent into Bastogne. You can go on the computer and see the shipwreck that I was in. SC: What was the name of the ship? ARONIS: J.W. McAndrew. Just put that in “Search” and you’ll see a big article somebody wrote, and if you’ll scan down you’ll see two pictures of the ship, and you’ll see a picture of the ship that hit us. We dropped out of the convoy, and two destroyers took us to the Azore Islands. We were there for about ten days and then they

Finally— A Cover! Well, half a cover, at least! From More Fun #104 (July 1945). Art by Henry Boltinoff (“Dover and Clover”) and Stan Kaye (“Superboy” and many “Superman” stories). [©DC Comics.]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

SC: And the trophy itself—does it say anything about Superman on it? ARONIS: Yeah, it says “Super-Boy.” SC: Oh, it does! And the date and everything? ARONIS: Guess what? They handed me a broken trophy. [Shaun laughs] When you look online, my left hand is holding the figure at the top. SC: Yes, I see! I actually do see that. And this photo here that I have, that’s exactly what you’re doing. ARONIS: It was broken and they didn’t even offer to fix it. [laughs] SC: Is it still broken? ARONIS: Yes, it is. SC: What is the trophy made out of? Is it plastic?

Photo Op, Op, And Away! Bill Aronis and Maureen Reynolds pick up their trophies from Fair head Harvey Gibson. From Family Circle magazine (Oct. 25th, 1940). [© Family Circle or its successors in interest.]

SC: Yeah, and Jack Dempsey had a restaurant downtown.

ARONIS: I guess it’s just pot metal. You know what pot metal is? SC: No. ARONIS: It’s like scrap metal. Poor-quality material. SC: Was that the first trophy you won?

ARONIS: Yeah, my wife used to eat there. Not me, though. My wife used to be a waitress in Manhattan. SC: I see. So from 14 to 15 you changed your physical form that much? To win the contest versus other people who were probably older than you? ARONIS: We didn’t even change our clothes. We just stood there. I was standing there with folded arms. If you go on the computer and put my name in—Bill Aronis—a couple of Aronises will come up, but just be a little detective. Look down there and you’ll see the one for “Super-Boy Day,” and when the page comes up, go to the bottom and click “Photos” and you’ll see all the pictures that were taken. SC: Oh, fantastic. I didn’t know that. I just found out yesterday. I just looked through my magazine. I saw your name, and I was like, “I wonder if he’s still here?” I went online, and damn—there you were! So this has only been a one-day search for me. The other person who did contact you? Do you remember the person’s name from California? ARONIS: I don’t have it in my head right now. He was originally from the Bronx, and he went to California. He restores old movies. He has a business. SC: Did he tell you why he wanted to...? Is he writing an article about you, or a book, or...? ARONIS: Well, he came here and he took some videos of me, and I’ve never heard from him since. [Shaun laughs] SC: I can tell you that it takes a long time to get things together now. I write for a magazine called Alter Ego which has been around since 1961. We specialize in finding people who were involved in comic books from the ’30s to the ’70s. When I bought the Family Circle magazine... If you have an e-mail address, I can send you the scan of it! [Aronis gives email address.] Okay. I’ll send that off to you today, because I have a nice photo of you with Maureen Reynolds and Harvey Gibson, who was the Fair head, and he’s giving you the trophy. That’s the photo I have. I’m assuming you still have photos of that day? ARONIS: I’ve got the ones that they gave me. They’re 8 x 10s.

Lost Their Marbles! Superboy’s cleaning up in this cover from More Fun #105 (Sept.-Oct. 1945). What a show-off! At least he gave them five-to-one odds! Stan Kaye may have drawn this cover—or Henry Boltinoff, or even Joe Shuster. Depends on who you ask! [©DC Comics.]

Whatever Happened To The Boy Of Tomorrow?

your thumb. I won in a weightlifting contest and they gave us those as a prize, so I have one of the first Olympic weightlifting medals. [laughs] SC: Wow! That’s very nice! Do you have photos of these that you could share after I send you my e-mail stuff? Is it possible for you to send me back some pictures of yourself with the trophy, too? ARONIS: I’ll try. I’m not an expert on the computer. Guess what? Our son teaches computers! He’s a professor. SC: [laughs] I’m imagining that your health is good? ARONIS: Oh, I’m in good health. I never smoked in my life, never drank. I got drunk once while I was in the Army when I was 19. That was it. END OF PART I.

Summertime Fun! A super-poster advertising Superman Day on July 3rd, 1940. [Superman art © DC Comics.]

ARONIS: I’ve got a bunch of medals I won, but I can’t remember which came first. You know the 1936 Olympics.... No! The 1940 Olympics was canceled because of Europe, but they had already made the medals, which were little tiny things about the size of

Our thanks to Bill, to Shaun Clancy, and to Steven Thompson. Their interview concludes next issue, when Bill meets Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel! Until then, keep pumping that iron, kids! ‘Till next time...

Comic Fandom Archive — In Memoriam

Bhob Stewart (1937-2014) A Tribute To One Of Comic Fandom’s Brightest Lights

by Bill Schelly

n Monday, February 24, 2014, writer, artist, and indefatigable blogger Robert “Bhob” Stewart passed away. He had been in failing health, and was living in an assisted-care facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts. After experiencing unusual difficulty breathing, he collapsed and passed away. Stewart, who changed the spelling of his first name to avoid being mixed up with other Bob Stewarts in fandom and out of it, was a voracious reader with a wide range of interests. His lifelong friend Bill Pearson said, “Bhob Stewart was an eccentric fellow whose talents and intelligence contributed creatively to American culture in many ways over the course of his life.” In his early years, his family moved several times through the South and Southwest. He seems to have had publishing and writing in his blood, having created a weekly handwritten publication, The Nutty Newspaper, a compendium of juvenile features, jokes and cartoons, while he was in elementary school in Lexington, Mississippi. After moving to Kirbyville, Texas, in 1952, he began contributing to science-fiction fanzines. This led him to consider doing a publication devoted to EC comics.

The First True EC Fan-Addict? Bhob Stewart, circa the early 1960s, and the hectographed cover of his important 1953 fanzine EC Fan Bulletin #2, which was drawn by Bill Spicer. [“EC” is a trademark of William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

Bhob was one of the key figures of EC comics fandom of the 1950s. In John Benson’s article “The E.C. Fanzines, Part One” in Squa Tront #5 (1974), Stewart recalled, “One day it hit me like a flash that I should be doing a fanzine—not about science fiction, since there were hundreds of them—but about the thing I was most interested in, EC comics.” The first issue came out in the summer of 1953, after an announcement in Weird Science #20 (July-Aug. 1953) brought 80 orders to Stewart’s mailbox. The EC Fan Bulletin is considered the first true EC fanzine, because, unlike James V. Taurasi’s Fantasy-Comics, a newszine that had debuted a few months earlier, it was produced for comic book fans rather than science-fiction fans, and it was about EC alone. Although Stewart was unhappy with the limitations of hectograph printing and discontinued The Bulletin after its second issue, its publication proved influential. Seeing the first issue of The EC Fan Bulletin, EC publisher Bill Gaines was inspired to form the EC Fan-Addict Club, and he wrote to Stewart, appointing him Contributing Editor to the forthcoming official EC fan club newsletter, The National E.C. Fan-Addict Club Bulletin. In the wake of Bhob’s publication, a number of other EC fanzines appeared. Influenced by his correspondence with Larry Stark, Bhob embarked on his first critical writing, an appreciation of Bernard Krigstein’s EC stories and artwork, “B. Krigstein: An Evaluation and Defense,” which was published in The EC World Press #4 (Aug. 1954). Next he worked on Potrzebie (ca. June 1954) using as its title a non sequitur from Mad. Ted White served as publisher for editors Stewart and Stark. There was only one issue.

Comic Fandom Archive

Man At Work (Clockwise from above left:) Stewart in 1969 inking and cutting Zipatone for a story for Creepy, the black-&-white horror comic from Warren Publications; the photo was taken by the well-known San Francisco photographer Henry Wessel. Bhob was art editor of Xero, the Hugo-winning fanzine of the early 1960s. The cover of Xero #3 was traced by Sylvia White from the cover of All-Star Comics #13 (Oct.-Nove. 1942). [Justice Society of America heroes TM & © DC Comics.] Castle of Frankenstein #4 (1964). Stewart laid out and wrote much of the text in Calvin Beck’s well-respected alternative to Famous Monsters of Filmland. Cover art by Lee Wanagiel. [© the respective copyright holders.]

In college, Stewart drew a weekly series of cartoons and comic strips for his college newspaper. Arriving in New York in 1960, he created several innovative three-page comic strip covers for White’s SF fanzine Void, and also became the art director (and later co-editor) for Dick & Pat Lupoff’s Hugo Award-winning Xero. His creative, even innovative, use of mimeography in Xero was an important aspect of the publication. Bhob worked as an actor, studied at the Actor’s Studio under Lee Strasberg, and was involved in the amateur film scene in New York in the early 1960s, where he befriended Paul Morrissey. His most significant film credit is the short film The Year the Universe Lost the Pennant, which had a number of showings, was in the Filmmakers Co-op Catalog, and was touted by Jonas Mekas in his column in The Village Voice. He appears in Joseph Marzano’s film Venus in Furs (1967).

In Memoriam—Bhob Stewart

In that decade and later, Bhob contributed to Cavalier, The Realist, TV Guide, and other magazines. He worked as an assistant to Wally Wood, and was the first to refer to unconventional comics as “underground,” which he did during a panel discussion at the 1966 New York Comicon organized by Benson (though he didn’t invent the word “comix”). Stewart also coined the word “flix” as the title for his 1980 film column in Heavy Metal. Bhob’s love of EC was influential on some of his professional projects in subsequent years, such as his book Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood, his underground comix book Tales from the Fridge (a collaboration with Russ Jones), and his editorial work in compiling Nostalgia Press’ groundbreaking, full-color hardback, EC Horror Comics of the 1950s. He worked for Woody Gelman on Wacky Packages trading cards, and other humor products for Topps Chewing Gum. Stewart was published at one time or another by Marvel, Byron Preiss, Charlton, and Warren. At DC Comics, he edited the Mad Style Guide and the first DC trading cards, Cosmic Cards and Cosmic Teams. He dove into the Internet, and wrote scores of entries in the early days of Wikipedia, especially biographies of syndicated cartoonists. In 2005, he revived his fanzine Potrzebie as a blog, where he occasionally posted his memoirs. Bhob made countless acquaintances through cyberspace (http://potrzebie.blogspot.com). Bhob was buried in Mississippi, where his family has a burial plot. A Bhob Stewart Memorial was held at the Columbia University Library on Sunday, May 4. Another was held in Boston, shortly thereafter.

Wood Work Against the Grain (2003), the book on Wally Wood edited by Stewart. [EC art © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.]

If you want to get in touch with Bill Schelly, you can contact him through Facebook or at hamstrpres@aol.com

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ GREATEST ADVENTURE HEROES— NOW IN FABULOUS ONLINE COMIC STRIPS!

by ROY THOMAS & TOM GRINDBERG NCES N EW SEQUYE BEING CONSTANTLED! ADD

NEW STRIP! by ROY THOMAS & PABLO MARCOS

by ROY THOMAS & PEGASO Official Website:

http://edgarriceburroughs.com/comics/

Website now also features weekly comic strips of Carson of Venus, Pellucidar, Cave Girl, War Chief, Land That Time Forgot, et al.— only $1.99 per month! ALL-NEW FULL-COLOR ADVENTURES —NOW PLAYING ON AN INTERNET NEAR YOU! Tarzan & John Carter, Warlord of Mars TM & © 2014 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Art © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

year. And the cover on #117 is absolutely spectacular. Thomas H. Miller

I clearly got a couple of our scans confused… or else someone mislabeled them and I didn’t notice. Either way, Thomas, it’s good to have the corrections.

Next up: either Craig Delich has a comic book collection that includes a lot of comics not usually collected, or else he did some much-appreciated researching on the Internet on our behalf, because he sent these corrections: Roy—

ech! This time, looks like artist Shane Foley has put together a “maskot” illo that even the late great Bill Gaines would probably have considered in bad taste… and Randy Sargent has colored it appropriately. But—who’s this “R.T.” guy wielding the cleaver?... Oh, yeah, right. Anyway, that aside, here are some miraculous missives re Alter Ego #117, whose up-front feature was some coverage of Golden Age cover artist L.B. Cole, followed by an interview with his associate and fellow artist Jay Disbrow—not that readers didn’t have plenty to say about the other stuff in the issue, as well. As usual, I (i.e., Roy T.) have reverted to first person for the duration of this letters section. [Alter Ego hero TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas; costume designed by Ron Harris.] Hi Roy—

The latest A/E was one of your best uses of full-color ever, what with all those wonderful L.B. Cole covers you reprinted. His work was unique—every color was like a pre-psychedelic era poster. In fact, someone should do a book of his covers. And I am certain I will not be the first person to point out that the character in Jay Disbrow’s art next to Captain America’s shield is The Joker! Jeff Gelb

Actually, Jeff, I think you may be the only person who did. Maybe everybody else just figured it was too obvious. Actually, I did suspect that might be the head of The Joker—but I wasn’t certain. For some reason, people pointed out a sizable number of (thankfully mostly minor) errors in A/E #117, and we’re trying to set the record straight on each one. Hi Roy—

I may not be the first with this info, but there are several mistakes in the blue boxes at the bottom of page 8 re Cat-Man. The first appearance of Cat-Man was in Crash Comics #4, not #5. After those two issues, he then appeared in the first issue of his own title. The cover pictured is for his second appearance in the title. I suppose in the grand scheme of things this is not important, but history should be as correct as possible. Thanks again for a wonderful mag. I only regret that it comes out only eight times a

On page 5 of A/E #117, the ‘Miss Victory’ splash is shown with incorrect magazine citation; this splash and story actually appeared in Captain Aero Comics, Vol. 4, #2 [#16] for August of 1944. On p. 13, “The Bride of the Devil-Beast” is listed as being in Terrors of the Jungle #5, but it is actually in issue #7. P. 20 states that “Paul Revere Jr.” appeared in Super-Mystery, Vol. 3, #1. It doesn’t. In fact, I can’t find this particular story in any issue of SuperMystery Comics. Also, on p. 35, you feature a splash for “Captain Fight”; that story appeared in Fight Comics #69 (July 1950). And, on p. 37, the box next to “The Homecoming” splash states that Disbrow didn’t sign the story… but it’s there, right below the masthead.

In addition, you mention on page 9 re Cat-Man #8 that Charles Quinlan is listed as writer by the Grand Comics Database. I have been trying to change that here and there. Why? Because I discovered some time back that there was a Charles M. Quinlan, Jr., as well as Sr. Senior was the illustrator… Junior wrote stories for his father while he was still in high school. (This info is found in the [online] Who’s Who in American Books 1929-1999 under the son’s name.) Craig Delich

Glad to get the skinny on anything that we got wrong, Craig, although it does sound to us as if we somehow got hold of files and scans with wrong info on them. What surprised me the most was your statement that there was a Charles M. Quinlan, Jr., working with his artist father—we’d never heard that before. Roy,

Re the caption on page 6 of A/E #117, I agreed that the editor of Orbit spelled her first name “Ray.” (She did use the name “Rae Mann” when writing editorials about saving it for marriage in the romance comics, presumably so readers would know that the writer was a woman. Yet she also used “Ray Mann,” with the image of a man next to the name, even answering readers’ letters to “Mr. Mann” in an advice column.)

“The real question is, how did she spell her last name? For example, in a comic I have at hand, Wanted #13 (May 1948), the Statement of Ownership spells her name “Ray R. Hermann” (five times). Thinking she may have dropped the second “n” after a time, I checked the one in the last Orbit comic issued, Love Diary #48 (Oct. 1955), over seven years later. This also has “Ray R. Hermann”… or at any rate spells it “Hermann” three times and “Herman” once. This isn’t proof, I guess, though one would expect to find her real name in a Statement of Ownership. I wonder whether other Statements of Ownership have it differently (I’m not about to check them all!), and whether those who think it’s

[correspondence & corrections]

here) you actually mistyped the spelling “Herrmann” twice in your e-mail—so I wound up having to decide between “Herrmann,” “Hermann,” and “Herman.” Talk about someone with a problematical name—Rae Hermann was definitely it! Hi Jim and Roy—

Heaping On Coles Two covers, two genres, at both of which L.B. Cole was a master: his super-hero cover for Continental/Holyoke’s Cat-Man Comics #32 (Aug. 1946), and a horror close-up done for Novelty’s Blue Bolt’s Weird Tales of Terror #115 (Oct. 1952). Thanks to Jim Ludwig for both scans. [© the respective copyright holders.]

“Herman” have other indicators to offer. Absent other indicators, I’d tend to go with “Hermann.” As usual, I’m a little nonplussed by some of your style changes. To insert “Mad creator” in front of [Harvey] Kurtzman’s name in this context is a little like putting “classic playwright” in front of “William Shakespeare.” Give your readers a little credit.

I was hoping for a mention of the “immortalized moment” in the caption of Kurtzman and Cole shaking hands. It did take place “at the ’79 con,” or at least during the con, but specifically it took place in Kurtzman’s hotel room during the interview, as mentioned in the interview itself (as I highlighted to you in a recent e-mail). Hopefully, readers will get the point anyhow. Most unfortunate, though, was the loss of italics for emphasis, particularly where Cole says, “Those were the good old days, believe me. They’re better now.” I thought it was so bizarre that Cole basically instantly contradicted himself. John Benson

I very much regret the lost italics, John, but as you probably know, even if I rendered them correctly when retyping your e-mail into a Word document for editing, italicized words vanish into the ether when layout man Chris Day begins to transfer such files into form for proofreading and printing. He has to manually add all the italicized words back in, and it’s easy to miss a few. Nor did I check your manuscript carefully enough when I received the material back for proofing. I’ll have to take extra care with your upcoming article on Comics Code changes to reprinted Harvey romance comics in the 1950s, since you have a lot of italicized words in that one! But I’m afraid I can’t apologize for identifying Harvey Kurtzman to our readers. Astonishing though it may be to you and me, there are actually some intelligent comics fans out there who, for one reason or another, are unaware that HK created Mad comics. And, love and respect Kurtzman though we do, both the man and his work, we can’t quite lump him in the Shakespeare class.

As for the correct spelling of the name of the late Golden Age publisher often referred to as “Rae Herman,” I agree with your assessment that it should be “Ray Hermann.” But I had to look up Wanted #13, et al., on the invaluable ComicBookPlus website, because (although I’ve corrected it

A few notes. Jack Grogan is referred to as an artist on several features (seen with Ray Herman and L.B. Cole), but it has always been my understanding that he was a writer only. Did he indeed do art, as well? Now here’s something very, very strange: on page 3, you show two “Cat-Man” samples very close to the same time, with very similar styles—Bob Fujitani and George Gregg. Well, thanks to Jim Amash and his sources, we now know that “George Gregg’s” full name ended with Yamaguchi. Jim or someone even went so far as to talk with Fujitani and point out that a fellow Japanese-American artist had both followed him on the same strip and that his style has often been mistaken for Bob’s… and yet, incredibly, this seemed totally out of the blue to him… just as the two artists were apparently unknown to each other! And finally, on p. 58, that’s Chu Hing, a Chinese-American artist, drawing “Blue Beetle”!

The reference to Jack Grogan as an artist in a caption was probably my error, Hames—he was indeed a writer and not an artist. A thousand thanks for the information re Bob Fujitani, George Gregg/Yamaguchi, and Chu Hing. Hi Roy—

I saw someone else got credit for the Cat-Man #31 cover scan. Did you not use the one I sent you? Mike Bromberg

Our apologies, Mike. John Selegue sent us scans of a great number of covers, many of them made from actual cover proofs… including probably Cat-Man #31… and we must’ve gotten confused about which version John Morrow used in putting together the cover of A/E #117. I couldn’t be more aware of you as the guy who’s published several digest-sized color editions of Cat-Man Comics—and at least we listed you in the “special thanks” section on the contents page, so you received a freebie copy of the issue! Dear Roy,

I always learn from your magazine information about an artist who is new to me. Such is the case with Jay Disbrow in your issue #177. He was an amazing artist and writer. I really like his Aroc of Zenith comic strip, which I just started reading on the Internet. Please consider publishing a special Aroc of Zenith book or magazine for all the long-time fans of Mr. Disbrow and for those of us just discovering him. Patrick Powell

We’re not really set up to do heavy reprinting of a comic strip, Patrick, although I agree with you that Jay Disbrow’s Aroc work should be collected on paper, as well as on the Web. Hi Roy—

Enjoyed the rest of the Richard Hughes material in A/E #117. Martin O’Hearn’s crediting Hughes with those “Jimmy Olsen” and “Lois Lane” stories is dead on target. I have copies of [DC editor] Mort Weisinger’s editorial records from that period. They show that Hughes was paid for those stories. I’d say that also bolsters Martin’s opinion of the authorship of the “Hawkman” story.

One other thing: the article mentions that Hughes never received a scripting credit while at ACG. Hughes credited himself

re:

with scripting the “Nemesis” story in Adventures in the Unknown #161 (Dec. 1965-Jan. 1966). And, lest I forget, Weisinger’s records show that someone named Thomas received an advance payment on 6/15/65 for a story titled ‘Jimmy Olsen, Gangbuster.’ There’s no record of the story being published, though. Gene Reed

Here’s the scoop, Gene, in case you’ve forgotten it from A/E #50: the one and only script I wrote for Superman-group editor Mort Weisinger in 1965, sent to him while I was still back in my native Missouri, was never published, since I jumped ship to Stan Lee and Marvel before I had a chance to do the rewrite he wanted. My own memory is that I soon sent a check to reimburse DC for the advance (seems to me like the sum was $50, which would’ve been the equivalent of five pages at the $10 page I recall being given)—but Mort told some people I never paid the sum back, and I can’t prove (or be 100% certain) that I did. Well, as it happens, the dust had hardly settled before he took the basic idea of my story and gave it (with some changes they worked out between them) to one of his regulars, Leo Dorfman. Dorfman then scribed the tale “The Dragon Delinquent” for Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #91 (March 1966). My feeling has always been that I should’ve gotten some money as a kill fee! So maybe I did, after all…. Next comes an e-mail to Michael T. Gilbert about his “Comic Crypt”…. Hi Michael T.:

In Alter Ego #117, page 55, you have misattributed a Darwyn Cooke cover as being drawn by Bruce Timm, and identified it as a commission, when in fact it was an actual cover. Cooke’s signature “Darwin” is located below the lower of the two ray beams from the police vehicles. Ray Cuthbert

I’ll let you and Michael slug this one out, Ray.

Where’s Elmo? With Cole—Where Else? George Hagenauer writes: “One oddity missed in almost every comics index I have seen is Sex, Marriage, and Love Customs around the World with its L.B. Cole cover; and, before you write it off as just another odd pulp or men’s magazine piece with a Cole cover—it is all comics, though not by Cole. “The 100-page Croydon publication contains cartoons by Horace T. Elmo (usually known as H.T. Elmo), supposedly based on his studies in 24 countries around the world. The cartoons are basically a sexual Ripley’s Believe It or Not; he did some similar ones for [Goodman’s] Humorama in later years. Elmo is one of the many comic artists and writers whose work appeared in the back pages of comic books or on obscure strips. He did humorous comics for Marvel in the late ’40s and various fillers for DC both pre-war and in the early 1950s. He is best known as the guy who probably gave Jack Kirby his start in comics. Elmo ran the Lincoln News Service, which produced a number of obscure strips that were syndicated to small papers. He hired Kirby to do Socko the Seadog and other work, including a giveaway comic that I think was Jack’s first comic book work. Elmo was packaging various cartoon books in the early 1950s and probably hired Cole to add a nice cover to the collection of Elmo’s otherwise bigfoot and archaic-looking cartoons on sexual oddities.” Thanks, George. Just in case anyone has any lingering doubts, Cole’s cover is the one printed above, and a page of cartoons by H.T. Elmo from that publication is on the right. [© the respective copyright holders.]

[correspondence & corrections]

signature on your e-mail… so if we’re wrong on that, don’t expect so much as a no-prize!

Don Glut, our go-to guy for info on early-’50s TV and movie serials, sent some surprising tidbits concerning Fawcett’s Captain Video comic, which was covered in #117’s FCA section: Hi Roy—

I’ve been reading the “Captain Video” stories in the new PS Artbooks volume, and I’m amazed at how well they’re written— quite sophisticated for comics, with solid plots, characterization, dialogue, etc. But the people in the photos in at least the first two issues of the Captain Video comic book are not any of the actors from the TV show—they’re models hired for those photos!

As for the TV show, I watched it religiously and have vivid memories, even remembering some of the dialogue—said once on live TV—verbatim! Spartak of the Black Planet was an interesting character, starting off as a villain and evolving into a heroic friend of Video (kind of like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp). Strange that, popular as Tobor was, he wasn’t used in the comic book. There was one TV storyline where there was a duplicate (good) Tobor who fought the original. Yes, the old “evil twin” clichéd plot applied even to robots! Don Glut

Captain Video was definitely a well-written comic book, Don—as anyone will see who orders a copy from PS Artbooks. See their ad on the facing page. Hi Roy—

Fens, Romans, Countrymen… This moody splash page drawn (and probably written and even lettered) by Jay Disbrow popped up in Trojan’s Beware #10 (July 1954), not long after the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency held hearings in New York and listened to witnesses blame everything on comic books. Sender uncertain. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Hey Roy,

I thoroughly enjoyed the Bill Schelly interview with Richard Kyle! I have wonderful memories of Richard’s bookstore in Long Beach [CA] during the ’80s, as I was a sailor whose ship was stationed in Long Beach for a year. I have yet to find a bookstore of its kind!

My two favorite memories of his bookstore Wonderworld are meeting you there at an appearance at which I bought an original page of Savage Sword of Conan art with a Robert E. Howard poem. I also bought—are you ready for this?—a run of the original, mint X-Men #1-18, left over from Richard’s mail-order days. I paid $215—in installments—for the set. I still have both those things. I remember Richard made me promise not to break up the set, if I ever sell it. I have kept that promise to this day. Great memories! I was sad to hear that he closed in ’97, but glad to see that he is doing well and is healthy! Bill Broomall

Alive and well, Bill. By the way, we assume that “Broomall” is your last name, deducing from the e-address which was the closest thing to a

If you or anyone else wants to know more about Captain Video, I can heartily recommend a 2004 book by David Weinstein titled The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television. Besides having a lengthy and wonderfully informative chapter on the Video Rangers, it also details the creation of the early TV network by engineer Allen B. DuMont as an attempt to sell the innovative new television design he had invented, as well as the many attacks against him by the other networks, who basically controlled the FCC at the time, and which eventually led to his network’s demise. There’s also a look behind the scenes at the creation of daytime television (a field that the other networks let lie fallow because they felt it would interfere with the profits from their still lucrative radio stations), as well as such innovative evening programming as the tough cop drama The Plainclothesman, which was filmed entirely from the POV of the lead detective (and imagine doing that live with the bulky cameras of the day!). Jeff Taylor

Thanks, Jeff. I’ve been meaning to order that one—and your description of the machinations of the major networks in that “dawn of TV” era only whets my appetite.

Well, gotta run! We (and you) still have the FCA to read before the issue’s over! When it is, please send your congrats and/or carping and/or corrections to: Roy Thomas e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

Meanwhile, forget about the EC Fan-Addict Club and the MMMS— sign up with the Alter Ego Fans online chat list to learn more about upcoming issues of A/E, as well as other factoids and fantasies about the Golden and Silver Age of Comics. You’ll find it at group.yahoo.com/group/alter-ego-fans. If you have any trouble getting on board, just contact our genial overseer Chet Cox at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com and he’ll walk you through it. You won’t be sorry!

re:

Closing this time with an oddity, and a low-key warning of sorts. On May 9, I received the following in two e-mails from “Jerri”: Hello Roy,

I was at a garage sale yesterday in Livonia, Michigan, where I met a very nice man with some interesting art pieces. He said his name was Roy Thomas. I happened to be with someone who is also an artist and a comic aficionado; he asked some pointed questions and the person swore that he was Roy Thomas from Marvel and Alter Ego—he indicated that he would gladly give some art lessons in the Marvel way and offered to sign some issues of Alter Ego.

A young woman said she was from Relay for Life, and he gave her something signed to sell at an auction. I think he is selling his art and offering signatures as you. I double-checked the Craigslist [Relay for Life] ad and it definitely states Roy Thomas from Marvel would be there. Something about the meeting seemed off. We felt it was important to say something and check if indeed it was the Roy Thomas. If not, perhaps you would want to know? Sorry to say, he is probably making money off your name. Jerri

Actually, Jerri, I believe someone apprised me of this “Roy Thomas impersonator” once before—or maybe there are actually two such nuts and/or crooks out there. Of course, this low-level impostor is not likely to get rich selling artwork as me—anyone who knows enough about comics to consider paying out any real money is going to know that since childhood I’ve seldom drawn anything for public consumption (except a palm tree in The Avengers #35, Mr. Mind in Not Brand Echh #9, and a more recent Avengers/Ultron drawing that Ty Templeton inked/saved for a Hero Initiative charity auction). There is, in truth, a Native

TM TM

by Roy & Dann Thomas The Classic Adventure Retold! Art by: Grant Miehm Dell Barras Rick Stasi E.R. Cruz

A Lot of Bull The “real” Roy Thomas and one of the Thomases’ Scottish highlander bulls, Shadizar the Wicked, a few years back.

American named Roy Thomas who is a fine artist and can be Googled, but that clearly isn’t the Roy Thomas the fraud you met was pretending to be. Well, at least perhaps Relay for Life may get a quarter for the piece of art he did, and you did say he gave it to her. I’ll admit to a certain curiosity: like, is he really another “Roy Thomas” and is just doing this stupid, dishonest thing… or is he, more likely, just a whack job? As someone once said: It takes all kinds. Although, truth to tell, I’ve never understood quite why it does. As they used to say on Hill Street Blues: “Be careful out there!”

ROMITAMAN R OMITAMAN O ORIGINAL RIGINAL CCOMIC OMIC AART RT IF YOU LOVE COMIC BOOKS, THEN YOU “MUST” CHECK OUT THE LARGEST INTERNET WEBSITE IN THE WORLD DEVOTED TO BUYING, SELLING, AND TRADING ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK ART AND COMIC STRIP ART! YOUR BEST ARTWORK INTERN TERNET SOURCE IS RIGHT HERE!

VOLUME 5

CHECK OUT OVER 8000+ “PICTURED” PIECES OF COMICBOOK AND COMIC STRIP ART FOR SALE OR TRADE. ALSO CHECK OUT THE WORLD’S “LARGEST” SPIDER-MAN ORIGINAL ART GALLERY! I BUY/SELL/AND TRADE “ALL” COMICBOOK/ STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT. SO LET ME KNOW YOUR WANTS, OR WHAT YOU HAVE FOR SALE OR TRADE!

www.romitaman.com w ww.romitaman.com A Advertise dvertise With With Us! Us! ALTER EGO! • BACK ISSUE! • DRAW! COMIC BOOK CREATOR!

COVERS: 8.375" Wide x 10.875" Tall (plus 1/8" bleed all around) FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875"

These raates are for ads supplied on-disk (PDF, JPEG, TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpresss files acceptable). pply. No agencyy discounts ap Display ads are not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Call for BrickJournal raates.

A Ad dR Rates: ates: Back cover COLOR: $800 ($700 for two or more) Inside cover B&W: $400 ($350 for two or more) Full-page B&W interior: $300 ($250 for two or more) Half-page B&W interior: $175 ($150 for two or more) Quarter-page B&W inteerior: $100 ($87.50 for two or more)

Bulk Bulk Ad Ad Rates! Rates! Run the same size ad for 26 insertions and these discounts apply: Back cover COLOR: $10,000 ($385 per ad) Inside cover B&W: $6000 ($231 per ad) Full-page B&W interior: $4000 ($154 per ad) Half-page B&W interior: $2000 ($77 per ad) Quarter-page B&W inteerior: $1000 ($39 per ad)

We accept check, money order, and all major credit cards; include card number and expiration date.

Send ad copy and payment (US funds) to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 919-449-0344 • fax 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

Get FREE FREE! DIGITAL EDITIONS at TwoMorrows!

DOWNLOAD THESE FULL SAMPLE ISSUES FREE AT www.twomorrows.com! Go to our FREE STUFF section online and sample a digital issue of all our mags! We sell full-color Digital Editions of all our magazines, and many books, readable on virtually any device that can view PDF files.

WHEN YOU BUY THE PRINT EDITION ONLINE, YOU ALWAYS GET THE DIGITAL EDITION FREE!

her youth as a couple of years ago? My Aunt Sophy had five husbands and there is some snide talk that they were not one after another. Somebody charged her with having three husbands at once, and warned her to shed one instantly, but Aunt Sophy was horrified. That would be bigamy. She knew the law.

Part IX

Abridged & Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

tto Oscar Binder (1911-1974), the prolific science-fiction and comic book writer renowned for authoring over half of the Marvel Family saga for Fawcett Publications, wrote Memoirs of a Nobody in 1948 at the age of 37-year-old during what was arguably the most imaginative period within the repertoire of Captain Marvel stories. Aside from intermittent details about himself, Binder’s capricious chronicle resembles very little in the way of anything that is indeed autobiographical. Unearthed several years ago from Binder’s file materials at Texas A&M University, Memoirs is selfdescribed by its author as “ramblings through the untracked wilderness of my mind.” Binder’s potpourri of stray philosophical beliefs, pet peeves, theories and anecdotes were written in freewheeling fashion and devoid of any charted course — other than allowing his mind to flow with no restricting parameters. The abridged and edited manuscript— serialized here within the pages of FCA—will nonetheless provide glimpses into the idiosyncratic and fanciful mind of Otto O. Binder. In this 9th excerpt, Otto calls to mind a beloved family member and speaks of his home state in a chapter he entitled, “Introducing… You!” —P.C. Hamerlinck.

ome to think of it, it’s about time you had a say. Yes you, dear patient reader. I’ve been a selfish hog. I’ve been pouring out all my own thoughts and fancies and opinions to the point of utter boredom. So step forward. This is your cue. Come on, out with it. This is your chance to speak your mind. This is your show. I’ll just sit mum and listen. You say you want to tell me something about your Aunt Mildred who… ?

Speaking of aunts, my Aunt Sophy is a card. She’s my aunt through my father’s brother’s cousin’s side of the family… the half-sister branch. She’s forty, I guess. Maybe fifty, I don’t know. How can you tell when she had burned her birth certificate and refers to events in

The Tea Party In this issue Otto talks about his adorable Aunt Sophy… and in “The Marvel Family and Aunty Anti-Marvel” (The Marvel Family #2, June 1946) he wrote about Aunt Minny Marvel (who was actually a dressed-in-drag Dr. Sivana). Binder’s story was the first to feature all official Marvel Family members. Art by C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza. [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

Anyway, Aunt Sophy somehow accumulated money as well as men, and she kept giving it to charity and everyone praised her to the skies, till it was discovered the charity she donated to was run by herself, and that nobody seemed to be aided by that charity at all. An income-tax agent was sent to see if there was collusion and fraud but nothing came of it. He was husband number three, I think. My Aunt Sophy smoked cigars in public but privately hated the things, and never touched them at home. She just liked to blow smoke rings in the faces of indignant women. As for drinking, my aunt could take a case of Scotch and pour it down the drain faster than anybody I knew. Never touched a drop in her life. Just kept pouring it down the drain or kitchen sink. Friends never dared let her find a bottle or she’d instantly heave it out the window. Well, I could go on forever about my Aunt Sophy, but

Fawcett Collectors Of America

why bore you? Sometime I’ll tell you about the bad side of my family. Much more entertaining. Besides, you were telling me about your Aunt Mildred who… ? Go ahead. I’m all ears. I can sit and listen to you like this for hours. You say the hell with Aunt Mildred? Well, that’s up to you. Now you say you think the best place to live is… ? Jersey, brother, Jersey! The Garden State of the Union. Northern New Jersey is the spot to live, and this has nothing to do with my living here. I’m absolutely unbiased. But look, Jersey is pretty. There are many small towns, all neat and suburban. You would never think the big bad city of New York is only an hour away. And yet, anytime you want big city excitement, it’s within easy reach. An hour’s drive north, along the famed Hudson River, you’re in the Catskills with boats to Europe, Bermuda, and South America at your beck and call. California and its superb climate? The Rockies and their grandeur? Florida and its playground? The North and its primeval beauty? Mexico and its colorful atmosphere? The South Seas and the tropical splendor? Come to think of it, what am I doing in Jersey? But you were saying… ? Hey, don’t walk away from me. What’s the matter? Guess you’re just bashful, talking away like that, with my eyes on you, drinking in every word. Well, I feel better now… there’s one chapter in which I stepped aside, offering relief from the monotony of my ramblings. And that freshened me up too. I’m all ready to charge back and take up the spotlight once more! Next: THE GREAT “WHAT-IS-IT?” MYSTERY

COMICS’ GOLDEN AGE LIVES AGAIN! MR. SCARLET CAT-MAN BLACK TERROR AVENGER • PHANTOM LADY DAREDEVIL • CRIMEBUSTER CAPTAIN FLASH SPY SMASHER SKYMAN • STUNTMAN THE OWL • BULLETMAN COMMANDO YANK PYROMAN • GREEN LAMA THE EAGLE • IBIS

The above is just a partial list of characters that have appeared in AC Comics’ reprint titles such as MEN OF MYSTERY, GOLDEN AGE GREATS, and AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS. Virtually all issues published to date are available at $6.95 each. To find over 100 quality Golden Age reprints, go to the AC Comics website at <www.accomics.com>. AC COMICS Box 521216 Longwood FL 32752 Please add $1.50 postage & handling per order.

Writing The Magic Words

DENNY O’NEIL On Revivifying The Original Captain Marvel In The 1970s Shazam!

Interview Conducted by Richard J. Arndt

DITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Alter Ego #123 featured Richard J. Arndt’s lengthy interview with Dennis O’Neil on the renowned writer/editor’s first decade in comics. Mostly omitted from that detailed dialogue was O’Neil’s historic undertaking of reviving the original Captain Marvel (and family and foes) after an 18-plus-year publishing exile, an event which garnered a great deal of fanfare. The following supplemental interview took place by phone on March 8th, 2014. RICHARD ARNDT: Denny, you helped bring the original Captain Marvel back into comics in the early 1970s via DC Comics’ Shazam! How did you find yourself involved in re-establishing the Big Red Cheese to modern readers? DENNIS O’NEIL: Julie Schwartz asked me to. It was nothing more complicated than that. RA: How familiar were you with the character before you started working on it? O‘NEIL: I knew a little bit. I read Captain Marvel Adventures as a kid, at the age of six or seven. I had paid some attention when I was learning about comics—trying to acquaint myself with everything that I hadn’t known before writing them. I thought it had been a kind of charming strip, and it would be an interesting thing to try and

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck bring back. It was certainly different from what we were doing in comics at the time, in terms of it being light and cheerful. I didn’t have any deep acquaintance with the character. RA: You wrote some of the earliest stories for the Captain’s arrival at DC, including the setup origin story in Shazam! #1. What did you do, if anything, that was different from the original origin story back in 1940? Was there an effort to fully fit him into the DC Universe? O‘NEIL: According to the artist, I must have done a lot of things different, but I wasn’t aware of doing things differently. I think that what I did that was wrong was that I tried to duplicate the old stuff. What I’ve learned in the years since is that, when you go and revisit old characters, you have to reinvent them for a contemporary audience. Captain Marvel Adventures was hugely popular in the 1940s. I think he sold two million copies a month at one point. A high figure, anyways. That didn’t mean that the approach used in the 1940s was going to be popular in the 1970s. I tried to write the kind of stories that Otto Binder might have written in 1945. RA: Am I right in thinking that you were the one responsible for putting a cameo of Otto Binder in that first lead-off story in Shazam! #1?

With One Magic Issue… (Left:) Denny O’Neil in the early 1970s—in the photo used by Neal Adams as the basis for the oft-reproduced portrait which also became a part of the cover of Alter Ego #123. (Center:) Captain Marvel and associates’ long absence from the world is explained in O’Neil’s “The World’s Wickedest Plan,” the second tale from the highly hyped and anticipated Shazam! #1 (Feb. 1973); art by C.C. Beck. (We showcased the first splash in A/E #123.) The premier issue of Shazam! roared in with a mighty 600,000-plus press run… but ultimately the comic’s initial trumpet blast had dwindled to a muted, scarcely decipherable drone. [© DC Comics.] (Right:) Captain Marvel’s original artist & co-creator Charles Clarence Beck with an award from a Phoenix (Arizona) convention, 1972, around the time he and Denny O’Neil were working “together.” Thanks to Alex Jay.

Fawcett Collectors Of America

wrong. Beck was not attempting to do formal academic criticism. I don’t want to be too tough on him. But the type of criticism that he made was really not very useful. It amounted to “I don’t like this.” Well, I once knew a comic book editor, who didn’t last long in the business, whose approach to that sort of thing was to say, “You keep doing this until I like it,” which is about the least fair thing you can do to a freelancer. RA: True, because they’re not getting paid any more money for re-writing it than they were for writing it in the first place. O’NEIL: Yeah. If you’ve spent any time on the freelancer’s side of the desk, then you know that time is money. My policy when I was an editor, and I was one for 23 years, was if I can’t give you exact criticism so that you know exactly what I think the problem is, then you have the option of convincing me that I’m wrong or letting me suggest a solution to the problem or solving it yourself. But the worst thing that an editor can do is say “I don’t like this. Fix it.” That’s just about the worst kind of editor there is. The same goes for criticism. I don’t know what C.C. Beck’s problems with my scripts were. I might be interested now, but I wasn’t really interested then. I might have been very defensive. But now I would like to know—what exactly was I doing wrong?

Binder—Rhymes With “Tinder” (Above:) Otto Binder wonders why, after all these years, boy broadcaster Billy Batson hasn’t grown any more than the gourds in his garden. These fan-pleasing scenes took place in O’Neil’s Shazam! #1 lead-off tale “…In The Beginning…,” which featured a re-telling of Captain Marvel’s origin. Art by Beck. [© DC Comics.] (Right:) Otto Binder at Dave Kaler’s New York comics convention in 1965 with Carole and Phil Seuling, who masqueraded as a couple of characters with which he was vaguely familiar. Thanks to Bill Schelly.

O’NEIL: I wouldn’t put it past me, but I don’t think I’ve read that story since it came out. My involvement with the book, thinking back, was not long. I don’t know why. I don’t normally re-read published material unless there is a reason to… if I need to reacquaint myself with the continuity or something like that. Captain Marvel was no exception. RA: Within a two-year time span, you wrote a total of eleven “Shazam!” stories—eight of which were illustrated by C.C. Beck. I know that Beck was on record for a long, long time about how much he disliked DC’s version of Captain Marvel…. O’NEIL: Yes, I’m aware of that. When I spoke to him—I interviewed him for a book on the history of comics that I wrote—he was very gracious, but he had problems with my scripts and I don’t know what the problems were. RA: I’ve read his complaints here and there over the years, but I honestly have never quite completely understood what he was objecting to, either. That he didn’t like the book was clear, but exactly why was less so… except that it wasn’t written by Otto Binder, Bill Woolfolk, Rod Reed, or possibly himself. O’NEIL: Yeah, later that became a problem for us comic book guys. If you were really centered on a certain version of a character or a certain time period, then anything that’s not that seems to be

RA: He had the same problems with Elliott S. Maggin’s and E. Nelson Bridwell’s scripts, I believe. I don’t recall him singling out yours. O’NEIL: Yeah, I think that was true. As you said, anything that was not by his favored writers was not going to be right. Personally, I had no problems with him ever. Any problems he had

Denny O’Neil On Revivifying The Original Captain Marvel In The 1970s Shazam!

with the scripts that I was giving him did not show up on the printed page. I’ve had lots more trouble with other artists who decided they didn’t like or want to draw the pictures that I indicated or the way I thought they should be drawn. I don’t remember any of that with Beck. Whatever personal reservations he may have had, he was professional about putting the stuff on the page. RA: The artwork looked pretty good. O’NEIL: He was delivering exactly what I wanted. This book was not going to be a serious, deeply tormented, relevant strip. This was going to be fun. I think his art style perfectly caught that. RA: I always considered the book at that time to be a cross between humor books like Leave It to Binky or Angel and the Ape and any regular super-hero. O’NEIL: It was cartoon art rather than illustration, certainly. It came from that school—which was, when they were doing “Captain Marvel” in the 1940s, based on the style of the first artist (Beck) who worked on the book. The first artist set the style for the series. If you’re the director of the first episode of a TV series, you are considered a minor creative leader, because you set the initial visual tone of that series, and you can get residuals if you’re lucky. It was the same way with comics back then. It was a loosey-goosey business when I got into it in 1965, and I’ve a hunch [it was] back in the 1940s [when] it was a brand new form. A few people knew how to write and draw [comics], but I think a lot of the creative people, particularly the writers, were refugees from the pulps, and they may not have realized that, while the content of the stories was similar to pulp stories, the technique of telling them was not. So people whom I did respect enormously, like Jerry Robinson who used to ghost “Batman,” was one of the early guys who may have had to make some changes in the script because writers may simply have not grasped the [difference in the] form and they may have asked for things that no artists could do.

It’s Only A Paper Cup Floating Over A Cardboard River… Denny O’Neil wasted no time bringing the wicked worm Mr. Mind back into the fold (“The Astonishing Arch Enemy,” Shazam! #2, April 1973). Having survived his 1945 execution, the malevolent Mind’s infamous “Monster Society” is referenced (including an appearance of a former Society member, alligator man Herkimer). With the tale’s action involving the World’s Mightiest Mortal using the St. Louis Arch as a tuning fork, O’Neil, a former native of that city, also evoked Captain Marvel’s Golden Age city-visiting adventures.

I teach writing, and the last thing that happens every spring is that everybody in the room has to give me a script. Very often the writers ask for more than Artist C.C Beck had already begun making minor revisions to the scripts with Editor Julie Schwartz’s consent… an arrangement that would not last very long. O’Neil’s original script one action in a panel or too many things happening for the above story called for Mr. Mind to be shown riding in a giant helicopter and firing a in one panel. Stuff like that. If you’re coming cold into giant gun; Beck changed it to Mr. Mind riding in a paper cup suspended beneath a toy a new art form, it may not occur to you to watch out balloon and firing a tiny gun made from an old shell casing. [© DC Comics.] for technical stuff like that. Also, people have the idea that “It’s only comic books. How hard can writing versus how many words you feel like writing. There has to be a one be?” People I know who’ve worked in other media say that right balance. If something has to go, it’s usually the words. As a technically it’s harder than a lot of other stuff. But readers don’t writer it absolutely freezes me to admit that, but the action know that. The pulp writers and the new kids certainly didn’t narrative should be carried by the pictures. know that in 1940. RA: When Beck left Shazam! of his own volition, he was replaced by two RA: That’s true. I’ve noticed that a lot of the very early comic book pages different artists: Bob Oksner and Kurt Schaffenberger. were cramped with many small panels similar to regular comic strips. O’NEIL: Oksner makes sense because he had a cartooning style. O’NEIL: Yeah… maybe the writer was calling for fourteen panels on a page, with a lot of dialogue in each panel. What I try to let RA: He seemed to have been a utility player. He could draw humor students know is that the page has only an eight-inch by elevenmaterial like Adventures of Jerry Lewis and Welcome Back, Kotter… inch space. It’s very finite. You have to keep in mind constantly but he also inked Curt Swan on “Superman” and drew straight superhow much space the artist needs to provide the visual narrative hero strips like “Supergirl” and Lois Lane in addition to a hybrid title

Fawcett Collectors Of America

occasion to go back and look at the stuff we did together, the story is always told in the art. We’re beginning to sound like C.C. Beck—“Now when I was a boy, funny books were good! Those kids today don’t know how to do it!“ [laughs] Editing comics has always been problematic, because there’s really no manual on how to do it. I’ve worked for a number of good editors and they all did it a different way. I’ve worked for some not-so-good editors and they all make mistakes in different ways. But I know [of instances] where there has been a person who came in cold off of the street and was told, “Here are seven comic book titles you’re editing.” They may have read comic books, but they’ve never had occasion to think about narrative clarity or panel progression. RA: You wrote a story called “The Return of the Monster Society” (Shazam! #14, Oct. 1974) which was in essence a sequel to Otto Binder’s “The Monster Society of Evil”—one of the highlights of the original “Captain Marvel” run. O’NEIL: Yes! The original was a twenty-five chapter serial, in a day when almost all comic stories were done in one! It was a remarkable, wacky thing for them to have tried back then.

Out Of Step In O’Neil’s “A Switch in Time” (Shazam! #3, June 1973), the writer logically and sympathetically had Billy awkwardly struggle with adapting to contemporary times… a theme that unfortunately was never explored further in the series. Art by Beck. [© DC Comics.]

like Shazam! O’NEIL: He was one of those journeymen who, in some ways, were the backbone of the business. They were never the stars but were working guys. Now, Schaffenberger was an interesting choice because he was a “Superman” and “Supergirl” artist. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Of course, FCA readers know that, years before he came to work for DC, Kurt Schaffenberger was one of the original artists on the Fawcett title Marvel Family.] RA: Schaffenberger had a much slicker, glossy look to his artwork than either Oksner or Beck. O’NEIL: Yes, it was closer to the illustration school than either of the other two guys. All three of those artists were friendly to new readers. You never had a problem figuring out who was who in their stories. That inability to tell the story in a way that not only tells the story but clearly identifies the characters is something that I think gets sometimes lost with younger and maybe more fashionable artists. Some of those fashionable artists don’t seem, to me, to be paying enough attention to storytelling or clarity. What is going on here? What are these people doing? What are their names? Stuff like that. That’s a shame because it hurts comics as an art form. It gets in the way of finding new readers. If you are a “civilian” (as we snottily call them), and you pick up a new comic and you can’t understand what’s going on, then you won’t pick up a second one of that title… maybe [never pick up a] comic ever again. It’s a problem with both the writing and the art. Neal Adams was not shy and was very fashionable for a very long time, but when I have

Rabble Without A Cause? That old rabble-rouser Dr. Sivana was back at it again in the O’Neil-written “Better Late Than Never” (Shazam! #6, Oct. 1973). Amongst the FCA editor’s original file material of C.C. Beck’s artifacts is a CCB revision of O’Neil’s script for the above story submitted to editor Julie Schwartz containing mostly minor changes… many which actually made it into the final published comic book. [© DC Comics.]

Denny O’Neil On Revivifying The Original Captain Marvel In The 1970s Shazam!

RA: The story is still remembered quite fondly by fans and is very good when you read it all together. I don’t know how it read back then when you had to wait several weeks between each chapter. With actual movie serials of the day, you only had to wait the following week to see the next chapter.

Schwartz And All (Above:) Editor Julie Schwartz makes a “fitting” cameo with Captain Marvel and Mr. Tawny in O’Neil’s “The Troubles of the Talking Tiger!” (Shazam! #7, Nov. 1973). Artist Beck, initially enthusiastic about being a part of the Captain Marvel renaissance, would soon call the Shazam! scripts “juvenile” and “a hodge-podge of junk” and maintain that DC’s policy was to “change and degrade everything and run it into the ground.” Schwartz defended his Shazam! writers O’Neil and Elliot Maggin, stating once that they were “one thousand times better than C.C. Beck” and that he valued his own opinions regarding the stories “one hundred times more than C.C. Beck’s.” [Page © DC Comics.] (Above center:) The real Julie, who generally got along with his artists. Photo from the Julius Schwartz Collection, with thanks to Robert Greenberger.

O’NEIL: I wonder if the [editors at the time] worried about that. That may have been an editor’s experiment. They may have tried to see if they could tell continued stories. The conventional wisdom before Stan Lee, including when I got into the business in the 1960s, was that you couldn’t have continued stories in comics because the distribution was so erratic and irregular that a reader couldn’t be guaranteed that they could read two consecutive issues of a story. The same drugstore wouldn’t necessarily have every new issue of a particular title each and every month. They’d put a wire about a stack of comics they’d have available and pitch them off the truck in front of the store. The exception to the notion was Julie Schwartz, who did a crossover two-issue story every year in Justice League of America where the Justice League and the Justice Society would meet. I asked him once how he got away with that and he told me, “I never asked and they never said anything.” [laughs]

Hail, Hail, The Gang’s Not All Here! (Left:) O’Neil’s later “Shazam!” stories increased in page count, including the 20-pager “The Evil Return of the Monster Society” (Shazam! #14, Sept.-Oct. 1974; art by Kurt Schaffenberger). This time it was the entire Marvel Family (including Uncle Marvel) taking on the Society with its greatly reduced membership of Dr. Sivana, Sivana Jr., Georgia Sivana, Mr. Mind, and Ibac. The other guys (l. to r.) are Jimmy Potter, John Westlake, & Nat Champlin. [DC Comics.] (Above:) While he illustrated numerous “Marvel Family” stories in the late 1940s and early 1950s, artist Kurt Schaffenberger (seen at drawing board) had worked on other features for Fawcett Publications when a member of Jack Binder’s art shop. This 1941 photo, taken at the “Binder Barn” in New Jersey, appeared in the much-missed magazine Comic Book Marketplace #59 several years back. Thanks to Shaun Clancy.

Fawcett Collectors Of America

“When Art Styles Clash!” Denny may not remember that he transported Superman’s arch-enemy into a different, more fanciful universe in “Captain Marvel Meets… Lex Luthor!?!” (Shazam! #15, Nov.-Dec. 1974; art by Bob Oksner & Tex Blaisdell)… but the FCA editor certainly hasn’t forgotten buying the book off a drugstore comic book spin-rack and the 12-year-old boy enjoying O’Neil’s quirky story—undoubtedly one of the writer’s most entertaining and amusing adventures of the World’s Mightiest Mortal. Oksner was versatile enough that he could draw the tale’s Earth-One and Earth-S (for “Shazam”) characters in a combination of styles that paid homage to both C.C. Beck and Curt Swan—and, despite the heading above that parodies a common Silver/Bronze Age story title, could make it all more or less work! For the splash page of this story, see A/E #123. [Page © DC Comics.] The photo of Bob Oksner, taken by collector Bob Bailey when he was a student at Joe Kubert’s School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, was first seen in conjunction with A/E #67’s interview with the late artist.

With Stan, it was a conscious choice—to emphasize continuity. In his autobiography I think he said something like “It was simpler to not have to come up with so many plot ideas.” He was doing everything himself for a very long time. He was the editorial department.

were not terribly grim. Actually, none of the stories in comics at that time were terribly grim, but I always thought of the Captain’s stories as happening in a different universe, even though there were these occasional crossovers. His was a place where Tawny the Talking Tiger could exist. You wouldn’t find that in Batman.

RA: In one story you integrated Superman’s foremost foe into the World’s Mightiest Mortal’s universe (“Captain Marvel Meets… Lex Luthor!?!” in Shazam! #15, Nov.-Dec. 1974).

RA: You could find similar things in titles like The Adventures of Jerry Lewis. On occasion Batman or Superman or The Flash would appear in Jerry’s title, but they weren’t the DC Universe’s Batman or Superman or Flash. You wouldn’t see any reference to that in the characters’ own books.

O’NEIL: I did? Wasn’t I a clever guy?! I don’t remember that at all. RA: When you started off on Shazam!, you were writing generally 7- to 8-page tales… O’NEIL: Aping the style of the 1940s. RA: …and then your later stories for the book increased to a dozen or more pages in length. Your Luthor yarn was one of those longer ones. O’NEIL: I’ll take your word for it. RA: It was a fairly unusual story because the Shazam! title had been around for over a year and, except for a crossover in Justice League of America, the “Captain Marvel” stories of the ’70s didn’t really have much to do with the DC Universe, because the character didn’t fit into it. O’NEIL: Captain Marvel existed in a world where there could be talking tigers. None of the other DC characters, maybe even the Marvel characters, could make that statement. It was a tongue-incheek title. More like what we think of as a children’s title. Fantasy like talking tigers was an acceptable part of the title. The stories

O’NEIL: That would have been a mistake, to make a humor title like that conform to the collective Universe idea of super-heroes. Things like that happened for one reason: money. Someone who likes Superman sees him on the cover of a humor magazine and he buys it. Maybe he likes the book and keeps buying it. But it’s not necessarily a part of Superman’s regular world. It’s just something a reader accepts. Captain Marvel, I think, in that initial 1970s version, didn’t fit smoothly with the DC Universe. He was never intended to. RA: Any closing comments on Shazam!? O’NEIL: It’s one of the few things from my past that would be interesting to revisit and see if I could give a real science-fiction slant to the book. I’m not at all sure that I could pull that off, but it might be fun to try. As it is, I look back on those stories happily. I had fun doing them. It was a pleasant assignment. I still have my six-year-old’s fondness for the character.

NEW ISSUES:

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans! TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Visit us on the Web at twomorrows.com

BRICKJOURNAL #31

BACK ISSUE #76

BACK ISSUE #77

BACK ISSUE #78

BACK ISSUE #79

“Let’s Get Small!” Marvel’s Micronauts, The Atom in the Bronze Age, JAN STRNAD and GIL KANE’s Sword of the Atom, the rocky relationship of Ant-Man the Wasp, Gold Key’s Microbots, Super Jrs., DC Digests, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, JACKSON GUICE, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, ALEX SAVIUK, ROGER STERN, LEN WEIN, & more. Cover by PAT BRODERICK!

“When Comics Were Fun!” HEMBECK cover and gallery, Plastic Man, Blue Devil, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, VALENTINO’s normalman, Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, and the Batman/Dick Tracy team-up you didn’t see! Featuring MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PARIS CULLINS, RAMONA FRADON, ALAN KUPPERBERG, MISHKIN & COHN, STEVE SKEATES, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, and more!

“Weird Issue!” Batman’s Weirdest TeamUps, ORLANDO’s Weird Adventure Comics, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, DITKO’s Shade the Changing Man and Stalker, CHAYKIN’s Iron Wolf, CRUMB’s Weirdo, and STARLIN and WRIGHTSON’s The Weird! Featuring JIM APARO, LUIS DOMINGUEZ, MICHAEL FLEISHER, BOB HANEY, PAUL LEVITZ, and more. Batman and Deadman cover by ALAN CRADDOCK.

“Charlton Action Heroes in the Bronze Age!” DAVE GIBBONS on Charlton’s WATCHMEN connection, LEN WEIN and PARIS CULLINS’ Blue Beetle, CARY BATES and PAT BRODERICK’s Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, and a look at Blockbuster Weekly! Featuring MIKE COLLINS, GIORDANO, KUPPERBERG, ALAN MOORE, PAT MORISI, ALEX ROSS, and more. Cover by AL MILGROM.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Sept. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Nov. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Jan. 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships March 2015

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

DRAW! #29

Building LEGO bricks WITH character, with IAIN HEATH and TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Manga-inspired creations of MIKE DUNG, sculptures by Taiwanese Brick Artist YO YO CHEN, Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS building, and more!

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus writer/editor BRUCE JONES; 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre's BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, "Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman" cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; Tales of the Zombie artist PABLO MARCOS speaks; Israeli cartoonist RUTU MODAN; plus an extensive essay on European Humor Comics!

DAVE DORMAN demonstrates his painting techniques for sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book cover, LeSEAN THOMAS (character designer and co-director of The Boondocks and Black Dynamite: The Animated Series) gives advice on today’s animation industry, new columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Sept. 2014

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $8.95 • Ships August 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Dec. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships March 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Sept. 2014

ALTER EGO #129

ALTER EGO #130

ALTER EGO #131

KIRBY COLLECTOR #64

KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure heroes in comics! With art by FOSTER, HOGARTH, FRAZETTA, MANNING, KANE, KUBERT, MORROW, GRELL, THORNE, WEISS, ANDERSON, KALUTA, AMENDOLA, BUSCEMA, MARSH, and YEATES—with analysis by foremost ERB experts! Plus, the 1970s ERB comics company that nearly was, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by TOM GRINDBERG!

CAPTAIN MARVEL headlines a Christmas FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) Fantasmagoria starring C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER, MARC SWAYZE—and the FAWCETT FAMILY (presented by P.C. HAMERLINCK)! Plus: Comic book/strip star artist DAN BARRY profiled, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more! Cover by C.C. BECK!

GERRY CONWAY interviewed about his work as star Marvel/DC writer in the early ’70s (from the creation of The Punisher to the death of Gwen Stacy) with art by ROMITA, COLAN, KANE, PLOOG, BUSCEMA, MORROW, TUSKA, ADAMS, SEKOWSKY, the SEVERINS, and others! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

SUPER-SOLDIERS! We declassify Captain America, Fighting American, Sgt. Fury, The Losers, Pvt. Strong, Boy Commandos, and a tribute to Simon & Kirby! PLUS: a Kirby interview about Captain America, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, key 1940s’50s events in Kirby’s career, unseen pencils and unused art from OMAC, SILVER STAR, CAPTAIN AMERICA (in the 1960s AND ’70s), the LOSERS, & more! KIRBY cover!

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! Another potpourri issue with a comparison of Jack Kirby’s work vs. the design genius of ALEX TOTH, a lengthy Kirby interview, a look at Kirby’s work with WALLY WOOD, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, Jack’s COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Oct. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Dec. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Feb. 2015

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Nov. 2014

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Feb. 2015

SAVE

THE BEST IN COMICS & LEGO® PUBLICATIONS!

WHE % OR N YOU ONLDER INE!

1994--2014

SUMMER 2014 AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1950s

BILL SCHELLY tackles comics of the Atomic Era of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley: EC’s TALES OF THE CRYPT, MAD, CARL BARKS’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, re-tooling the FLASH in Showcase #4, return of Timely’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, HUMAN TORCH and SUB-MARINER, FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics campaign, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (240-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $40.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • ISBN: 9781605490540

1965-69

JOHN WELLS covers the transformation of MARVEL COMICS into a pop phenomenon, Wally Wood’s TOWER COMICS, CHARLTON’s Action Heroes, the BATMAN TV SHOW, Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, and Denny O’Neil leading a youth wave in comics, GOLD KEY digests, the Archies and Josie & the Pussycats, and more! NOW SHIPPING!

Ambitious new series of FULLCOLOR HARDCOVERS documenting each decade of comic book history!

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490557

ALSO AVAILABLE NOW:

The 1970s

JASON SACKS & KEITH DALLAS detail the emerging Bronze Age of comics: Relevance with Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’s GREEN LANTERN, Jack Kirby’s FOURTH WORLD saga, Comics Code revisions that opens the floodgates for monsters and the supernatural, Jenette Kahn’s arrival at DC and the subsequent DC IMPLOSION, the coming of Jim Shooter and the DIRECT MARKET, and more!

1960-64: (224-pages) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-045-8 1980s: (288-pages) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-046-5 COMING SOON: 1930s, 1940-44, 1945-49 and 1990s

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490564 • SHIPS AUGUST 2014

DON HECK:

SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2014!

MATT BAKER

LOU SCHEIMER

CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION

THE ART OF GLAMOUR

Biography of the co-founder of Filmation Studios, which for over 25 years brought the Archies, Shazam, Isis, He-Man, and others to TV and film!

Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints! (192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95

(288-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95

O C O M IC B

FEVER houry

rge K

by Jo

it in Catc0h14! 2

SUBSCRIBE! • Digital Editions: $3.95 each, or save with a digital subscription (digital editions are included FREE with a print subscription)! • All our magazines are now full-color! • Lower international shipping!

2014 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (with FREE Digital Editions)

Media Mail

1st Class Canada 1st Class Priority US Intl. Intl.

Digital Only

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$45

$58

$61

$66

$127

$15.80

BACK ISSUE! (8 issues)

$67

$82

$85

$104

$242

$23.60

DRAW! (4 issues)

$34

$41

$43

$52

$141

$11.80

ALTER EGO (8 issues)

$67

$82

$85

$104

$242

$23.60

COMIC BOOK CREATOR (4 issues w/Special)

$40

$50

$54

$60

$121

$15.80

BRICKJOURNAL (6 issues)

$50

$62

$68

$78

$180

$23.70

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

PRINTED IN CHINA

(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95

A WORK OF ART

DON HECK remains one of the legendary names in comics, considered an “artist’s artist,” respected by peers, and beloved by fans as the co-creator of IRON MAN, HAWKEYE, and BLACK WIDOW, and key artist on THE AVENGERS. Along with STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, and STEVE DITKO, Heck was an integral player in “The Marvel Age of Comics”, and a top-tier 1970s DC Comics artist. He finally gets his due in this heavily illustrated, full-color hardcover biography, which features meticulously researched and chronicled information on Don’s 40-year career, with personal recollections from surviving family, long-time friends, and industry legends, and rare interviews with Heck himself. It also features an unbiased analysis of sales on Don’s DC Comics titles, an extensive art gallery (including published, unpublished, and pencil artwork), a Foreword by STAN LEE, and an Afterword by BEAU SMITH. Written by JOHN COATES.