New Wertham book and the debate continues

[benday-dot]

Over the past few weeks there has been a mini debate ongoing in the pages of the Globe and Mail Book Review (from Canada's self-professed national newspaper)

The talk concerns the recent release of David Hadju's book the The Ten Cent Plague. (http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Cent-Plague-Comic-Book-Changed-America/dp/0374187673/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207180428&sr=1-1)

The book received quite a positive and well written review in the pages of the Globe. The reveiwer was Jeet Heer, a prominent Canadian journalist whose main beat is arts and culture.

Unfortunately the original review is now locked in archives purgatory, which means you have to pay for the article to read it. However, Heer ably summarizes his review on his own blog. (http://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/the-comic-book-crackdown/#more-293) You can see that famous bonfire of the vanities pic here too, others on this Forum were inquiring about.

(Page one of the original Globe piece is cached here (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:1x1krfyB0u8J:www.theglobeandmail.co m/servlet/story/LAC.20080322.BKJEET22/TPStory/Entertainment+heer+ten-cent+plague+globe&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=ca) )

Heer's piece caused quite a stir and prompted a counter review, much more in support of Wertham. Some of it irrelevant I might add, such as the fact that the good doctor was, to his credit, an early supporter of race integration when it wasn't so nice to say so). I guess it is better to refrain from demonizing the man, and instead direct your fire at those views to which you object.

The counter review is by Bart Beaty, author of Fredric Wertham: Critique of Mass-Culture (http://www.amazon.com/Fredric-Wertham-Critique-Mass-Culture/dp/1578068193/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207179206&sr=1-3)

On the past weekend, the Globe finally let the two duke it out here, (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080329.BKREAD29/TPStory/?query=heer) arguing for and against the corrupting influence of comics, and whether or not Dr. W was a misguided meddler who ruined more than he helped. One shocking statement of Wertham, ""I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry." The man has only himself to blame for uttering something that preposterous.

I think I might have to pick up The Ten-Cent Plague. It looks like a pretty good read.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Hajdu's book has also been discussed at length on the comix-scholars list.

[prince hal]

I'm about 50-60 pages into it and I'm enjoying it. However, what I enjoy about it may be what might not appeal to the non-comics person who might pick this up.

There are fun, idiosyncratic details tossed in about greats like Eisner, M.C. Gaines and Charles Biro that bring them to life like characters in a Dickens novel, but might be seen as either filler or simply distractions from Hajdu's thesis.

Another drawback is the dearth of illustrations (ina book about COMICS!) and photos. Describing a panel or a cover is a poor substitute. And when you read about one-of-a-kind types like Biro or Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, ya just gotta have a picture if it's humanly possible. (And in this day and age, it should be!)

[Kirk G]

Question.
Should I recommmend to our local librarian to order up a copy, both for me to read and for future generations to read? I found multiple copies of Seduction on the shelf at my local library while growing up in the 60s, but not a single other book on comics at all.

I think future generations are in better shape now. But as a lad, I didn't understand why they were reprinting panels of batman in a smoking jacket, and a diagram of a ball diamond marked out with entrails of a man and playing ball with his body parts....
(As an Adult, i understand now, but it was a big mystery to me why the only book on comics didn't feature Marvel Comics heroes AT ALL!)

[prince hal]

Question.
Should I recommmend to our local librarian to order up a copy, both for me to read and for future generations to read?

I would. Interesting history of early comics and the 50s. A comparable book about the movies or radio and TV would be a no-brainer, so this shouldn't be a stretch.

Go for it!

[MDG]

Here's another review:
http://www.slate.com/id/2188156/

And a response by Michael (Kavalier & Clay) Chabon:
http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/1098984.aspx?ArticleID=2188156

And one more review:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/03/31/080331crbo_books_menand

[Rob Allen]

A co-worker who knows I'm into comics sent me a link to this mini-review on the Lew Rockwell blog:

__________________________________________________ _______________

The war on comic books
Posted by Norman Singleton at April 7, 2008 07:53 PM

The Ten-Cent Plague is a new book by David Hajdu examining the early fifties crusade to protect THE CHILDREN from the dangers of comic books. The hysteria was largely the result of a psychiatrist named Fred Wertham.

As the Christian Science Monitor points out, some of the comics singled out by Wertham where inappropriate for children, but most of his complaints where silly. For example, he accused Superman of promoting fascism, and even attacked the morals of Archie's beloved Betty and Veronica! Wertham justified his work with the claim that "Hitler was a beginner compared to comic books." Unfortunately, Wertham was not laughed out of polite society, instead his work was the basis for a national effort to protect children form the dangers of costumed supper heroes, when at most his efforts should have severed as a notice to parents to monitor what comics there children weere reading.

I wonder if any of today's great moral crusades, such as those against trans-fats or Internet poker, will seem as silly to future generations as the "war on comic books" seems to us.

(Hat tip Kent Snyder.)
__________________________________________________ _______________

The url for this is http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020433.html

The Christian Science Monitor review that he mentions is here: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0325/p13s02-bogn.html

[dan bailey]

This book's definitely slated for inclusion (along with the newly released Essential Iron Man vol 3 & a few non-classic items) in what I hope is a Books-a-Million order later this week.

Speaking of Wertham, I remember looking around a few weeks ago & finding that Seduction of the Innocent had been reprinted some years ago, though I can't remember if the infamous art section was included, or the cover art. The Magnolia, Ark, public library's copy, which I read at least once as a kid, lacked the dj, of course.

[scratchie]

The New Republic has posted a gallery of cover art from the early 50s:

http://www.tnr.com/gallery/popup.html?topic=comics

[benday-dot]

The New Republic has posted a gallery of cover art from the early 50s:

http://www.tnr.com/gallery/popup.html?topic=comics


Nice Scratchie. Do you know if that gallery shows up in NR's print edition as well?

[scratchie]

Nice Scratchie. Do you know if that gallery shows up in NR's print edition as well?No idea. I think I found the link from boingboing.net.

[mgs]

Commentary from Heidi's website, has made me rethink my inital position on the man. Apparently, though everyone likes to demonize him, his criticisms of the comic book industry was not so harsh.

It seems people haven't really examined the whole of his views on the subject, including this new book.

[Slam_Bradley]

Commentary from Heidi's website, has made me rethink my inital position on the man. Apparently, though everyone likes to demonize him, his criticisms of the comic book industry was not so harsh.

It seems people haven't really examined the whole of his views on the subject, including this new book.


It's very clear from his own writing that he wanted nothing short of a ban on comics. How much harsher could his criticism have been?

[benday-dot]

Yes, he was an early Civil Rights advocate, but that is irrelevant as far as his position on comics go. Not to harp on that doozie of a statement... but to compare the funny book to Mein Kampf, or to conclude that comic books are so evil that they make Hitler seem like a not so bad fellow... well, do I do need to say more that the man was off his rocker on this matter? If he had a case for censorship he sacrificed his credibility in the course of his perverse advocacy.

[mgs]

It's very clear from his own writing that he wanted nothing short of a ban on comics. How much harsher could his criticism have been?

I dunno. from what I remember about what was said there. it's statements like that that people have gotten wrong over the years. if I remember correctly, he in fact, advocated comics, but wanted certain ones to be 'examined' when given to the youth of his time.

[benday-dot]

I dunno. from what I remember about what was said there. it's statements like that that people have gotten wrong over the years. if I remember correctly, he in fact, advocated comics, but wanted certain ones to be 'examined' when given to the youth of his time.

Wertham cited Batman for promoting homosexuality, and went after Betty and Veronica as seductresses. He wanted to flush the whole industry down the drain.

[mgs]

Wertham cited Batman for promoting homosexuality, and went after Betty and Veronica as seductresses. He wanted to flush the whole industry down the drain.

who doesn't today, in jest or otherwise, think the same about Batman and those Archie characters? can you still come to the conclusion that b/c what he pointed out, was an attempt to destroy all comics?

[Kirk G]

As a skilled social worker who was familiar with research and causal relationships, the good Dr. W should never have made the leap which made him famous. He claimed since most Juvenille Delinquents read comic books, that comic books must make JD's.

This is the same error as saying, God is Love, Love is Blind, Ray Charles is Blind, therefore, Ray Charles is God....when we all know that Eric Clapton is God. (well, except for that last part, you get the point...

All JD's also eat food and sleep each night, but we don't conclude that food and sleep cause JD, do we?

The explosion in kids, the baby boomers and post war families were straining all of America's social institutions, and with families beginning to live apart from their relatives, thanks to suburbs and the automobile and freeways, the extended family that helped to care and rear children was falling apart. Sociologists were scrambling to find the causes of the DJ problem, especially in the urban jungle, and so, were only too happy to latch onto those excessive comic books as proof of what was going wrong with our youth.
Unfortunately, WIlliam Gains was the only publisher who chose to stand-up to the accusors, while all the other publishers turned tail and fled... or banned together to form their own "review board" called the CCA. It was a stalling technique that helped to save the comic book form until other issues distracted the american public away from the burning issue of comic books...like, Elvis Presley, the Beetles, Viet Nam, Cuban Missle Crisis and JFK taking power and dying....

Also, the JD problem was also graphically shown in West Side Story. A story of Romeo and Juliet set in inner city NYC. It also shows how society was concerned with the growing JD problem in the late 50s. (To a lesser extent, Grease is also an echo of this.)

[Kirk G]

I remember going to my local library in the mid to late 60s and finding the ONLY book about comics that was on the shelves was "Seduction of the Innocent", and I couldn't figure out what this book about crime comics (what are they? This is the Marvel Age of Comics) and Bruce Wayne's smoking jacket, and similar "offenses" had to do with the superhero books that I knew and read.... FF, Spidey, DD, Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Subby, SHIELD, Dr. Strange, Sgt. Fury, etc...

[MDG]

I dunno. from what I remember about what was said there. it's statements like that that people have gotten wrong over the years. if I remember correctly, he in fact, advocated comics, but wanted certain ones to be 'examined' when given to the youth of his time.

And remember, he was doing this in an environment when stuff like this...

The New Republic has posted a gallery of cover art from the early 50s:

http://www.tnr.com/gallery/popup.html?topic=comics
...was easily available to any second-grader with a dime. Maybe this stuff should've gone behind the counter with the issues of Nugget and Irving Klaw photos, but like it or not, the belief was "comics are for kids," and attempts at comics for adults died a pretty quick death.

By the way, there are a lot of parallels between the stories of pre-code comics and pre-code movies--a big difference is that it's only now that some of those movies are being rediscovered.

BTW, always lots of good pre-code horror stories here:
http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/

[Slam_Bradley]

I dunno. from what I remember about what was said there. it's statements like that that people have gotten wrong over the years. if I remember correctly, he in fact, advocated comics, but wanted certain ones to be 'examined' when given to the youth of his time.

You need to read Seduction of the Innocent. You also need to read Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code by Amy Nyberg which is an academic look at the issue. Wertham was convinced that comics of any sort, had no value and should be replaced with "appropriate" children's literature. It's really all there in his own writing.

I might add that his methodology for coming to his conclusions in SotI and the rest of his comic articles is a scientific joke with absolutely no statistical validity.

[Paradox]

Isn't his "research" basically along the lines of "juvenile delinquents read comics, therefore comics cause juvenile delinquency" kind of stuff? It's been a loooooong time since I read that.

[Slam_Bradley]

Isn't his "research" basically along the lines of "juvenile delinquents read comics, therefore comics cause juvenile delinquency" kind of stuff? It's been a loooooong time since I read that.


That was the gist of it. It was almost entirely annecdotal with incredible leaps of logic (or illogic as the case may be). Scientifically it was a mess, to the extent it was scientific at all.

Sadly, there were actually academicians who had done work on children and comics earlier and concurrent with Wertham. A number of those studies are cited in Seal of Approval. They, however, didn't get the publicity that Wertham got.

[Paradox]

I'd like to think the world has grown up since then to realize that reading material doesn't cause people to do anything. At worst, it reveals something already there and possibly gives it a method or direction.

But, with other things still under attack, I fear comics just get glossed over because they've been niched into the corner. :evilangry:

[mgs]

You need to read Seduction of the Innocent. You also need to read Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code by Amy Nyberg which is an academic look at the issue. Wertham was convinced that comics of any sort, had no value and should be replaced with "appropriate" children's literature. It's really all there in his own writing.
</p>
I definitely will do so. Hopefully in the near future. :)