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GAM

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  1. Please add Justice Comics #21 (Atlas, 5/1951) to the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) registry set. This comic is referenced in the SOTI in the text on page 160 as documented below. On page 160, Wertham cites several crime comic book examples and describes one as follows “Of course playing hookey from school is one of the smart things described by comic-book characters: ‘But we better hurry or we’ll be late for school!’ Aw, the heck with school, Harvey! I’m not goin’ today. Brains will never get you anyplace. It’s muscles that’ll do it! Look at the easy duce-spot [sic] it made me just now!’” The quoted passage comes from a panel in the story “Big Monk Dillon” per the attached scan (bottom right panel contains the Wertham quoted passage) Slot added per request 10/28/22
  2. Please add Wonder Woman #44 (November-December 1950) to the "Seduction of the Innocent" (SOTI) set: On page 193 of the SOTI, author Fredric Wertham, describes a Wonder Woman story as follows "For boys, Wonder Woman is a frightening image. For girls, she is a morbid ideal. Where Batman is anti-feminine, the attractive Wonder Woman and her counterparts are anti-masculine. Wonder Woman has her own female following. They are continuously being threatened, captured, almost put to death. There is a great deal of mutual rescuing, the same type of rescue fantasies as in Batman. Her followers are the ‘Holliday girls,’ i.e. the holiday girls, the gay party girls, the gay girls. Wonder Woman refers to them as ‘my girls.’ Their attitude about death and murder is a mixture of the callousness of crime comics with the coyness of sweet little girls. When one of the Holliday girls is thought to have drowned through the machinations of male enemies, one of them says: ‘Honest, I’d give the last piece of candy in the world to bring her back!’” The drowning story and the quote "‘Honest, I’d give the last piece of candy in the world to bring her back!" comes from the story “Chapter III: The Final Battle of the Sargasso Sea” contained in Wonder Woman #44. Slot added 2/11/22
  3. Please add Wonder Woman #30 (July-August 1948) to the "Seduction of the Innocent" (SOTI) set: On page 193 of the SOTI, author Fredric Wertham, describes a Wonder Woman story as follows "In a typical story, Wonder Woman is involved in adventures with another girl, a princess, who talks repeatedly about ‘those wicked men’”. This reference comes from the story “The Secrets of the Limestone Caves” contained in Wonder Woman #30. In this story, Wonder Woman, as a young girl, ventures to a land of limestone caves where she meets Princess Elva. The princess tells Wonder Woman about the pending attack from the Radium Giants. Wonder Woman speaks on the need to “stop those wicked men”. A few pages later, the Queen of the Limestone Caves, speaks about “these wicked men". Slot Added 2/11/22
  4. Set: Seduction of the Innocent Comics Please add Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #63 published by Marvel 9/1950 to the Seduction of the Innocent set. This comic is referenced in the text on pages 159-160 of the SOTI. At the bottom of page 159, SOTI author Fredric Wertham describes a comic story as follows “One Western comic gives an illustrated lesson in foul fighting (he ‘chopped a powerful rabbit punch’) and brutality (he ‘rammed his knee into Mossman’s face with a sickening thud’ and then, when his victim was on the ground, kicked him in the face)”. Wertham is describing panels from the story “The Rio Killer” contained in Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #63. I've attached the story page that contains these specific quotes. Slot Added 1/31/22
  5. Please add a registry set for "Crime Must Lose!" published by Atlas. The set contains issues #4 (10/1950) through #12 (4/1952). Set created on 1/18/21. Thank you
  6. Please add For a Night of Love #nn (Avon, 1951) to the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) registry set. This comic is referenced in the SOTI on page 185. On page 185, Wertham describes love comics as follows “Love comics do harm in the sphere of taste, esthetics, ethics and human relations. The plots are stereotyped, banal, cheap. Whereas in crime comics the situation is boy meets girl, boy beats girl; in love comics it is boy meets girl, boy cheats girl – or vice versa. Adolescent girls are not helped by this bit from a love comic: ‘How long can a beautiful woman wait for love? Is it a crime to take passion where it is found – regardless of mocking faithfulness? (For the thrilling answer see page 17.)’”. The quoted passage “How long can a beautiful woman wait for love? Is it a crime to take passion where it is found – regardless of mocking faithfulness? (For the thrilling answer see page 17.)” comes from the comic book “For a Night of Love”. This comic was published by Avon in 1951 as a one-shot issue. The quote comes from the inside of the front cover and is used to describe the story “The Loves of Felicie”. See attached scan for more details. Slot Created. Thank you for providing the details and image.
  7. Please add Real Clue Crime Stories #v3 #3 (Hillman Periodicals, 5/48) to the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) registry set. This comic is referenced in the SOTI on pages 23-24. On pages 23-24, Wertham describes a crime comic and provides an itemized list of 5 specific story elements contained in the comic: 1) A criminal terrorizes a family on a farm, makes advances to the farmer’s young wife and beats the farmer when he objects. 2) He takes the little boy into the woods as a hostage. 3) The little boy, after a while, says: ‘I can’t go any faster an’ I don’t care! You’re gonna kill me anyhow!’ –to which the criminal replies: ‘Ya wise little rat! I’ll kill ya! But before I do I’ll knock yer teeth out!’ 4) The little boy, as he is being beaten, ‘OH-H-H-H-H-H-H…” 5) In the end, the criminal, who of course commits many other crimes in the course of the story, is not punished by the law, but like a hero refuses to give himself up, and shoots himself. Wertham is referencing the story “Tiger the True Story of Buck Neary – And the Greatest Manhunt in History!!” contained in Real Clue Crime Stories #v3 #3. Please see attached scan containing story quotes #3 and #4. Slot Created. Thank you for providing the legwork
  8. Please add Real Life Comics #58 (Standard Comics, 10/51) to the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) registry set. This comic is referenced in the SOTI on page 310. On page 310, Wertham describes a comic as follows “Here is another comic book dealing with history and education, especially sent to me as a shining example. It has a feature about the Olympic games: ‘The Olympic games were the greatest sporting event in the ancient world. But any ladies caught watching them were thrown over a cliff.” Here I have gone all these years without knowing that! And lest the child miss the point, an illustration shows it: A well-developed girl with the same coy expression of alarm runs along a steep cliff hotly pursued by a he-man in a helmet. Another item for the child’s information is that there was ‘fixing’ in the Olympic games. One could call this the contemporary approach to ancient history.” The ½ page story “Olympic Oddities” contained in Real Life Comics #58 is an exact match for the story described by Wertham. See attached scan for more details. Thank you for providing the details. Slot added.
  9. Please add Captain Marvel Adventures #101 to the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) registry set. Slot created. Thank you for providing the details as it speeds up things on my end! This comic is referenced in the text on pages 87-88 of the Seduction of the Innocent. Beginning on page 87, Wertham recounts his experience with a boy that was brought to him as a patient and how comics influenced his behavior. On page 88, the boy makes a statement about a Captain Marvel story: “I don’t think they should read Captain Marvel. Look at this one with all the pictures of the man without his head!’”. The boy is referring to the story “The Invisibility Trap” contained in Captain Marvel Adventures #101. In this story, Captain Marvel is splashed with an invisibility potion that renders his head and other body parts invisible. The identification of Captain Marvel Adventures #101 as the source material came from Carol L. Tilley, an associate professor at the University of Illinois. Tilley extensively researched Wertham’s archives stored at the Library of Congress to produce her paper “Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics”. Pulling from Wertham’s archives, Tilley describes the background for the SOTI passage on pages 87-88 as follows, “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. 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. 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 comic books. That’s why I think children shouldn’t have them.’ That Richard engaged in the activities that 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 the 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 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 indicated only a page in Captain Marvel #101 (October 1949); the case notes include 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”.
  10. Please add Untamed Love #5 (Quality Comics, 9/50) to the Seduction of the Innocent Comics registry set. On page 40 of the Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham describes a comic story as follows: "The youthful reader can also acquire the technique of how to seduce a girl. First you get her boyfriend away on a fictitious errand, ‘knowing it would keep him for most of the night.’ After a dance you invite the girl for ‘a little bite’ at ‘a road-house just over the state line’: ‘Here we are Gale! A nice little private booth! Like it?’ The girl: ‘Yes – I wouldn’t for the world let Nicky think I wasn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate it!’ Then you make love to her. ‘Nicky! Let me go! All the people!’ Nicky: ‘You’re right honey! What do we want all these people for? Let’s go upstairs to the terrace!’ ‘Upstairs was a long narrow hall with five or six doors! Nicky opened the nearest one and I found myself in a small, shoddy-looking room!” Nicky: ‘I think we’ll be much more comfortable in here, don’t you honey?’ Heroine: ‘Nicky! I want to go home! Please let me go!’ Nicky: ‘Home was never like this, baby! Come on, give papa a kiss!’” These quotes come from the story "A Streak of Badness" contained in Untamed Love #5. Slot added.
  11. Please add the following comics to the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) set: Book 1: Witches Tales #20 published by Harvey Book 2: Doll Man #38 published by Quality Comics Book 3: Famous Crimes #1 published by Fox Features Book 4: Phantom Lady #16 published by Fox Features Book 5: Wanted Comics #29 published by Toytown. Books 1-4 are documented SOTI books as discussed on the CGC boards (see link below for more details). Book 5 contains the “Archer Frize” story reference on page 28 of the SOTI. https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/402337-soti-contest-ends-december-31-1159pm-eastern-discover-a-book-and-win-soti/
  12. Please add the following Set: Parade of Pleasure (POP) Book: Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #18 As documented in the Overstreet guide, this book was used in POP.
  13. Please add a set for "Stamp Comics" published by Youthful Magazines October 1951 - 1953. The set consists of issues #1-#8. For issue #8 the title changed from "Stamp Comics" to "Thrilling Adventures in Stamp Comics".
  14. Please add the following book to the Seduction of the Innocent Comics set: Mr. Risk #2 published by Ace Periodicals, 12/50. This comic is referenced in the text of the Seduction of the Innocent (SOTI) on page 144. More specifically, Fredric Wertham, the author of the SOTI, notes on page 144 "Spelling in comic books is often faulty. 'The Case of the Psycopathic [sic] Lady' is not good for children in either content or spelling". Mr. Risk #2 contains the misspelled story "The Case of the Psycopathic Lady". Thanks