RAP SHEET - Comic Books And The Law 4 4

[Terry JSA]

This thread is amazing! 

[sfcityduck]

I don't know why I've never noticed this thread before.  Here's a few items that fit the theme.

First, my CCA rack:

And some accompanying CCA literature I have not seen posted before:

 

[sfcityduck]

5 hours ago, eccomic said:

I present my copy of Frederic Wertham's personal reference copy of the 1951 New York Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Publication of Comics.

 

Super cool!  I own only one item that I know Frederic touched.  It is a special binding of a journal article that the journals print when the journal is printed to give to authors.  Authors commonly mail out these things to people who they think will be interested or to reviewers.  Wertham was not happy about one sentence in the article, so in the only two copies I know of that still exist, he made handwritten interlineations.  The other copy is owned by SOTIcollector who has the envelope Wertham used to send it to the recipient (yeah ... I'm jealous, but he's the man on the complete SOTI collection!).  My copy:

Edited July 13, 2021 by sfcityduck

[Sarg]

11 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I don't know why I've never noticed this thread before.  Here's a few items that fit the theme.

First, my CCA rack:

 

 

 

 

Good to see that. It shows that only "horror" and "terror" were banned as titles, not "crime" or "weird." Gaines could have kept publishing The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, and Crime SuspenStories. 

 

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, Sarg said:

Good to see that. It shows that only "horror" and "terror" were banned as titles, not "crime" or "weird." Gaines could have kept publishing The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, and Crime SuspenStories. 

 

What would he have put in books of those titles?  The CCA censored Incredible Science Fiction!

Edited July 13, 2021 by sfcityduck

[Sarg]

On 11/28/2011 at 12:26 AM, BOOT said:

This report contains hearing transcripts and loads of evidence/exhibits. Great reading...

 

 

Wow, Bat Man was "very objectionable."

[Sarg]

17 hours ago, eccomic said:

I present my copy of Frederic Wertham's personal reference copy of the 1951 New York Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Publication of Comics. This copy was housed in the Library of Congress amongst 220 boxes of personal correspondence and papers that were donated by Frederic Wertham's widow circa 1987. The Library of Congress retains on copy of any item and the duplicates are usually destroyed.

The provenance on this (Frederic Wertham's personal reference copy) 1951 Report is magnificent in that he used several of the illustrations in the publication of Seduction of the Innocent in 1954.

Gregg Van Vranken who worked for the LOC back in 1991 was given the daunting task of going through the "Wertham Papers" and rescued some of the duplicate ephemera accordingly. Gregg was kind enough to present Thommy Burns with some of the pieces. The 1951 Report has the tell-tale markings by Frederick Wertham in his red ink. The below link showing several pieces of Wertham's notes as well as markings, are present:

http://www.tcj.com/warren-bernard-1954/...

I

That link has a lot of great info, including the original title of SOTI: Comic Books and Children. I guess that was considered too ordinary and not likely to grab attention, so they sensationalized it, i.e., they did the same thing comic publishers would have done. 

[sfcityduck]

38 minutes ago, Sarg said:

Wow, Bat Man was "very objectionable."

  psst - we all know what the problem with Batman was - this foreign cover captured Wertham's view:

 

[eccomic]

THE COMICS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

(1954)

RARE BOOKLET FROM COMICS CODE AUTHORITY

 

This is an incredibly rare 5.25" x 8.25" 8-page booklet called "THE COMICS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY" that was published in 1954 by the Comics Code Authority. It was released in the middle of the hysteria that gripped the United States when adults believed that comic books were corrupting the minds and morals of children. Much of the uproar was caused by the book The Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham. This booklet was designed to prove that comics were NOT the cause of juvenile delinquency.

 

[Spyder!]

Running into weird issues trying to quote some of the older posts on here, so I took a screenshot instead.

So cool to see this photo of the comics on display in London! That’s the UK edition of Planet Comics #2, which is actually a reprint of issue 23. It just happens to be the only foreign edition Planet Comics book I have.

[SOTIcollector]

Do you have any printings of Public Affairs Pamphlet #148, "Comics, Radio, Movies - And Children"?  Or its successor, "Comics, TV, Radio, Movies - What Do They Offer Children?"  

Back in the 1940’s, when Fredric Wertham was working hard to convince the public that comic books are dangerous for kids, one voice of reason was Josette Frank. Her “Comics, Radio, Movies – and Children“ (Public Affairs Pamphlet #148) went through at least three printings between 1949 and 1953. Then in 1955, it was revised to include more content about the fledgling medium of TV.

I have managed to track down four different editions of this booklet, and I'm trying to find out if more exist. I have 1) First print, March, 1949. 2) Second print, August, 1952. 3) Third print, March, 1953. 4) Revised edition, February, 1955. Are you aware of any other editions? Given the cadence of the printings, and given that the anti-comics hysteria reached its zenith in April, 1954, it seems there might be one or two more printings in between the 1953 and the 1955 editions. Of course, I could never prove that other editions don’t exist. But if there is evidence that other editions do exist, I would like to know. Thanks!

 

Joesette Frank was no stranger to the reading habits of children. Her What Books for Children? was published in 1937, and makes only a passing mention of children’s fascination with the “Sunday funnies”. That book was revised for a 1941 edition which included an entire chapter on comic strips and comic books.
In 1954, concurrent with the release of Seduction of the Innocent, Frank’s Your Child’s Reading Today was published, also with a chapter on comics.
 

Josette Frank was also a paid advisor to DC comics.  One of the Senate reports indicates how DC came to hire her and how much she got paid, IIRC.

When National (DC) Comics wrote to the US Senate in defense of their industry in 1950, they cited Public Affairs Pamphlet #148 by Frank.

Frank herself also cited the pamphlet in her correspondence with the Senate, and the Senate included the pamphlet as Exhibit #5 in their report.

And in 1954, when the Senate held those famous televised hearings, this pamphlet was also cited. Here it is on page 18 of their report "Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books)".

 

Public Affairs Pamphlet #148 was one of a series intended to provided information of general public interest. Here are some others from the series.