Seduction of the Innocent, Love & Death, Parade of Pleasure and more!

[TheGeneral]

Ill take the photo journal set

 

 

Ill take the POP reprint

 

Thanks for the pickups!

 

 

Thank you for the opportunity to pick these up!

[AtlasFan]

WOW! Some great books that you rarely see for sale.

[SOTIcollector]

After the Code was in place, T.E. Murphy wrote this article "Progress in Cleaning Up the Comics" for Reader's Digest. This copy has

some condition problems: somebody sliced out about 8 small passages from the text, but those cutouts do not affect the comics article. I also

found three places where ballpoint pen was used to circle words, but again this does not affect the comics article. $5

 

[

 

 

More Wertham:

 

Wertham's hard-to-find last writing related to comics, World of Fanzines.

 

No dust jacket. Residue from something that was glued inside the FC. Small pencil wirting on front endpaper, as evident in photo. $40

 

 

 

Saturday Review of Literature, April 9, 1955

 

After Seduction of the Innocent was published and after the Senate hearings, Dr. Wertham didn't just fade away. He continued his crusade against comics even after the Code was in place.

The thing was, after the code was in place, comics had been neutered to the satisfaction of most parents, and Wertham's continued criticisms didn't get much national attention.

In this 1955 issue of the Saturday Review of Literature, Wertham criticizes the recently "cleaned up" comics with this article subtitled "What Parents Still Don't Know About Comics". $25

 

 

 

Once again, I thank you, sir!

[SOTIcollector]

To make it easy to find what's still available, I added the following summary to the first page. I'll update it periodically as I list/sell more.

 

Tonight's date night with my bride , so I won't be able to list more till Sunday.

 

Page 1:

Seduction of the Innocent $165 SOLD Bladak

Page 2:

Love and Death $65 SOLD golddust40

Reader's Digest August, 1948 $15 SOLD golddust40

Page 3:

Reader's Digest May, 1954 $10 SOLD Darth Corgi

Reader's Digest June, 1954 $8 SOLD golddust40

Parade of Pleasure original UK print $450 SOLD Flying Donut

Page 5:

Ladies Home Journal, November, 1953 $20

Love and Death $65 SOLD EsquireComics

Parade of Pleasure reprint $15 SOLD The General

Photo Journal set $40 SOLD The General

Page 6:

Reader's Digest February, 1956 $5 SOLD EsquireComics

Saturday Review of Literature April 9, 1955 $25 SOLD EsquireComics

World of Fanzines $40 SOLD EsquireComics

 

[Comicsarefun]

Outstanding thread. Well done

 

I have had a copy of SOTI for 20 years, it is a great read, and all you pre-code horror guys should read it at least once.

[AtlasFan]

Yep. I checked mine out of the local library about 30 years ago. I'm still not done with it yet!

[Ramses717]

Yep. I checked mine out of the local library about 30 years ago. I'm still not done with it yet!

 

I'd hate to see the late fee for that.

 

My copy is in pdf files on my computer.

[SOTIcollector]

More SOTI for your shopping enjoyment!

 

About 10 more items tonight to wrap up this thread.

 

Blab #2

This is chock full of goodies for an SOTI collector, and it's got top-name cartoonists as well.

Let's start with a Dan Clowes' comic-book version of Dr. Wertham's book The Show of Violence, featuring appearances by the doctor himself.

Then we have underground creators explaining how EC comics influenced them, and a long interview with Gary Arlington about EC. Contributions from

Alan Moore, John Pound, Max Allan Collins, Peter Bagge, Bob Burden, Jay Lynch, Gary Panter, Moebius, Michael T. Gilbert, Paul Mavrides, Gahan Wilson, Charles Burns

and more! $30 SOLD

 

[SOTIcollector]

The Circle of Guilt by Dr. Fredric Wertham

Wertham's 1956 follow-up to Seduction of the Innocent. Although comics aren't the primary focus of the book, the doctor doesn't pass up an opportunity to put down comics when he gets the chance. By 1956, though, a large "Approved by the Comics Code Authority" stamp was appearing on most comics, and so parents must have felt that Junior's brain was no longer being destroyed by ten cents at a time.

Pencil notation on front endpaper from previous seller. First print. $30

[SOTIcollector]

Compleat Neurotica

Here's one you never see. If you thought Love & Death was tough to find, just try finding this.

 

Here's the story. Gershon Legman wrote for a little quarterly magazine called "Neurotica" in the 40's. The magazine had a pretty impressive list of contributors, such as

Allen Ginsberg. Leonard Bernstein and Marshall MacLuhan. In issue 3 of Neurotica, Legman contributed "The Psychopathology of Comic Books". He criticized comics again in issue 6.

As I recall, Love & Death is actually a collection of articles Legman wrote for Neurotica. In this book, you get all of Legman's anti-comics writings as they were first published in Neurotica, as well as his thoughts on "The Rationale of the Dirty Joke" and more.

The dust jacket is so rough that let's just say it doesn't have one. One flap is missing, one is detatched, and the whole thing is brittle. So let's say there's no dust jacket and I'll throw in

this brittle orange paper if you want it. The rest of the book is solid except for the bump at the upper left (visible in the photos).

$125

 

[SOTIcollector]

Dark Legend by Dr. Fredric Wertham

Wertham's earlier books had been scholarly works, such as a textbook on the brain. In 1941, however, Wertham turned his focus to a mass audience with this true crime book, a psychiatric case study of a young man who killed his mother. This book chronicles the case as Dr. Wertham delves into the murderer's mind to find the motive. In the process he also aims to find a greater understanding of human behavior pattern.

(I borrowed some of that description, since I haven't read this book in its entirety.) Pencil writing on front endpaper. First print. $25

 

[SOTIcollector]

Scouting magazine, September, 1954

A little-known article by Wertham in this magazine intended for adults within the Boy Scouts, such as troop leaders. $35

 

[SOTIcollector]

The Ten Cent Plague by David Hajdu, softcover

Essential reading for anybody who wants to know more about the comic book witch hunts of the 1950's. If you're reading this thread and haven't read this book... do yourself a favor and read it. Either buy this affordable copy or pick it up at your local library. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

$8 SOLD

[SOTIcollector]

The World Within - Fiction Illuminating the Neuroses of Our Time. Edited by Mary Louise Aswell, and with Introduction by Dr. Fredric Wertham

Back in 1947, before he attacked comic books, Wertham contributed the introduction to this book, which looks at the psychology of fiction.

$10

 

 

[SOTIcollector]

Comic Book Nation, The Transformation of Youth Culture in America by Bradford Wright. Some wear. $6 SOLD

 

[goldust40]

More SOTI for your shopping enjoyment!

 

About 10 more items tonight to wrap up this thread.

 

Blab #2

This is chock full of goodies for an SOTI collector, and it's got top-name cartoonists as well.

Let's start with a Dan Clowes' comic-book version of Dr. Wertham's book The Show of Violence, featuring appearances by the doctor himself.

Then we have underground creators explaining how EC comics influenced them, and a long interview with Gary Arlington about EC. Contributions from

Alan Moore, John Pound, Max Allan Collins, Peter Bagge, Bob Burden, Jay Lynch, Gary Panter, Moebius, Michael T. Gilbert, Paul Mavrides, Gahan Wilson, Charles Burns

and more! $30

 

[SOTIcollector]

Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham. First print, 1954, with facsimile dust jacket (but no original dust jacket).

Comic book history, and required reading. But you know that.

Here's the story about the dust jacket. Some time ago, I scanned the dust jacket from my personal copy of SOTI. Then I digitally cleaned it up and took the scan to a printing company with a super-large color printer, who created for me a couple facsimile dust jackets.

The resulting facsimile presnts nicely, but it's not perfect. For example, the reds came out more orange than I'd like, and there's a white strip at the bottom of the FC where it should be black all the way to the edge. It's still a nice way to pretty-up and protect an otherwise-jacketless copy of SOTI.

Below you'll see two photos with an original DJ and the repro in the same picture. Note the reproduction is bright white, while the original has yellowed some with age. This posting is for a copy of SOTI

in the REPRODUCTION dust jacket, and does NOT include the original dust jacket. The book itself is pretty tight. It does have some yellowing of the title pages as noted in the photos below, and there's pencil notation from a previous seller, also in the photos. This copy does not have the bibliography (which is common for most copies of this book), but I have included a photocopy of the bibliograpy. One copy of SOTI with repro DJ and repro bibliography for $125 SOLD

 

Here's the repro DJ and an original one pictured for reference.

 

 

And here's the book itself

 

 

[50s horror buff]

I'll take the Ten Cent Plague and the Comic Book Nation!

[goldust40]

The Ten Cent Plague by David Hajdu, softcover

Essential reading for anybody who wants to know more about the comic book witch hunts of the 1950's. If you're reading this thread and haven't read this book... do yourself a favor and read it. Either buy this affordable copy or pick it up at your local library. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

$8

 

[SOTIcollector]

Last one for this sales thread. World's Finest #44

 

This is one of the recently-discovered Seduction books. Many collectors don't know this, but a lot of the comics cited by Wertham in Seduction of the Innocent have not yet been identified by collectors. For a list of these comics, see the "LOST SOTI" section at the Seduction of the Innocent website. Not long ago, the SOTI website reported on World's Finest #44, which was used in SOTI multiple times. Here's a copy in about G/VG. It's a pretty sharp looking copy for the grade.

 

I'd grade it higher but for one notable defect, which is pictured in a couple close-ups. Something sliced the edges of a number of pages. Did somebody poke a scalpel through the book while it was open? These cuts did not result in any paper loss, just some open and some closed slices to the pages and back cover.

 

I apologize for the fact that my scanner is not available at the moment. I hope these pictures will suffice. If you feel that they are not adequate,

I'll get the scanner working again and post scans.

Yours for $165. SOLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page 9 of SOTI contains the following quote from Wertham:

Here, too, is the customary close-up of the surprised and frightened-looking policeman with his hands half-raised saying:

NO - NO! DON'T SHOOT

as he is threatened by a huge fist holding a gun to his face! This is followed by mild disapproval ("You've gone too far! This is murder!") as the uniformed man lies dead on the ground. This comic book is endorsed by child specialists who are connected with important institutions.

 

 

 

 

 

From page 190 of SOTI, we have this quote from Wertham:

As they sit by the fire the young boy sometimes worries about his partner: 'Something’s wrong with Bruce. He hasn’t been himself these last few days.' It is like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together.

 

 

 

It's evident that even as this book was being published, DC was trying to fight back criticism of comics.