Seduction of the Innocent, 1954, and related

[SOTIcollector]

Ok, this really is the last one. Let's call this one The Secret Origin of Dr. Wertham.

 

We all know that in 1954, Dr. Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent. It scared parents and politicians into believing that comic books were dangerous, and resulted in a neutering of the comic book industry via the Comics Code. Perhaps not everybody knows that the book was published after years of crusading by Dr. Wertham. Back in 1948, Wertham's first widely-distributed anti-comics writing was in the Saturday Review of Literature. That's where his article "The Comics... Very Funny" started the anti-comics snowball rolling.

 

What I have here is a 2-volume bound set of Saturday Review of Literature. It's the entire year of 1948. In this set, you get the prelude to "The Comics, Very Funny", which was a pair of articles about comics called "The Case Against the Comics" by John Mason Brown and "The Case For the Comics" by Al Capp. Then there's that infamous Wertham article, which features illustrations from True Crime v1#2 and Jo-Jo #18. Following Wertham's article, between May and September, 1948, a debate raged in the letters pages of Saturday Review. Some people wrote in support of comics, while others wrote in to cheer Dr. Wertham's efforts. In all, 19 letters about comics were published in the months after Wertham's article appeared, not the least of which was a very impressive pro-comics article by 14-year-old David Wigransky.

 

The debate in the Saturday Review sparked anti-Wertham editorials from Marvel, which were in turn mentioned years later in Seduction of the Innocent.

 

This bound set contains all of those articles and letters in the Saturday Review, plus as a neat bonus there's a letter from Albert Einstein. Okay, it has nothing to do with comics, but it's just really cool.

 

For just $135, you get the entire year of Saturday Review of Literature PLUS one low-grade copy of one of the Feb/March 1948 Marvel comics with the anti-Wertham editorial response.

 

This puppy's heavy, so shipping will probably be about $12. You pay exact shipping; I pay insurance.

 

 

 

Thanks for the pickup!

 

 

[cloudofwit]

Brace yourself for the cheapest copy of Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent that I've ever sold. And the one in the worst shape I've ever sold. It's a second print from 1954. The good news: All 16 illustration pages are present. The bad news, condition-wise: everything else. This one is a former library copy that was used and abused. Its boards show significant wear. It was taped all along the spine with green tape, and that old tape repair itself has been repaired with a few pieces of Scotch tape. The spine's been broken, and one of the title pages is missing. There is a library card in the book. The flaps of the dust jacket, with a synopsis of the book's contents, have been pasted inside the book. This book has no bibliography.

 

Since the modern reprints of SOTI (the ones that claim to be a "limited edition" but are really not) go for $45, that's how much I'll ask for this one.

 

This is the last copy of SOTI I have to post in this thread, but I'm always looking for more so if you're still looking for a copy, watch for future threads.

 

As per PM...

 

[vaillant]

@SOTIcollector: I apologize for my lack of reply. I did not bookmark this thread and totally forgot. Many thanks for the offer, it was mostly out of curiosity, I think in case I will decide I’ll look for a "reader copy". Besides, it seems you have studied Wertham’s story in depth and I am sure you can judge it in perspective.

My friend’s short analysis redeemed Wertham’s figure, but it wasn’t an in-depth work, besides we are in Italy and the year was 1990. No one of us had seen actual copies of SOTI yet, this happened later on, when my friend managed to borrow it via an international library ring. Yes, amazing as it seems, he managed to have it just for one month, and from Italy.

 

Now that I have become accustomed to Lev Gleason’s titles, I think the truly interesting things predating Wertham’s ingenuous venture in "psychiatric literature" are a selection of Biro's Daredevil stories. These are *awesome*, especially Daredevil Comics #47, where Bart as Daredevil speaks publicly at a panel about juvenile delinquency. It’s really weird to imagine most of the problems originated from the ambiguity of "Crime Does Not Pay" which led to many imitators.

 

In general, the SOTI case and the whole "comic book hysteria" phenomenon looks to me more related to the particular way freudian psychology theories became part of american 1950s cultural milieu. It seems to me that in some cases, this impacted your culture in a more anbiguous way than any comic would have.

 

Your collection is amazing.

 

@cloudofwit: great buy! I suppose SOTIcollector has another copy.