Historic acquisition, my last of 2023 2 2

[Bookery]

On 1/3/2024 at 10:17 PM, SOTIcollector said:

And here it is.  A brittle but complete copy of the Chicago Daily News from May 8, 1940.

The origin of the anti-comic-book hysteria of the 1940's and 50's.  

This is pretty amazing.  I hadn't realized it started this early.  Comics books (as we think of them) were only 7 years old at this point!  And up until a couple of years prior, they had mostly relied on newspaper strips for their content.  I wonder if it's no coincidence that this first volley against comics itself appears in a newspaper.  Could there have been an ulterior motive?  DC (and shortly after, Centaur) began producing original content in the late '30s that didn't rely on paying licensing fees for newspaper strips.  Could the newspapers themselves have been quietly behind these early attempts to quash the comic book market?  Comic strips were hugely profitable.  Successful strip creators became very wealthy.  People often chose which newspaper to buy based on their favorite Sunday strips.  Comics with original content had to be seen as a big competitor.  Newspapers, and later other magazines, chose to print these particular authors and articles.  Is it possible the early rancor against comic books began as a corporate move to eliminate or damage the competition, and the later self-aggrandizing Werthams of the world simply jumped on the bandwagon once it was rolling?   

[fast eddie]

An amazing accomplishment SOTIcollector,,,,,,,, congratulations and thanks for sharing!

[fishbone]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:47 PM, sfcityduck said:

Which is why parents need to pay attention.  But censorship?  Not necessary.

And they would have needed to be, or today would be, in a separate adult-only section out of sight from kids ...... just some of those covers alone (again, I have several and I love them) are very graphic 

[Robot Man]

My uncle gave me some vintage ECs when I was 11. My mom saw me reading a Haunt of Fear and tore it up. I quickly took the rest up to my treehouse stash along with my MAD’s which she thought silly and subversive. I put them in the middle of my Playboy stash. 

I also remember a local comic store getting in trouble for displaying underground’s. They quickly became “under the counter” items until they stopped carrying them all together.