A Public Service Announcement! ;)

A Public Service Announcement! ;)

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Reading Comics Makes You Violent -- and Gay!...

....At least that's what some thought in the 1940s and 50s, spurred by Freddy Wertham's case "research" with kids and the worries of librarians, some educators, and parents. As the recent novel The Ten Cent Plague has informed the public at large and reminded comics historians, the senate even got involved once the media helped turn the comic book scare into something akin to Big Tobacco (except tobacco really can make you violent and gay. OK, OK, I made that up. The last part. Ever been around someone going through nicotine withdrawals, though?).

Jamie Coville has put together a website dedicated to sharing some of the testimony from the hearings, the subsequent self-regulating code that comics publishers created, and more.

Visit http://www.thecomicbooks.com/ to read through some very interesting testimony from some of the leaders in comics of the 1950s. Who sold out whom? What were the senate's summary remarks once all was said and done? Which pilgrim was ultimately sentenced to a death by crushing via large stone? Find out most of that information at Coville's site.

It's worth noting that many educators and education scholars had been working to disprove Wertham's claims as early as the 1940s. As I've said elsewhere, though, their work was published in academic journals, whereas the popular media got wind of the comics scare and helped publicize it via popular magazines and newspapers. Which writings do you think the public accessed the most and were most influenced by?

(Thanks to Lou N. for bringing this website to my attention!)

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