Seduction of the Innocent
The Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham fueled a backlash against perceived violence and sex in comics - forcing the closure of many titles and the eventual adoption of the voluntary "Comic Code Authority".
It was the 50's equivalent of the 1980's UK hysteria that led to the banning of "video nasties" - outlawing such cinematic gems as "Driller KIller' along with schock horrors such as "Last House on the Left" and "I Spit on Your Grave" - but not apparently "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" which never made the official list.
I recall most "video nasties" as cheaply made "bucket of blood" movies that were more likely to make us howl with laughter than howl with terror - but then I had already been corrupted by a childhood spent reading comics.
The only reason I mention this now I because I found a site that had come old covers of War Comics - but it seems that they aren't there for nostalgic reasons
Comics books do not only pervert the minds of children. They have helped shape and have formed the attitudes of generations of Americas toward violence, treatment of the "enemy" from World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the Gulf War - right up to the present.
This site also features sections on "Germans shown with contorted, mean and unshaven faces", "Germans depicted as being cruel and evil, usually to defenceless people" and "Hitler depicted as a crazy lunatic".
These are comic books right? I grew up on a diet of the things and I don't hate Germans - even as a child I knew the difference between a fictional representation of WWII and the real thing - no matter how many fictional stereotypes of "nazi" behaviour I was exposed to.
Every so often we get one of these moral panics come along - all of a sudden the media cry out almost as one -
its either comic books or video nasties or rave music or video games or the internet which is wrecking our youth.
Everytime we get one of these moral panics hyping up the evil "youth wreckers" it is just an excuse to whip up enough public hysteria to implement more controls on whatever it is that the government want to control next.
Whether it be comic books, video, games, internet, music with offensive lyrics - whenever you get public outrage whipped up like this - the real deal is who controls what we read, watch, play or use.
Tags: comics, wwii, fredric-wertham, video-nasties