Comment Re:Poor review (Score 1) 344
I haven't read the book being reviewed, so I can't really comment on it. However, I doubt that it is the most important book ever to be written on comic books, since the reviewer made it sound like the book focused on Stan Lee, who did not invent comics. Marvel also did not invent the artist credit, as indicated by other posts. Marvel didn't exist in the beginning of comics, although some of the companies that did merge to become Marvel did. As much as I admire Stan Lee, there were many others that I'm sure he would acknowledge broke bigger ground than he, such as Bill Gaines of EC.
In 1954, 150,000,000 copies of comic books were published per month, on average. Now, knowing the statistics that are easily gathered from the U.S. Census site, that represents more than the demographic of both pimply and non-pimply teenagers. Surveys show that a large portion of the adult population read comic books as well, so the question then becomes, "What happened?"
Dr. Fredric Wertham. That's what happened. He was an overzealous psychiatrist that made the inference that since the majority of his inmates at Bellevue Mental Hospital read comic books, those comic books must be part of the reason his inmates became criminally insane. He published a book, entitled, "Seduction of the Innocent," in 1954 and testified before a Senate Subcommittee. Brought to focus were specific books printed by EC (Tales from the Crypt, etc.) and Fox (Blue Beetle, Phantom Lady, etc.). The message received after the hearings was "Clean up and regulate yourselves, comic publishers, or we will do it for you." It was at that time that the content became watered down and it took until the 1970s before major publishers had the guts to print anything that didn't have the approval of the Comics Code Authority. Twenty years of Disney-fied comic books are enough to place a stigma upon them that has been impossible to remove.
If you want a truly informative book on the history of comic books, let me instead suggest that you eBay for a copy of "The Comic Book In America: An Illustrated History" by Mike Benton. It's out of print, so the used vendor route is the only way to find one, but as an avid collector of Golden Age books I consider it to be *the* definitive authority. My quoted statistics come from that book, which is organized by year, so that you can see how the industry changed over time. I do have other books that are similar and cover other information, but overall this is the best. You can also typically find copies of "Seduction of the Innocent" on eBay, as well, if you're curious about just what it was that set everything into motion.
In 1954, 150,000,000 copies of comic books were published per month, on average. Now, knowing the statistics that are easily gathered from the U.S. Census site, that represents more than the demographic of both pimply and non-pimply teenagers. Surveys show that a large portion of the adult population read comic books as well, so the question then becomes, "What happened?"
Dr. Fredric Wertham. That's what happened. He was an overzealous psychiatrist that made the inference that since the majority of his inmates at Bellevue Mental Hospital read comic books, those comic books must be part of the reason his inmates became criminally insane. He published a book, entitled, "Seduction of the Innocent," in 1954 and testified before a Senate Subcommittee. Brought to focus were specific books printed by EC (Tales from the Crypt, etc.) and Fox (Blue Beetle, Phantom Lady, etc.). The message received after the hearings was "Clean up and regulate yourselves, comic publishers, or we will do it for you." It was at that time that the content became watered down and it took until the 1970s before major publishers had the guts to print anything that didn't have the approval of the Comics Code Authority. Twenty years of Disney-fied comic books are enough to place a stigma upon them that has been impossible to remove.
If you want a truly informative book on the history of comic books, let me instead suggest that you eBay for a copy of "The Comic Book In America: An Illustrated History" by Mike Benton. It's out of print, so the used vendor route is the only way to find one, but as an avid collector of Golden Age books I consider it to be *the* definitive authority. My quoted statistics come from that book, which is organized by year, so that you can see how the industry changed over time. I do have other books that are similar and cover other information, but overall this is the best. You can also typically find copies of "Seduction of the Innocent" on eBay, as well, if you're curious about just what it was that set everything into motion.
