His name was Dr. Frederic Wertham who thought comic books were corrupting the minds of our youth. Booktryst has more, here.
From the piece...
Through his publication of the irresistibly entitled 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham crushed the genre known as "Crime Comics," and caused over a dozen comic-book publishers to close up shop. As a direct result, the industry chose to police itself by creating the Comics Code Authority in late 1954, rather than risk government censorship. The code mandated that "excessive violence; lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations; sex perversion and "all elements... considered violations of good taste or decency;" no longer debase the pages of American comic-books. Pop culture historian, Catherine Yronwode, believes Wertham's chilling effect on the comics cannot be overstated: "He and he alone virtually brought about the collapse of the comic book industry in the 1950s."
No comments:
Post a Comment