Rare Anti-Communist Comics

Heritage Auctions has an interesting lot up on the blocks.

From a piece on Art Daily...

“The youth of America was seen as fair game for the ever-gathering storm of Soviet and Chinese Communism in the 1950s,” said Steve Borock, Consignment Director at Heritage, “and concerned patriots wanted to make sure the nation’s future was not compromised by those dark forces.”

How better to combat those nefarious influences than through comics books, which every kid in the 1950s was religiously reading. Add in the bonus that these comics were free – a bonus to any kid who save nickels and dimes to buy the latest Superman or Batman – and publishers figured they had direct access to those impressionable young minds.

Mr. Warren, a collector based in Pennsylvania, assembled the rare collection over the course of a 20 year period. The result is nothing less than a pop culture survey of the reaction to the Red Scare in post-war America.

“Blood Is The Harvest from 1950, which shows a Red Army firing squad on the cover, is a very rare book – according to the Overstreet Price Guide, only 13 copies exist,” said Borock. “It turns out that Todd Warren had four of them. There are fewer copies of this then there are of Action comics #1!”