I presume they mean in the comic books and not on a day to day basis.

I can only say that with regard to the whole issue of comic books and juvenile delinquency, it’s my opinion that he treated the matter almost as if it were a personal pet “hobby” project (particularly with regards to research methodology)… lots of conjectures predicated on his own subjective preconceptions and ad hoc methods. That further dedicated and well thought out study was needed to refute or verify those conjectures is to me (and I suspect was to Wertham as well) glaringly obvious… and that is why I suggested that perhaps one of his real aims in all of this was to secure some sort of research grant, for the real (serious) work was yet to be done.

Speaking as someone with a degree in psychology, and who has studied the historical roots of the science as well as its practical applications, it’s worth noting that the field as a whole was VERY different from what it is today. And because of that, it’s extremely difficult to judge people in that era by modern standards, because modern standards simply didn’t apply.

Wertham was working during a time when lobotomies were seen as an acceptable solution for mood swings (see also Rosemary Kennedy), and radical treatments like electro-shock therapy or throwing people into tubs of ice water were used to treat behavioral problems simply because they seemed to work (in spite of the administering psychologists not knowing HOW or WHY they worked). Psychology in general was still VERY embryonic in the 50′s, and the idea of experimental ethics were still almost non-existent (look up the Milgram Experiment or Little Albert on Wikipedia to see what I mean), let alone experimental method.

So Wertham would have been doing his research during this period, and would have been trained even earlier. The idea of things like double-blinds or control groups wouldn’t necessarily have occurred to him, and his own experience in earlier cases (like the Albert Fish case) would almost certainly have demonstrated to him the idea that childhood abuse seems to contribute to adult sociopathy.

In that sense, while I wouldn’t attempt to defend his actual conclusions, I’d be far more inclined to dismiss them as a product of his time rather than assuming he was somehow an aberration, or that he was poorly trained, inept, or burned out by his work. Odds are he was no better or worse than most other psychologists of his era, many of whom were simply making things up as they went along, as they were basically building the science of psychology from the ground up.

The people I have more contempt for are modern psychologists who had far better training, access to far more extensive research, and should absolutely be more aware of correlation/causality issues, yet still fall into similar traps when bashing the evil de jour that’s corrupting America’s youth, whether it be role-playing games, rock & roll music, video games, or what have you.

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>>> Any form of censorship that is imposed, or enforced on any comic, or writer, artist is the bane of creativity and should be abolished. Only self-censorship that comes from the creator is allowed. One should write or draw as one’s conscience allows themselves to do.

I disagree, to some extent.

I wouldn’t advocate having a government agency capable of judging all artistic works and determining what is and isn’t acceptable (and I already consider most “obscenity” laws to be dangerously and abusively vague), but at the same time, I can absolutely understand both the desire and need for some method of keeping graphic material out of the hands of children. Doubly so because the line between pure artistic vision and shock product is a thin one. As is the line between something which is trying to convey a profound message and something which is only pandering to prurient interests.

From that perspective, I’m not a huge fan of mandatory censorship, but I AM a supporter of mandatory rating systems. That way, an artist can produce whatever sort of work they choose to, but once they’re finished, the product’s exposure to children can be limited if it’s of a graphic nature. I’d never say that something like 30 Days of Night or Marvel’s MAX line shouldn’t be allowed to exist, but I would say it shouldn’t be in the hands of kids.

The two biggest flaws with rating systems is that they require actively responsible parents to keep inappropriate material out of the hands of kids – and it often seems that most parents simply don’t pay enough attention to ratings (go on XBox Live and play a mature game, and you’ll quickly notice that more than half the voices of people playing sound like they’re 12). It also requires the agency or company doing the rating to be both unbiased and willing to do an in-depth evaluation of the material (the MPAA tends to fail on the first criteria, while the ESRB tends to fail on the second).

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>>> Self censorship is all well and good, but if you’re doing working for hire for a second party the company rightfully has a say in what is done with their properties.

I’d also agree with this. Companies like Marvel and DC are beholden to stockholders, so if they feel they’d rather not have soccer moms complaining about content in their books, they’re absolutely within their rights to edit or censor work-for-hire. The writer or artist is playing in someone else’s sandbox, so I feel the owner is perfectly justified in asking them not to crap in it.

The same was true of a lot of 19th and early 20th century efforts to ban “immoral” books–it was a way of cleaning up culture the same way cleaning up sewers improved the public health.

Ten Cent Plague is excellent. Dame in the Kimono is good on the history of the Hays office, how it worked with a number of controversial movies and why it transitioned at the end to movie ratings.

Wertham was against the CCA, he wrote a magazine peice about it after it was in effect called “It’s Still Murder.” I’ve got it scanned and online here.

It should also be noted that Wertham’s definition of “crime” comic does not match up with modern fandom’s. Wertham included superhero comics under the rubric of “crime,” not just Crime Does Not Pay and its ilk.

Agreed, it should be noted, which is why I did.

Fascinating stuff, as always! Quick question on the Wonder Woman portion, though… you show Sensation Comics # 1′s cover right under the comment about her debut, but didn’t she actually appear in… thinking, thinking… All-Star Comics # 8 first? I’m not as good on my Golden Age trivia as I tend to be on the Silver Age stuff, but that seems to ring a bell. Anyway, even if that’s true, it’s not like you STATED that she debuted in Sensation # 1… but it seems kind of implied, no?

She debuted in All-Star Comics #8, I put her second appearance only because she was on the cover of Sensation #1 (while she wasn’t on the cover of All-Star #8).

Taken in that context, Wertham’s cart-before-horse methodology is less his own unique awfulness and more the tendency of popular models of psychology in general in his time. Moulton-Marston thought in a siomilar fashion: that a comic book could affect many individual minds in relatively programmatic ways by being mass-printed and mass-consumed.

Back then, the man in the street and the pundits really thought the social sciences could produce results in the fashion of the hard sciences: axiomatically and near-universally.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Fanzines-Special-Form-Communication/dp/0809306190

In the description, they cite Dr. Wertham as still being alive. He died shortly after this book came out actually.

Honestly, I really don’t want to come off as a Wertham basher… he was a sad case, troubled man IMO… but never forget, he did read an awful lot of comics didn’t he?

Oh, and Deron you may not want to imply that the increased prosperity of the late 1940s and early 50s “created” the delinquent, but I certainly think it’s safe to say that (paradoxically) it was indeed a strong contributing factor (at least among the social demographic I mentioned).