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| Slot: |
Authentic Police Cases 3 |
| Item: |
Authentic Police Cases #3 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.5 |
| Cert #: |
0174245001
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Owner Comments
Authentic Police Cases #3 is referenced in the “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) as illustration #9 and also referenced in the text on pages 161 and 181. Illustration #9 depicts a panel from Authentic Police Cases #3 where two thugs are draining the blood from a woman as a means to keep her quiet. The SOTI caption under this illustration is “Outside the forbidden pages of de Sade, you find draining a girl’s blood only in children’s comics”. The blood draining panel and story is a reprint of a story originally told in Red Seal Comics #16.
Overstreet only lists illustration #9 as a SOTI reference and does not list the text references on pages 161 and 181. However, from the text reference on page 161, it’s clear that Wertham is referring to Authentic Police Cases #3. On page 161 he is discussing how children receive crime tips from various comic books. He references a comic book example that contains a page entitled “Lessons for Larceny”, with a subtitle, “Watch for Trouble when a Swindle Backfires”. This clearly references a page in Authentic Police Cases #3. Although Wertham slightly misquoted the comic as the actual title of the page is “Lesson from Larceny”. While Authentic Police Cases #3 reprints stories from Red Seal #16, the “Lessons from Larceny” page was not contained in Red Seal #16 so it’s likely that Wertham used Authentic Police Cases #3 for his SOTI work and not Red Seal Comics #16. However, both books are listed as a SOTI book by Overstreet. The web site www.lostsoti.org is a great resource for more details on this SOTI reference and many others.
The text on page 181 refers to the blood drawing illustration where Wertham describes this panel as a “morbid fantasy”.
I have included a cover scan and a scan of the blood drawing panel for reference.
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| Slot: |
Black Cat Mystery 36 |
| Item: |
Black Cat Mystery Comics #36 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.5 |
| Cert #: |
0174245002
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Owner Comments
Black Cat Mystery Comics #36 is referenced in the text of the “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on pages 270-271. In this section of the SOTI, the author Fredric Wertham provides his analysis on why parents don’t take steps to stop their children from reading comic books. Wertham attributes the inaction to a feeling of “helplessness” by parents particularly mothers. He describes how mothers that raise their voice in objection to comics are attacked by experts for the defense (i.e. comic book publishers) that use “pseudo-Freudian lore” to explain why comic book reading is healthy for children.
Wertham goes on to describe how a fictitious mother (Mrs. Jones) would feel reading Black Cat Mystery Comics #36 to her child Bobby (the comic is not identified directly but can be discerned from the descriptions of the stories and art). In this fictitious reading, the mother selects a comic that appeals to her because it has a full page add showing “forty-four smiling and happy children’s faces”. Upon selecting this comic she is distressed to find that the cover starts with “The Battle of Monsters!” and depicts “an enormous bestial colored human being who is brandishing a club and carrying off a scared blonde little boy in knee pants”. She goes on to read the first story filled with anxiety provoking language: “Look!! Their bodies are crumbling away!!”, “Kill! K-AARGHH!”, “YAIEE-E-E”. Skipping this story the mother begins another entitled “Whip of Death” where a young boy is tied to a mast and whipped to death by a captain. Wertham goes on to describe how the mother gives up reading the comic and decides that if the child-psychiatry and child-guidance expert say: “Bobby needs this to get rid of his aggressions he has to go through with it alone. She can’t take it.” Wertham sums up this section of the book with a simile that reading a comic book violates a child’s mind in a way similar to how a sexual assault violates a young girl - pretty strong stuff even for Wertham.
In closing, to help you experience the trauma this comic inflicted on Bobby and his mom, I have include a scan of the front cover and the first page of the monster story. Prepare to be violated…
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| Slot: |
Black Cat Mystery 39 |
| Item: |
Black Cat Mystery Comics #39 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 8.0 |
| Cert #: |
0915526001
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Owner Comments
Black Cat Mystery #39 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on pages 386-388. The reference is contained in chapter XIV of the SOTI and this chapter, entitled “The Triumph of Dr. Payn”, takes its name from a character in a story from Black Cat Mystery #39.
Wertham begins the chapter with a detailed description of the story “The Body Maker” from Black Cat Mystery #39. The story details the exploits of Dr. Payn, a Frankenstein monster inspired individual, as he goes about murdering and collecting the body parts of beautiful women. After describing the story, Wertham goes on to point out that this gruesome tale is clearly addressed to children by quoting from the letters page of the comic “I enjoy your books very much and read them in bed at night before I go to sleep. I am eleven years old.”
Of the many examples that Wertham uses throughout the SOTI, I found “The Body Maker” to be perhaps his best example of a story that is not suited for young children. The story is well crafted but quite graphic in its lust-murder imagery. Although, as he is apt to do, Wertham is error prone is his description of the story. For example, he describes the opening scene as follows “When you first meet Dr. Payn, he is in his laboratory wearing a white coat. On a couch before him lies a blond young woman with conspicuous breasts, bare legs and the lower part of her skirt frazzled and in tatters, as if she had been roughly handled in strenuous but unsuccessful attempts to defend her honor.” I have included a scan of the opening page of the story. I think Wertham missed the point that the woman looks roughly handled not from defending her honor but because she’s been sewn together in a Frankenstein monster like way.
In addition to “The Body Maker” another story, “The Witch Killer”, from Black Cat Mystery #39 is referenced on pages 387-388. Wertham quotes a passage from the story to provide an additional example of the age inappropriate material contained in comic books “A young solider ‘keeping watch in his foxhole in Korea’ is exterminated by a ghost: ‘The fangs and talons of the evil witch sank deeper into his jugular vein and then came out, withdrawing rich red blood. The young man sank forward, face up, dead!”
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| Slot: |
Blue Beetle 56 |
| Item: |
Blue Beetle #56 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Cert #: |
1028649007
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Owner Comments
Blue Beetle #56 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on page 145. Murder Incorporated #9 reprinted Blue Beetle #56 so Overstreet also lists this as a SOTI book since its unclear what comic Wertham referenced for the SOTI.
On page 145, Wertham describes how the language used in comic books has a negative influence on children. He describes one story as follows: “In one comic book is a sexy picture of a blond female dressed in a string of beads and a scrap of material. She says: ‘a gentleman, he never blackjacked a woman. He hit them with his fists.’ Millions of children have been taught that this kind of thing is the smart thing to say.”
Wertham’s quotation is taken from a short ½ page story contained in Blue Beetle #56. The story recounts the exploits of an infamous gang leader known as Monk Eastman. I have included a scan of the Monk Eastman story panel from Blue Beetle #56.
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| Slot: |
(Bugs Bunny) Four Color 250 |
| Item: |
Four Color #250 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.0 |
| Cert #: |
0186478003
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Owner Comments
Bugs Bunny (Four Color) #250 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on page 309. In the SOTI, Wertham makes a point of describing comic books that appear to be harmless or “good” when in actuality, from Wertham’s perspective; they feature a significant level of cruelty, violence or other undesirable features. With regards to Bugs Bunny (Four Color) #250, Wertham describes how this comic contains racial stereotypes and violence. Specifically, he describes the comic as follows “The same theme of race ridicule is played up in the good animal comic book Bugs Bunny. Colored people are described as ‘superstitious natives’ and you see them running away. The injury-to-the-eye motif is added, Bugs Bunny being shown throwing little diamonds into the eyes of colored people. They are ‘big enough to blind a feller!’ says Bunny. ‘Awk! I can’t see!’ says on victim. Is that not the same crime-comic book ingredient adapted to the younger set?”
For additional reference, I have included a scan of the page from Bugs Bunny #250 that contains the injury to the eye panel.
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| Slot: |
Captain Video 2 |
| Item: |
Captain Video #2 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.0 |
| Cert #: |
0016811008
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Owner Comments
Captain Video #2 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on page 382. In this section of the SOTI, near the end of the book, Wertham is reflecting on the effects of violence on juveniles from other mass media outlets such as television. It is in this context that he describes the crossover of television with comics and uses the example of Captain Video. He goes on to caution readers to not assume that comics based on television shows are any less dangerous than the other crime comics.
With regards to Captain Video #2, he describes the comic as follows: Of course television and crime comic books also meet when comic books are based on television programs. Take the example of Captain Video. This comic book is certainly as bad as other crime comics. There is a lot of assorted violence. Morbid fantasies are conjured up for children, like the one that suddenly mankind’s legs do not function: “All of us have recited our theories and admittedly found them inapplicable! There is no hope for mankind’s regaining the use of its lower extremities!” The treatment for this infirmity costs “one million dollars for each patient.” The hero has a “dreaded electronic ray gun whose scintillating bolt results in complete paralysis.” There is the superman cult of the “one man alone to stem the tide of frightening destruction, guardian of the world.” The injury-to-the-eye motif is not missing, either.”
I have included a scan of the first page of the story “The Time When Men Could Not Walk!” that Wertham cites as his example on page 382.
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| Slot: |
Classic Comics (Great Expectations) 43 |
| Item: |
Classics Illustrated #43 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 5.5 |
| Cert #: |
0987430002
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Owner Comments
Classics Illustrated #43 is referenced in the “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on page 311. On this page, Fredric Wertham, the author of the SOTI, expresses his disdain for comic books that provide condensed versions of classic literature. From Wertham’s viewpoint, comic books that contain versions of classic stories deprive children of the benefits of reading and appreciating the true nature of classic literature. More specifically, with regards to Classics Illustrated #43, Wertham describes the comic as follows: “There is a comic book which has on its cover two struggling men, one manacled with chains locked around hands and feet, the other with upraised fist and a reddened, bloody bandage around his head; onlookers: a man with a heavy iron mallet on one side and a man with a rifle and a bayonet on the other. The first eight pictures of this comic book show an evil looking man with a big knife held like a dagger threatening a child who says: Oh, don’t cut my throat, sir! Am I correct in classifying this as a crime comic? Or should I accept it as what it pretends to be – Dickens’ Great Expectations?”
Here again Wertham returns to the central theme of the SOTI – comic books lack redeeming value in that they are all essentially crime dramas that contribute directly or indirectly to misguiding youth. From Wertham’s perspective this analysis applies to both comic books that portray crime directly as well as those that do so with more subtlety such as those that masquerade as classic literature when, from Wertham’s point of view, they are actually crime based distortions of the classics.
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| Slot: |
Crime and Punishment 2 |
| Item: |
Crime and Punishment #2 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.5 |
| Cert #: |
0186478001
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Owner Comments
Crime and Punishment #2 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 161.
In this section of the SOTI, Wertham provides examples of comic books that teach and encourage children to commit crimes. He describes one comic as follows – “Nothing is overlooked in these crime comics, however mean. One book shows how to steal the money box from a blind man who runs the newsstand. Of course, as in the vast majority of criminal acts depicted in comic books, this particular act is successful and not punished.”
The cover of Crime and Punishment #2 fits Wertham’s description nicely and is assumed to be the comic that he is referring to in the passage on page 161.
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| Slot: |
Crime Does Not Pay 64 |
| Item: |
Crime Does Not Pay #64 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.5 |
| Cert #: |
0179801001
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Owner Comments
Crime Does Not Pay #64 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on page 306. In this section of the SOTI, Wertham discusses how comic book publishers use various means and methods to avoid accountability and continue to publish comic books that are harmful to children (at least from his perspective). One such tool is the use of self-censorship codes that publishers developed in response to criticisms of comic book content. On page 306, Wertham references a comic book that published a code on the inside cover of the comic (he is referring to Crime Does Not Pay #63). He goes on to say that this code had a provision that stated that the publisher would not include illustrations that contained blood. Wertham notes that the publisher did not stand by this code as that very issue (Crime Does Not Pay #63) and the following issue (Crime Does not Pay #64) both contained panels with blood. The specific reference for Crime Does Not Pay #64 from the SOTI is as follows: “I looked for the following number of this comic book, after the one that had the code on the inside cover. Did they leave out the blood? No, that was shown again in four consecutive pictures. They left out the code”.
In paging through Crime Does Not Pay #64, I was hard pressed to find “four consecutive pictures” with blood. I believe Wertham was referring to panels included in the first story entitled “Walter Legenza the Gangster” illustrated by George Tuska. In this story, Legenza and his crew rough up Lizzie Phillips and leave her for dead and there are four panels in close proximity that, if you stretch the definition, show blood on Lizzie’s face. I’ve include a scan of one of the pages that includes these panels (upper right corner) – now it’s up to you to decide if this broke the no blood code!
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| Slot: |
Crime Smashers 1 |
| Item: |
Crime Smashers #1 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.0 |
| Cert #: |
0967135002
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Owner Comments
A panel from Crime Smashers #1 is referenced in the “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) as illustration #20 with the caption “A girl raped and murdered”. The comic is also referenced in the text on pages 19-20.
In the text passages, Fredric Wertham, the author of the SOTI, describes a story from Crime Smashers #1 (the story name is Sally the Sleuth in “Death Bait”) and its “brutal near-rape scenes”. Wertham details the Sally the Sleuth story as follows:
The story begins like this: “Late one night, in the suburbs of a large city, the moon looks down on the figure of a lone girl as she walks along a block of slumbering homes… Anything can happen at this hour!” Forthwith it does. For example:
1) The girl walking along with a dark figure, his arm stretched out toward her, lurking behind.
2) The girl falling over, her breast prominent, her skirt thrown up to reveal black net panties, the “attacker” a black, shadowed figure learning over her.
3) He “drags her into the gloom,” holding his hand over her mouth and tearing off her coat.
4) He has her on the ground behind some bushes.
5) A girl, murdered, and presumably raped, is shown on the ground with her clothes disordered and torn.
6) Another girl being choked from behind. Screams: “AI-EEEK!!”
7) “The Strangler” locks her in a warehouse, saying: “I’ll kill you just like I did the others – then I’ll crawl down the trap door and get away under the dock – Ha! Ha!”
In actuality, the story is significantly different than Wertham’s account. Sally, the main female character portrayed in the story, is an undercover cop that is quite capable of defending herself. In Wertham’s version, as detailed above, you would think that Sally, the woman in the opening scene, is stalked, raped and killed by the attacker but that’s not what happens in the story. Instead, the attacker flees from Sally during the attack as her fellow police officers close in. Sally gains enough information from this initial attack to ultimately outwit the perpetrator and, in the end, dispatches him with her “single shot lipstick revolver”. A young woman is killed in the story but the only panel associated with that incident is the one shown in SOTI where the milkman discovers the body. In my opinion, Wertham overdramatized the story to make his point about brutality in comic books. Besides the cover scan, to give a better overall flavor for the story, I’ve included a scan of the entire page that contains the panel that’s referenced as an illustration in the SOTI. To read the full story, check out the digital comic museum web site (www.digitalcomicmuseum.com). This web site provides free online versions of many golden age comic books.
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| Slot: |
Crime SuspenStories 20 |
| Item: |
Crime SuspenStories #20 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Cert #: |
0174245003
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Owner Comments
The cover from Crime SuspenStories #20 is referenced in the “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) as illustration #10. The caption under the illustration is “Cover of a children’s comic book.” Fredric Wertham, the author of the SOTI, obviously thought that the cover spoke for itself and needed no explanation in order to support his theories that comic books were inappropriate reading material for children and a key contributing factor to juvenile delinquency. While artist Johnny Craig’s cover is a classic of pre-code horror and crime comics, it’s not hard to image why graphic covers such as this created public outcry and calls for censorship in 1950s society.
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| Slot: |
Crimes By Women 10 |
| Item: |
Crimes by Women #10 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Cert #: |
0915397002
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Owner Comments
Crimes by Women #10 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 72. In this section of the SOTI, Wertham provides examples from his “Hookey Club” to demonstrate the deleterious effects that comic books have on children. The Hookey Club was a collection of chronically truant teenagers that Wertham assembled for group therapy. On page 72, Wertham provides an account from a 14 year old girl in the Hookey Club to demonstrate that the lessons children learn from crime comic books is how to avoid making mistakes when committing crimes rather than avoiding crimes in general:
Q: Which comic books to you read mostly?
A: Girls read mostly Crimes by Women
Q: Which crimes do women commit?
A: Murder. They marry a man for his life insurance and then kill him, then marry another man and then just go on like that until they finally get caught. Or they will be a dancer and meet the wrong kind of a guy and get involved in a bank robbery.
Q: What’s the fun for you in reading that?
A: It shows you other people’s stupid mistakes.
The story, as described by the 14 year girl, is contained in Crimes by Women #10 hence its reference as a SOTI book.
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| Slot: |
Dagar Desert Hawk 19 |
| Item: |
Dagar Desert Hawk #19 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.0 |
| Cert #: |
0940753006
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Owner Comments
Dagar Desert Hawk #19 is referenced in the “Seduction of the Innocent” on page 180. In the passages on this page Wertham discusses the use of various sadistic sexual themes in comic books including the depiction of erotic hangings. More specifically, he states the following:
In a comic book, typically full of blood, violence and nudity, the erotic hanging theme is exploited. The average reader, of a generation not brought up on comics, may not realize the connection between sex and hanging, with one of the typical perverse fantasies for wishing to hang an undressed girl and watch her struggles. But this is made abundantly clear to children in their daily reading matter. In one story a man “kills for sport.” There is a sequence with illustrations of half-nude girls where he makes this comment: “Ho-Ho! What a hangman I make! The police are blundering fools! But I am an artist! My noose will fit around that pretty’s neck!” In the next picture the blond girl, clad in a noose, a bra and bikini trunks is hanging from a tree. And you see her again, hanging “in a death struggle.”
Wertham’s description is clearly referring to a story starring the jungle character Tangi written by Alec Hope contained in Dagar Desert Hawk #19. In this story, an escaped convict makes his way to a jungle island and conducts several murders through the use of hangings. Just as Wertham describes, one of the hangings involves the main character Tangi - a scantily clad young women warrior of the jungle. She ultimately escapes the attempted hanging and dispatches the bad guy with a hanging of her own. I have include a scan of the page from this story with Tangi in her death struggle – its up to you to decide if Wertham was right in his analysis of this being an exploitation of a sadistic sexual theme. To read the full story, check out the digital comic museum web site (www.digitalcomicmuseum.com). This web site provides free online versions of many golden age comic books.
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| Slot: |
Dagar Desert Hawk 21 |
| Item: |
Dagar Desert Hawk #21 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Cert #: |
0075965001
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Owner Comments
Dagar Desert Hawk #21 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on page 104.
One of Wertham’s concerns articulated in the SOTI included the tendency of comic books to depict non-white individuals as inferior. For example, on page 104, he noted that “A large part of the violence and sadism in comic books is practiced by individuals or on individuals who are depicted as inferior, sub-human beings. In this way children can indulge in fantasies of violence as something permissible.” He goes on to note several examples and cites a panel from Dagar Desert Hawk #21 “In another comic book the hero throws bombs and a Negro from his airplane. A picture shows the bombs and the Negro in mid-air while the hero calls out: ‘BOMBS AND BUMS AWAY!’”
The “Bombs and Bums Away” panel is contained in a story entitled “Flood of Death”. In this story, the hero, Safari Cary, is seeking to protect the native population from the manipulations of a tobacco plantation owner. The plantation owner has dammed a river and Cary, using his cargo plane, is planning to destroy the dam. Along the way, one of the plantation workers tries to stop Cary and he is ousted out of the plane along with the bombs meant to destroy the dam. For further reference, I have included a scan of the page from the story that contains the “bombs and bums away” panel.
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| Slot: |
Eerie Adventures 1 |
| Item: |
Eerie Adventures #1 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Cert #: |
0954828001
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Owner Comments
Eerie Adventures #1 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) on pages 316-317. In this section of the SOTI, Wertham is lamenting the legal protections that comic book publishers enjoy and the resistance society has to passing new laws to protect children from the harmful effects of comic books. He references Eerie Adventures #1 to underscore his point as noted below:
“Although in many children’s lives comic books play a role, no adult court, no children’s court, has ever made or ordered a full inquiry in a child’s case. But when the publishers of the comic book Eerie sued the publisher of the comic book Eerie Adventures for using the word eerie on the cover, the New York Supreme Court gave a learned and comprehensive opinion bristling with details and citations: Justice Frank arrived at the truly Solomonic verdict that both publishers could use the word; but that the second publisher must print it ‘reduced in size.’ If the psychological effects on children would receive the same meticulous concern as the financial interests of publishers, some court would have long since ordered that what has to be ‘reduced’ is not the eerie title but the eerie contents!”
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