| Slot: |
ACE, 1/1955 |
| Item Description: |
Baffling Mysteries 24 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 4.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Baffling Mysteries #24 is the last pre-code issue in the series. The opening story, “The Sacred Fingers of Princess Thais”, is original to this issue but all the other full-length stories are reprints from other ACE Magazine publications. None of the stories tie back to the cover art.
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| Slot: |
Youthful/Trojan, 10/1952 |
| Item Description: |
Beware 12 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 8.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Beware #12, published by Youthful Magazines, is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 388. On page 388, Wertham itemizes comic book storylines and images that he finds troubling and describes one such story as follows “In one comic book ‘the top horror artist in the entire comic book field’ is confined in the ‘state home for mental defectives’ where his little son goes to visit him. Dialogue at the gate between the guard and the boy: Guard: ‘Yes, I know it’s visiting day. But he’s still too violent.’ Little boy: ‘I-I-just wanted to tell him he’s won the ‘ghoul’ for the most horrible comic book script of the year.’”This example is taken from the story “My Daddy Should Have Listened” contained in Beware #12. The story tells the tale of a comic book artist and writer, aptly writing for Beware Comics, that runs out of ideas and turns to his son and his new found playmate “Willie” for storylines. He gets more than he bargains for when he pays a visit to Willie and finds that his monsters are not imaginative but real! I have included a scan of the page that contains the dialogue described by Wertham.
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| Slot: |
ACE, 1/1953 |
| Item Description: |
Beyond 18 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 4.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Beyond #18 is referenced in Geoffrey Wagner’s “Parade of Pleasure” (POP) in the text on pages 81-82.
Wagner describes Beyond #18 as follows “These crime-terror booklets, seemingly on the increase, show a monstrous reiteration of the morbid, of tombs, electric chairs, mortuaries, surgeries, and so forth. Take The BEYOND no 18: its first story tells of a girl who tries to murder her husband, only to find him turn into a phoenix which finally burns her in its embrace… The second is a welter of murders committed by a ‘ghost’. The third concerns a man who finds a severed hand in a Ming dynasty box. This hand steals his girl-friend in a fine scene and eventually strangles the man himself while he is in a strait-jacket in a lunatic asylum… The fourth story starts off with a man dying in the electric chair, but he proves unkillable and returns to life to run a gang of crooks in a city where the police are powerless to stop him with mere bullets. In the end his body decays, rather contradictorily, and ‘Jules Scholler dragged his rotting body to the dump. There, amidst the burning garbage, he committed his tortured soul to the flames.’
As described by Wagner, I have included a scan of the panel of Jules Scholler committing his rotting body to the dump.
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| Slot: |
ACE, 7/1954 |
| Item Description: |
Beyond 27 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.0 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
The Beyond #27 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 111.
Wertham offers a story from The Beyond #27 as an example of extreme violence in the comics of the 1950s. He describes a passage as follows “In many comics stories there is nothing but violence. It is violence for violence’s sake. The plot: killing. The motive: to kill. The characterization: killer. The end: killed. In one comic book the scientist (‘mad,’ of course), Dr. Simon Lorch, after experimenting on himself with an elixir, has the instinct to ‘kill and kill again.’ He ‘flails’ to death two young men whom he sees changing a tire on the road. He murders two boys he finds out camping. And so on for a week. Finally he is killed himself.”
Wertham is clearly describing the story “Strange Potion of Dr. Lorch” from The Beyond #27. I have included a scan of the page where a bestial Dr. Lorch flails to death two young men changing a tire as described by Wertham on page 111.
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| Slot: |
Harvey, 6/1952 |
| Item Description: |
Black Cat Mystery Comics 36 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
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: |
Harvey, 9/1952 |
| Item Description: |
Black Cat Mystery Comics 39 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 8.0 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
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: |
Harvey:Chamber of Chills |
| Item Description: |
Chamber of Chills 7 |
| Grade: |
CGC 9.0 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Chamber of Chills #7 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 389. On page 389, Wertham provides a narrative on comic book murder as follows “The stories of murder go from the simple through the gruesome to the weird. One man kills his wife with a poker, another shoots a wolf which is his wife, a third becomes transformed into a huge crab and eats her.” The crab reference comes from the story “Crawling Death” contained in Chamber of Chills #7. I have included a scan of the page from the story that shows the man being transformed into a crab and dining on his wife.
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| Slot: |
Ziff-Davis:Eerie Adventures |
| Item Description: |
Eerie Adventures 1 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
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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| Slot: |
Story:Fight Against Crime |
| Item Description: |
Fight Against Crime 15 |
| Grade: |
CGC 4.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Fight Against Crime #15 is depicted in Geoffrey Wagner’s “Parade of Pleasure” (POP) as both black & white, and color illustrations.
An interior page of POP contains a black and white illustration of the cover of Fight Against Crime #15. The black & white illustration appears alongside other comic covers with the caption “Crime and politics go side by side in some typical crime and superman-comics”.
The color illustration of the cover of Fight Against Crime #15 is located on the POP dust jacket. Its located in the 2nd row of comics 3rd in from the left.
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| Slot: |
ACE:Hand of Fate |
| Item Description: |
Hand of Fate 8 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 4.0 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Hand of Fate #8 is the first issue in the Hand of Fate series. Before converting to Hand of Fate this comic was formerly titled “Men Against Crime”. The book has four main feature stories: “The Revolt of the Heads”, “Canyon of the Living Dead”, “Death Howls by Moonrise”, and “Monster of the Bayous”. None the feature stories tie back to the cover art.
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| Slot: |
EC:Haunt of Fear |
| Item Description: |
Haunt of Fear 19 |
| Grade: |
CGC 6.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Haunt of Feat #19 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) as illustration #1 with the caption “A comic-book baseball game. Notice the chest protector and other details in the text and pictures.”
Illustration #1 comes from the story “Foul Play” contained in Haunt of Fear #19. It depicts a ghastly scene where baseball players are using a severed head for a ball, a torso for a chest protector and actual hands for baseball gloves. Classic horror that Wertham found to be quite objectionable.
In addition to the SOTI, Wertham also used the “Foul Play” story during his testimony to the U.S. Senate during their 1954 hearings on comic books. He described the story to the Senate as follows
“Dr. WERTHAM. Now, the question arises, and we have debated it in our group very often and very long, why does the normal child spend so much time with this smut and trash, we have this baseball game which I would like you to scrutinize in detail. They play baseball with a deadman’s head. Why do they do that?
The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, do you want to put this up here on exhibition and explain it?
Dr. WERTHAM. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, I can’t explain for the reason that I can’t say all the obscene things that are in this picture for little boys of 6 and 7. This is a baseball game where they play baseball with a man’s head; where the man’s intestines are baselines. All his organs have some part to play. The torso of this man is the chest protector on one of the players. There is nothing left to anybody’s morbid imagination.
Mr. BEASER. That is from a comic book?
Dr. WERTHAM. That is from a comic book. I would be glad to give you the reference later on. It is a relatively recent one.
Senator HENNINGS. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the doctor a question at this point?
The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Missouri.
Senator HENNINGS. Doctor, I think from what you have said so far in terms of the value and effectiveness of the artists who portray these things, that it might be suggested implicitly that anyone who can draw that sort thing would have to have some very singular or peculiar abnormality or twist in his mind, or am I wrong in that?
Dr. WERTHAM. Senator, if I may go ahead in my statement, I would like to tell you that this assumption is one that we had made in the beginning and we have found it to be wrong. We have found that this enormous industry with its enormous profits has a lot of people to whom it pays money and these people have to make these drawings or else, just like the crime comic book writers have to write the stories they write, or else. There are many decent people among them. Let me tell you among the writers and the cartoonists – they don’t love me, but I know that many of them are decent people and they would much rather do something else than to what they are doing.”
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| Slot: |
Story:Mysterious Adventures |
| Item Description: |
Mysterious Adventures 11 |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.0 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Mysterious Adventures #11 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 84. On page 84, Wertham describes comic book scenes that he found disturbing. One such passage reads as follows “A counterpart to the girl who dreams about murder and morphine is the equally blond girl in another comic book who muses over a cigarette: ‘I like to remember the past! It was so wonderful!’ What was ‘so wonderful?’ This girl was the young wife of a Nazi concentration-camp guard. You see him hit a half-nude prisoner with a truncheon while she says: ‘Hit him again, Franz! Make him bleed more! Hit him!’ Evidently the industry thinks that some children learn slowly, for the same scene is repeated in a close-up: ‘Hit him some more, Franz! Hit him! Make him bleed more, Franz! Make him bleed!’ And later she says: ‘I like to remember the prisoners suffering, the beatings and the blood!’”The scene that Wertham describes comes from the story “A Grave Diggers Terror!” contained in Mysterious Adventures #11. I have included a scan of the title page from this story that shows Frieda (the blond girl) urging Franz to beat the prisoner. The story unfolds as Wertham describes with the twist at the end that Frieda is a vampire and she is killed, along with her husband Franz, by the ghoul of a prisoner that was killed as a result of their beatings.
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| Slot: |
Star:Spook |
| Item Description: |
Spook 24 Universal |
| Grade: |
CGC 7.0 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Spook #24 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on pages 182-183.
Wertham believed that comic books, through the depiction of masochistic sexual fantasies, contributed to sexual delinquency in children. On pages 182-183 he describes one such example “Typical masochist fantasies that could be straight out of Sacher Masoch are offered to little boys and girls by the comic-book industry. In one story a baroness has two male slaves. They ‘obey her every whim while she lorded it over them with a savage tyranny!’ The accompanying picture shows the baroness, whip in hand. She talks about forcing a man ‘to come to me on his knees’ and speaks of him as ‘my willing slave.’ In one scene which might be from a case history by Krafft-Ebing you see her whipping a man who is crouched on the floor: ‘So! You dare to kiss me, do you, you dog? Take that! And that!’”
The story referenced by Wertham was originally printed in Inside Crime #2 under the title “The Mad Baroness - Peril in Paradise” and reprinted in Spook #24 under the title “Mad Demon of the Grave”. It’s unclear what comic book Wertham used when referencing the story described on pages 182-183 so both comics are considered SOTI references.
I have included a scan of the panel that contains the Baroness whipping the “dog” that dared to kiss her.
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| Slot: |
Superior:Strange Mysteries |
| Item Description: |
Strange Mysteries 10 |
| Grade: |
CGC 8.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
Strange Mysteries #10 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) in the text on page 181.
Wertham believed that comic books were having a negative effect on the sexual development of children and described a story from Strange Mysteries #10 as an example of the sexual sadism children were being exposed to in comic books. He describes the story as follows “Some comic books describe sexual sadism with its most morbid psychological refinements. In a recent comic book a man makes love to a married woman, while her husband, whose leg has been injured by the lover, has to look helplessly on. The lover kisses the girl, taunting the husband all the while. The girl gets sexually so excited by this perverse situation that she exclaims: ‘Stop! I can’t stand it any more!’”
Wertham pulls his example from the story “Revenge Can Be Fatal!” While his generally description of the story is accurate, Wertham, as he is apt to do, is careless with the details. A close reading of the panel shows it is not the woman that exclaims “Stop! I can’t stand it any more!” – Rather it is her husband who asks them to stop. Please see that attached scan from the story for more details.
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| Slot: |
Charlton:Thing |
| Item Description: |
Thing 9 |
| Grade: |
CGC 5.5 |
| Research: |
View Comic |
Owner Comments
The Thing! #9 is referenced in Fredric Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (SOTI) as illustration #33 with the caption “Stomping on the face is a form of brutality which modern children learn early” and in the text on page 388.
The text reference on page 388 comes in the form of a description of the story “Mardu’s Masterpiece” contained in Thing! #9. Wertham describes the story as follows “A painter ties the hands of his model to the ceiling, stabs her and uses her blood for paint. (Flowing blood is shown in six pictures.)”.
Illustration #33 comes from the story “Operation Massacre” contained in Thing! #9. In this story a scientist invents a robot that can be controlled through brain waves. He demonstrates the technology to a group of businessmen and one (Marko) decides to take the technology for himself. Marko murders the scientist and directs the robots to take over the city. Along the way, when the people resist his takeover, he lets his rage get carried away and commands the robots to destroy all humans. In an ironic twist, the robots start on him first and delivery a bit of face stomping that Wertham found offensive. I have included a scan of the page from the story that contains the face stomping in full color!\
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