The Great Comic Book Scare
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
February 4, 1955. In a New York courtroom, the Comics Czar takes the stand. He’s in charge of enforcing a new code, meant to keep comic books from corrupting America’s youth, and he’s here to prove that his work has cleaned up the industry. But that afternoon, a noted psychologist named Fredric Wertham argues that his work has not nearly gone far enough. When the hearing comes to a close, the committee is left to decide: what is the future of the comic book? Why did one of the country’s leading psychologists see them as a major threat to American children? And what can the Great Comic Book Scare teach us about moral panics?
Special thanks to our guests, David Hajdu, author of The Ten-Cent Plague; and Jeremy Dauber, author of American Comics: A History.
** This episode originally aired Jan 31, 2022.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:04.7 | History This Week, February 4, 1955. |
| 0:10.2 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:15.3 | The comics czar has been busy. |
| 0:19.9 | Judge Charles F. Murphy is in charge of enforcing the new |
| 0:23.8 | comics code, meant to make comic books less violent, more family-friendly, to address a growing |
| 0:30.5 | backlash against them. And Murphy's here today to report on that work to a New York State |
| 0:36.4 | Legislative Committee. |
| 0:38.9 | He's provided them with a series of before and after panels. |
| 0:44.5 | In some, it's clear that the comics czar, or his minions, have ordered that a character |
| 0:49.6 | be plucked from the jaws of death. |
| 0:52.4 | Before, three men come across a flaming car. |
| 0:57.0 | The speech bubble reads, |
| 0:58.7 | We found all three dead. |
| 1:02.2 | After? |
| 1:03.5 | Same car, no flames. |
| 1:05.9 | And the speech bubble says, |
| 1:07.4 | the men had been knocked out when the car sideswifed into a tree. |
| 1:12.3 | The comics code has been good to these particular reckless drivers. |
| 1:17.0 | Another panel shows a dead woman in a tight black dress lying in a pool of blood. |
| 1:22.3 | There's a crowd of onlookers, one of whom appears to be randomly naked? A note below the drawing reads, |
| 1:29.4 | criticism, put dress on girl in rear and change position on girl in foreground. Take out blood. |
... |
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