The Great Comic Book Scare

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios

History, Society & Culture

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:04.0	History this week, February 4, 1955.
0:10.0	I'm Sally Helm.
0:15.0	The comics, Zarr, has been busy.
0:19.0	Judge Charles F. Murphy is in charge of enforcing the new comics code
0:25.0	meant to make comic books less violent, more family-friendly.
0:29.0	To address a growing backlash against them,
0:32.0	and Murphy's here today to report on that work
0:35.0	to a New York State Legislative Committee.
0:39.0	He's provided them with a series of before and after panels.
0:44.0	In some, it's clear that the comics Zarr, or his minions,
0:48.0	have ordered that a character be plucked from the jaws of death.
0:52.0	Before, three men come across a flaming car.
0:56.0	The speech bubble reads, we found all three dead.
1:01.0	After, same car, no flames.
1:05.0	And the speech bubble says, the men had been knocked out
1:08.0	when the car sideswiped into a tree.
1:11.0	The comics code has been good to these particular reckless drivers.
1:16.0	Another panel shows a dead woman in a tight black dress
1:19.0	lying in a pool of blood.
1:21.0	There's a crowd of onlookers,
1:23.0	one of whom appears to be randomly naked.
	...

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