HORROR: The first time Americas paranoia infected the world - an introduction

 HORROR: The first time Americas paranoia infected the world - an introduction

Welcome to the blog designed to help expand the storey of HORROR: The first time Americas paranoia infected the world – published by the UK comic book company, Markosia publishing (and I might drop a link here so you can order the book is you like what you see).

Published in 2021, this book was a response to a long time held belief that the story of psychiatrist Frederic Wertham and his famous attack on the comic book industry in the 1940s and 50s could not be made into a movie. Maybe another way to put it is why has this story, that’s so famous in the comic book world, not been made into a movie? Over the years I have participated in numerous conversations, either online or in person, and heard many reasons from so many interested in these events why it might be hard to interpret into a story – and some years ago I decided to take on this challenge.   

The simple idea is that you need a story to attach all the events that happened during this time. The government sanction witch hunt into the industry, the great social pressure that was being brought to bare in the worlds media. Without a story this is just a sequence of interesting facts, so I decided to set the book around the story of a few friends – based loosely on my own childhood friends and our comic collecting behaviours.  

Though a novel, almost every story in the book is either a real one or based on a real event that happened to myself or one of my friends… so in a strange way this book is an autobiography of my own comic book collecting.

In the last few years since I actually finished the book and sent it into the publishers, more and more information is being discovered form these times, so I’m hoping to use this blog to expand the stories and information inside the book by highlighting those stores here. I can also add the pictures I had been collecting and a few smaller story’s that did not make the final cut.

Before we get to that, however, how about a little information about the book?

 

PART ONE

In the handful of chapters that make up part one we set up out story. The boys and their world in the late 1940s at school and their seemingly endless search for their favourite comics. We also get a look at the history of the infamous Dr Frederic Wertham and his surprising work with one of America’s first serial killers – the infamous Albert Fish.  

Though this story is traditionally told as an American one – and we do look into the growing moment at the time that comics deserved to be considered a true art form - the war on comic books was actually an international one, with most western governments moving to restrict and ban what they considered dangerous material. Here we investigate how Superman – arguably the world’s first superhero – was based on an idea by one of the giants of psychiatry, German Frederick Nietzsche. His idea of the Übermensch – or supermen – was one that Adolf Hitler and his evil NAZI party built their evil empire around – and they were not happy when two Jewish comic creators in New York started using the same ideas in their latest character.

Nations like England and Australia also had their own native comic industries, and these came under enormous pressure with cheap US comics being imported as ballast in cargo ships. Man of these nations began taking a national stance against these imports and place like the Australian state of Queensland kept the severe restriction imposed at the time for decades.

 

Part Two and three – Violence and crime

One of the real criticisms against comics at the time was that they either promoted sex and violence – or worse, they influence kids and caused them to become more violent and to commit crimes. The world now had the bomb and a growing cold war between the west and the east, and there was a new menace evolving within the nuclear family – teenagers.

Newspapers, radio and even the new medium of television was filing with critics and experts explaining how comics were a bad influence on the kids and they began giving devastating, horrific examples of crimes, suicides and even murders committed by children under the influence of the not-so-funny-pages. Part two is about looking extensively into many of these crimes that were invoked by comic book critics, trying to find out of there is any truth to them. What we uncover will shock and surprise

Across the globe parents began ripping comics out of the hands of their kids – or even stranger – kids themselves began policing their own school yards for anyone devouring this poisonous media – and our boys find themselves with growing opposition against the comic books they love so much.

We Also look into how the taste of the public change, how young kids reading Disney comics soon morph into superhero fans, who then grow into consumers of more adult orientated fare.   

 

Part Four – HORROR.

We end with a new phenomenon in the world…the news and how television created the sense that everything was far more immediate, and the planet seemingly had become a little more dangerous. One of the biggest events in the early years of TV was the live broadcast of the US government hosting hearings into the various crime families that owned the underworld at the time. People began learning what the MAFIA was, and how their operations wee investigation of the growing phenomena of Juvenile delinquency and what could be its causes. Comic books were now on the radar of many governments and the US began a senate inquiry into the industry. This in turn will influence the goring investigation of Communism within the media – and the paranoia that grew from this still affects us today.

This hearing led directly to the investigation of the growing phenomena of Juvenile delinquency and what could be its causes. Comic books were now on the radar of many governments and the US began a senate inquiry into the industry. This in turn will influence the goring investigation of Communism within the media – and the paranoia that grew from this still affects us today.

Many are unaware of Frederic Wertham’s works around the communism scare, and how a single event he was involved with ended with the assassination of a US president.

Out of this paranoia and fear grew a new theme that took the comic world by storm – Horror comics and their most famous procedures, EC comics. As the media continued its attacks on the influence of comics and the US government continued its senate hearings into juvenile crimes – one publisher, Bill Gaines – took the stand to try and stand up for the industry his father helped create…

….it did not go well.

Also investigated is one of the defences that those standing up for comics could have used against the suggestion they were un-American – the outstanding military service of so many cartoonist and comic creators.

 

Part five – a new world

The comic industry was now being strangled by a freshly minted code of conduct – one that would stifle imagination and creativity for the next 3 decades.

Explored is a strange conversation between Alfred Hitchcock, whose movie PSYCHO was being attacked form many of the same thing’s comics had been – and Wertham, who was arguably the man who’d triggered all this censorship in the first place. We also investigate a conversation between Orson Welles and H G Welles - and the effect War of the Worlds had on the American public.

We complete the story of the boys and highlight a real comic creator that murdered and raped – and could have really damaged the comic industry if his story had ever been attached to the industry.