| C1 | Here is the lecherous-looking bandit overpowering the attractive girl who is dressed (if that is the word)
for very hot weather ("She could come in handy, then! Pretty little spitfire, eh!") in the typical pre-rape position. Later
he threatens to kill her:
"Yeah, it's us, you monkeys, and we got an old friend of yours here... Now unless you want to see somp'n FATAL happen to
here, u're gonna kiss that gold goodbye and lam out of here!"
Here is violence galore, violence in the beginning, in the middle, at the end:
ZIP! CRASH! SOCK! SPLAT! BAM! SMASH!
(This is an actual sequence of six pictures illustrating brutal fighting, until in the seventh picture: "He's out cold!")
Here, too, is the customary close-up of the surprised and frightened-looking policeman with his hands half-raised saying:
NO - NO! DON'T SHOOT
as he is threatened by a huge fist holding a gun to his face! This is followed by mild disapproval ("You've gone too far!
This is murder!") as the uniformed man lies dead on the ground. This comic book is endorsed by child specialists who are
connected with important institutions. |
| C2 | One man kills his wife with a poker
|
| C3 | One of the worst crime comics boasts: "Distributed in over 25 countries throughout
the world!" - while a picture on the opposite page shows a U.S. Federal Agent knocking a man down
with a rifle butt to the words: "Boy, that's the sweetest sound on earth."
| That sounds like an issue of Crime Does Not Pay.
| C4 | The lead story of one crime comic, for instance, deals with narcotics. It is clear from the wording of the
advertisements that the book is intended for children: "Dad and Mom will want it too." Traffic in narcotics is described and
the high profits alluringly pointed out. |
| C5 | Another crime comic describes the wonderful effects of morphine: "One needleful of joy-juice and you get so
satisfied with the world you forget your obligations!" |
Found! This is actually in a known SOTI book. It comes from the classic Murder, Morphine and Me in True Crime v2#1.
| C6 | The girls living with the criminals are featured, two of them hiding behind a shower curtain. There are seventy-six
pictures of exploits; in the seventy-seventh picture the police take over with a cheap wisecrack.
|
| C7 | So we carefully followed developments. In a crime comic that came out after the code had been in existence
for some time, a representative specimen of this group shows: killing; a policeman knocked out with the usual smart contemptuous
wisecrack: "I can't stick around to explain, copper!"; a man shot in the stomach; a woman mugged and then killed with a hammer
to get her pocketbook; blood; the up-to-date ending of one murder story: "Archer Frize didn't die in the electric chair! The state
psychiatrists found him to be insane!"; detailed instructions about how to hold up a big grocery store; and a brutal murder story
with the murderer not caught by the law, but dying bv accident. (In the story murder is called a "mistake": "I knew it! They all
make mistakes!") |
| C8 | Another comic book expresses the whole philosophy: "Since when do we worry about killin' people?" |
| C9 | Often comic books describe real crimes that have been featured in the newspapers. In adapting them for
children the following points are stressed: the daring and success of the criminals is exalted;
brutal acts are shown in detail; sordid details are emphasized; if there are any sexual episodes
they are featured. In 1952 three men escaped from a penitentiary. They stole cars, evaded the police,
kidnaped people, held up a bank, and were finally caught in New York where they were living with three
girls. A real children's story! In the first picture there is an unmade bed, a half-nude man and a girl.
The prison break is described like a heroic feat. The ease with which you can steal cars in the country
from a farmer is pointed out to youngsters who do not know that yet. One of the criminals boasts to a
little boy that he has killed fifteen or sixteen people, "I lost count." |
| C10 | There was this one case. It was in back of a factory with pretty rich receipts, money.
It showed how you get in through the back door.
|
| C11 | I saw a comic book where they do shoplifting. This girl was shoplifting and she was
caught. They took her down to the Police Department. It was a love story. When she got married she
still shop- lifted and she broke down and told her husband.
|
| C12 | I saw a book where a man has a hanger in his coat with hooks on. He opens his coat
and shoves things in and it disappears. It was a crime comic book....
|
| C13 | Girls are frequent victims of the eye motif, as in the typical: "My eyes! My eyes!
Don't! PLEASE! I'll tell you anything you want to know, only don't blind me! PLEASE!"
|
| C14 | In another comic book the murderer says to his victim: "I think I'll give it to
yuh in the belly! Yuh get more time to enjoy it!"
|
| C15 | I can match this almost verbally [Note: Did Wertham mean 'verbatim'?]: "Let's see you try to take me, you big brave
coppers!" says a comic book on my desk.
|
| C16 | "Fixing" of sporting events has recently been front-page news. I have one accused
boy under psychotherapy right now. In comic books that is old stuff: "Here's 500 now, and you'll
get 500 when it's over!"
| It seems likely this dialogue comes from a "fixed" boxing match. According to eBayer Habib, this is NOT in the boxing story in Racket Squad in Action #9.
| C17 | Of course playing hookey from school is one of the smart things described by
comic-book characters:
"But we better hurry or we'll be late for school!"
"Aw, the heck with school, Harvey! I'm not goin' today. Brains will never get you any place.
It's MUSCLES that'll do it! Look at the easy duce-spot [sic] it made me just now!"
|
| C18 | Forgery is, of course, also described in comic books. The preferred method is
to pick up a blotter which has been used and copy the signature with the aid of a mirror.
|
| C19 | From one book you can learn how to cut through the glass and break into a store
and how to stop the noise when you do break in: "Pile the blankets on to smother the noise!"
|
| C20 | One book shows how to steal the money box from the 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.
|
| C21 | Another comic book shows how a youngster can murder for profit. He gets a job as
a caddy, loses the ball, then kills the player when he goes searching for it.
|
| C22 | In a recent comic book which has the "Seal of Approval of Comics Magazine Publishers,"
and is sold in New York subways, you learn that after a robbery you can escape more easily if you shoot
out the source of light; you learn how to trade in guns; how to hijack ammunition; how to impersonate
regular soldiers (I have had several cases of young people doing just that); and, of course, how to
torture and kill a "squealer."
|
| C23 | Comic books give visual aid about "the mailbox angle" used for stealing checks.
In an apartment house "with self-service elevators" you let the elevator go to another floor.
But how to get the letter out of the mailbox? "Yeah! It's coming out! This pencil and gum did the trick!"
I have seen several children who did exactly that - taking mail from their parents' mailbox - and who had
learned it from this source.
|
| C24 | A man's pocketbook is stolen on the subway. Millions of little boys learn how to do that:
"Did someone
shove a newspaper in your face? And were you shoved from the rear at the same time? I can see that's what
happened. The pickpocket got it while you were upset by the shove." Lesson completed.
|
| C25 | How to steal a woman's pocketbook is outlined, too. According to the stories it may be
done skillfully
and peacefully, but if that does not work, just hit them over the head.
|
| C26 | “In the comic books it shows how to snatch purses. You should read them if you got the
time [To me.]. It shows a
boy going to a woman and asking her where the church is. She naturally drops her arm and goes waving.
So you just grab the purse and run. Usually they can't run after you. She has the bag in her hand, waving
to a certain place. You just grab her arm. It was in different comic books. They all build that stuff up.
You pick desolate places, where nobody is around."
|
| C27 | A: Girls read mostly Crimes by Women
Q: Which crimes do women commit?
A: Murder. ..They will be a dancer and meet the wrong kind of a guy and get involved in a bank robbery.
| This is another one from Crimes By Women. However, when Wertham quotes kids who discuss that they saw, or believe they saw,
it's apparent that the kids' descriptions of comics aren't always correct.
| C28 | Another boy defended Crimes by Women and showed a copy of Penalty which he said was worse.
"It shows how to commit burglaries, holdups. A gangster has a hand on a girl's shoulder He is working his
way down to her headlights."
| Another one, from Crime Must Pay the Penalty, that should't be too tough to find.
| C29 | In one such drawing, a girl is tied nude to a post. A handkerchief is stuffed into her mouth.
On the floor are her discarded panties. In front of her is a boy heating some torture instruments over a
fire. On his chest is the S of the superman. |
| Lost SOTI Horror Comics |
| H1 | A man provides murder victims for his wife, who drinks their blood. He grabs a
newsboy for her and she says over his bound body: "His throat is as white and soft as a swan's! So tender and youthful!"
|
| H2 | In a typical specimen a man-eating shark changes into a girl. You are shown the
gruesome picture of an arm bitten off by the shark with blood flowing from the severed stump. And the moral ending?
"No one would ever believe . . . that the ghost of a lovely girl could inhabit a shark's body..."
|
| H3 | "His body was torn to shreds, his face an unrecognizable mass of bloody and clawed flesh!"
|
| Lost SOTI Jungle Comics |
| J1 | …graphic pictures of the white man shooting colored natives as though they were animals: "You sure must
have treated these beggars rough in that last trip though here!" |
| Lost SOTI Romance Comics |
| R1 | In one love comic a demonstration is given of how to steal a "very expensive gown,
Paris original" from a department store:
"I'll slip it on in the dressing-room. They won't notice me! I'll put it in that box and walk out,
while the saleslady is busy with someone else! ... I walked out, trying to keep calm, trying to
look and act natural ... Nobody has seen me! Ohh! If I can only reach the door!"
|
| R2 | The youthful reader can also acquire the technique of how to seduce a girl. First
you get her boy friend away on a fictitious errand, "knowing it would keep him for most of the
night." After a dance you invite the girl for "a little bite" at "a road house just over the state line":
NICKY: Here we are, Gale! A nice little private booth! Like it?
GALE: Yes' - (I wouldn't for the world let Nicky think I wasn't sophisticated enough to appreciate it!)
Then you make love to her.
GALE: Nicky! Let me go! All these people!
NICKY: You're right, honey! What do we want all these people for? Let's go upstairs to the terrace!
"Upstairs was a long, narrow hall with five or six doors! Nicky opened the nearest one and I found
myself in a small, shoddy- looking room!"
NICKY: I think we'll be much more comfortable in here, don't you, honey?
GALE: Nicky! I want to go home! Please let me go!
NICKY: Home was never like this, baby! Come on, give papa a kiss!
|
| R3 | I asked her about stealing in love comics. She laughed, "Oh, they do it often. A boy
stole a bracelet from a girl he loves very much. He got caught but she still loved him. He spent a
term in jail. When he got out he did it again and got sent up to jail again. The girl went to jail
to see him, but she fell in love with another boy and got married."
|
| R4 | Adolescent girls are not helped by this bit from a love comic: "How long can a beautiful
woman wait for love? Is it a crime to take passion where it is found - regardless of mocking faithfulness?
(For the thrilling answer see page 17.)"
|
| R5 | Or, again: "One moment of sin . . . The ugliest sin in the world . . . would it
bring her a lifetime of happiness?" (sic!)
|
| R6 | "Violent passions smouldered in my heart! I burned with love for a man who could never
be mine. In a moment of weakness I surrendered to a tragic impulse and grasped at a forbidden love!"
|
| R7 | Or: "Naive, innocent fool that I was, I thought he was asking me to marry him! But
I found out different fifteen minutes after we checked into the hotel!! My folks hushed it up of
course . . . and I learned to forget. . ."
|
| Lost SOTI Western Comics |
| W1 | A ten-year-old boy was found hanging from a door hook, suspended by his bathrobe
cord. On the floor under his open hand lay a comic book with this cover: a girl on a horse with a
noose around her neck, the rope tied to a tree. A man was leading the horse away, tightening
the noose as he did so. The grief-stricken father said, "The boy was happy when I saw him last.
So help me God, I'll be damned if I ever allow another comic book in the house for the kids to read!" |
| W2 | In a Western comic book the "Gouger" is threatening the hero's eye with his thumb,
which has a very long and pointed nail. This is called the "killer's manicure." He says: "YORE EYES ARE
GONNA POP LIKE GRAPES WHEN OL' GOUGER GETS HIS HANDS ON YOU!... HERE GO THE PEEPERS!"
|
| W3 | Comic books: Knows the names of many comics and says they are all his favorites.
"The Indians shot a man in the eye with an arrow. The soldier took his sword and stuck it in him.
The Indian took the soldier's rifle, killed everyone in the fort and the boy was shot right in
the back and a baby was shot with a bullet and then the troopers came and they warred. I don't
like mystery comics any more 'cause I dream about them and I can't sleep."
|
| W4 | One Western comic gives an illustrated lesson in foul fighting (he "chopped a
powerful rabbit punch") and brutality (he "rammed his knee into Mossman's face with a sickening
thud" and then, when his victim was on the ground, kicked him in the face).
|
| W5 | A Western with a picture of Tom Mix on the cover has in one story no less than sixteen
consecutive pictures of a girl tied up with ropes, her hands of course tied behind her back! She is
shown in all kinds of poses, each more sexually suggestive than the other, and her facial expression
shows that she seems to enjoy this treatment.
| According to eBay user SpyComics, this is not Real Western Hero #70, 72, 73, or 74.
According to eBay user GospelBobby, it's also not
Real Western Hero #78. Ebayer TheLesneyDude was kind enough to check a number of issues of Western Hero ,and didn't find this reference in Western Hero #76,77,83-87, 90,92,93,95,96,101, or 103 either. Ebayer Georgeann61 says it's not #75 either.
| Lost SOTI Funny Animal Comics |
| FA1 | During playroom therapy the boy showed another boy one of his comic books. It was an
animal one, but he grew very excited when describing the exploits in it: A little boy with his
companions were fighting all kinds of animals. He had a little spear with which he poked one animal
in the nose and another in the mouth. Into the face of still another he thrust a flaming torch. But
the real high point was our old friend, the injury-to-the-eye motif: one character in the story
directs a sharp-pointed spear at an animal's eye with the words:
". . . I'll put your eye out!"
|
| Lost SOTI comics- Genere Unknown |
| U1 | What is the social meaning of these supermen, superwomen, super-lovers, super boys, supergirls, super-ducks,
super-mice, super-magicians, super-safecrackers? | No sign of this super safecracker on Google.
| U2 | People are hanged during the French Revolution (when the gallows had been abolished),
the trial of Edward Floyde, important in the fight of the Crown against Parliament, is falsified;
|
| U3 | Where in any other childhood literature except children's comics do you find a
woman called (and treated as) a "fat slut"?
|
| U4 | Once I saw in a science comic where this beast comes from Mars. It showed a man's
hand over his eyes and streams of blood coming down.
| It should be noted that when a child relates what he/she recalls from a comic book, the story the child tells
might not be completely accurate (such as the inaccurate retelling of the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde issue of Classics Illustrated). Therefore this exact story may not exist.
| U5 | There was a girl who stole in a department store and nobody saw her.
So she is going out of the store, so this man he grabbed her. When she got to her home she thought
nobody was following her. Then they took her to the police station and said if she did it any more
they'd have to put her away.
|
| U6 | A young soldier "keeping watch in his foxhole in Korea" is exterminated by a ghost:
"The fangs and talons of the evil witch sank deeper into the jugular vein and then came out, withdrawing
rich red blood. The young man sank forward, face up, dead!
|
| U7 | There is the book with the story of the "itch-ray projector," with illustrations
which might be taken directly from Nazi magazines like Streicher's Stuermer.
|
| U8 | A four-year-old boy in Florida looked through his brother's comic books and his
mother found him under a tree stark naked, with a long knife in his hands.
Stunned, she asked him why he had undressed himself, and what he was doing. He replied,
"The man in the comics did it." Later he showed her pictures where some Mongols" had a white man
stripped naked and one of them had a long knife to cut out the American's tongue.
|
| U9 | In one which has the "Seal of Approval of Comics Magazine Publishers" young men
fake disease to get out of the army.
|
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