A Crisis of Innocence

Browse Items (21 total)

Andersen - A Study of Leisure-Time Reading.pdf
Discusses a questionnaire given to nearly 700 junior high school students to determine how they liked to spend their leisure time. The results of the survey determined that comic books were the most popular reading choice overall, though fiction was…

Bloody Mary, pg. 10.tiff
Comic book story that depicts an innocent-looking young girl murdering people.

Beware #6 - Borrowed Blood.jpg
Cited by Dr. Wertham in Seduction of the Innocent, Beware #6 features a story about gypsies taking the life of a doctor for killing their son with tainted blood. The child is depicted in a rather innocent fashion within the story.

Connellsville Daily Courier September 3 1941 crop.pdf
Reports a boy's attempts to imitate the comic book "The Hangman" who ended up breaking his neck. "The Hangman" appeared in Pep Comics.

Lethbridge Herald August 28 1948 crop.pdf
Discusses story of 14 year-old Roy Adams who suffocated and performed an "unnatural sex act" on an 8-year-old girl. The altercation allegedly took place following an argument about ownership of a comic book.

Black Magic #12, cover.jpg
Comic cover depicting a boy in a trance, making contact with the dead.

DavidWigransky.jpg
An photograph of David Pace Wigransky who, at the age of fourteen, published a response to the work of Dr. Wertham in the July 24th issue of the Saturday Review of Literature (1948). Wigransky defended comic books, pointing to the many flaws in…

Witchcraft  JVJ  fixed #4 - Page 1.pdf
A child fantasizes about burning things, and grows up to be a pyromaniac.

Walla Walla Union Bulletin December 19 1946 crop.pdf
A 7 year-old boy was found in his bathtub reading a comic book while his house was on fire. While the firemen put out the fire, the boy stayed in the tub reading his comic.

Baldur Gazette, February 22 1951.jpg
Report regarding an 11 year old girl strangling herself to death trying to imitate the cover of a horror comic. This article is from Nova Scotia.
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