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Lent, John A., ed. Pulp Demons. International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign. Madison [etc.]: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1999. Added by: joachim (7/20/09, 1:29 AM) Last edited by: joachim (2/22/13, 4:42 PM) |
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| Resource type: Book Language: en: English ID no. (ISBN etc.): 0838637841 BibTeX citation key: Lent1999b Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Collection of essays, Kulturpolitik, Wertham. Fredric Creators: Lent Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press (Madison [etc.]) |
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The campaign in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s to rid comic books of their violent content, and often-times to obliterate the medium itself, had far-reaching and deeply felt reverberations. Spearheaded by moralists, educators, politicians, and psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham, anti-comics crusades led to book burnings, town meetings, periodical discourses, and the draconian Comics Code, recognized as the most oppressive act of self-censorship in this country's history. At issue was the possible link between comic books and juvenile delinquency, although then-current concerns about communist infiltration, lowered educational levels, and moral decay also crept into the arguments. Pulp Demons is the first systematic study of the fallout of the American controversy abroad. Eight distinguished scholars survey the historical roots, chief players, and sociocultural/political implications of anti-comics campaigns in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Using primary data gathered through interviews, content analyses, and searches of private papers and public documents, they fashion a fascinating account overall of one of the most prolonged, wide-ranging, and vicious attacks ever leveled at a mass medium, enveloping a mix of odd bedfellows that included the Communist Party, anticommunist groups, religious denominations, the cartoonists, and others. Table of Contents John A. Lent: Introduction. The Comics Debates Internationally. Their Genesis, Issues, and Commonalities (9) Amy Kiste Nyberg: Comic Book Censorship in the United States (42) Martin Barker: Getting a Conviction. Or, How the British Horror Comics Campaign Only Just Succeeded (69) Goran Jovanovic and Ulrich Koch: The Comics Debate in Germany. Against Dirt and Rubbish, Pictorial Idiotism, and Cultural Analphabetism (93) Monica Gleason: “They have a bad effect”. Crime Comics, Parliament, and the Hegemony of the Middle Class in Postwar Canada (129) Graeme Osborne: Comics Discourse in Australia and Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent (155) John A. Lent: Comics Controversies and Codes. Reverberations in Asia (179) Martin Barker: Fredric Wertham—The Sad Case of the Unhappy Humanist (215) James E. Reibman: Frederic Wertham. A Social Psychiatrist Characterizes Crime Comic Books and Media Violence as Public Health Issues (234) Appendix A: United States Codes (269) Appendix B: Extract of an Investigation on Comics Carried Out in 1952–53 (280) Appendix C: Criminal Code Provisions of Canada (Incorporating the Fulton Bill—Bill 10) (287) Appendix D: Philippine Codes (288) Contributors (294) Index (296) Added by: joachim Last edited by: joachim |