HAUNTS OF HORROR OR TOMBS OF TORTURE ?

AMERICAN COMIC BOOKS AND THE HORROR GENRE 1939 - 1955

Horror comics play an important part in the history of the American comic book, not the least because they are directly associated with an event which scared and haunted the comic book industry in a very real way - the April 1954 hearings of the US Senate's subcommittee to investigate Juvenile Delinquency. But even at that point in time the concept of what exactly defines a "horror" comic book was very much unclear, and the distinction between gothic horror and pulp terror was more often than not completely obscured.

This preparation work for the hearings had been compiled by Richard Clendenen, chief of the juvenile delinquency branch of the United States Children’s Bureau (Nyberg, 1998), but in all of his preparations Clendenen had not only overlooked the need to provide clear and concise definitions, but was actually confusing the panel himself only minutes into the opening session with terms such as "horror crime comics" (Transcript I, 1954), whilst a specially prepared display featuring various example covers ran the heading "Representative Comic Book Covers / Crime Horror & Weird Variety".

When Chief Counsel Herbert Wilton Beaser insisted ("When you say crime and horror comics could you be more specific in describing what you are talking about?", Transcript I, 1954), Clendenen sought refuge in a definition based on a specific example.

Thus lacking even a working definition, the afternoon session of the first day at least seemed to be able to pinpoint the origin of "horror comics" to one person when William C. Gaines, publisher of EC Comics, made his testimonial.

"I publish horror comics. I was the first publisher in these United States to publish horror comics. I am responsible, I started them." (1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings into Juvenile Delinquency, Transcript of the afternoon session, 21 April 1954)

Unfortunately, this claim did not correspond to the facts either and only added to the muddled collection of anecdotal and hearsay input the hearings produced.

Whilst Gaines was the undisputed number one publisher of horror comics at the time, he was not the first to introduce the genre to the medium. Whereas EC Comics began to publish its line of horror titles (Weird Fantasy, Weird Science, The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror) as of 1950, other publishers had done so since 1947.

Black Magic #29 (March 1954)

Ultimately, the famous Senate hearings on comic books were thus conducted without a valid general definition of their subject and instead relied entirely on individual case data and ad hoc terminology for their entire duration. Given the results (creation of a watchdog body in the form of the Comics Code Authority) and the aftermath felt by the industry (with many publishers partially or wholly closing down shop and staff as well a sfreelancers looking for new jobs), this may seem a rather astonishing and inadequate form of procedure for a government body. However, it needs to remembered that although still an industry selling a mass-market product (Wertham himself was lamenting in 1948 that the number was 60 million copies a month [(Wymann, 2010)]), comic books and the individuals who created, produced and distributed them were not part of the general public's awareness nor concern, let alone appreciation. This fact of life for the comic book industry had been underscored a few years earlier as the Supreme Court delivered its ruling in the case of Winters v. People of the State of New York (333 U.S. 507, 1948) on 29 March 1948, when it overturned a New York state law prohibiting the publication or distribution of "true crime" magazines and comic books.

"Though we can see nothing of any possible value to society in these magazines, they are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature." (US Supreme Court, 333 U.S. 507, 1948)

Furthermore, the 1954 Senate hearings were to no small extent the result of years of continued and systematic pressuring by anti-comics groups and its leading figures such as Fredric Wertham. Discrediting the medium and the industry wherever and whenever the occasion would arise, Wertham and his brothers in arms had long since dictated the language and the approach used to discuss comic books as much as the agenda itself; for them, the 1954 hearings were nothing short of the nationwide tribunal they had sought for so long.

One of the minor resulting outcomes of this setup was that the history of the horror genre in US comic books would be muddled for decades to come.

Defining horror comic books and setting them apart from pulp fiction (i.e. distinguishing horror from terror) is primarily made difficult by the fact that the emerging American comic book industry of the early 1930s was not just connected with the pulp magazine market but actually grew out of it. Several publishers of comic books were in fact publishers of pulp fiction who had diversified into the new medium, including the two big names dominating today's comic book market. Both have a pedigree of direct descendancy from the pulp magazine industry through Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (who launched Detective Comics, or DC for short) and Martin Goodman (who founded Marvel's forerunner Timely Comics).

Pulp magazines were widely published in the US from 1896 through to the 1950s, their name being a reference to the cheap "wood pulp" paper used in their production. Within their 100+ pages they mostly featured lurid and exploitative stories which were often accompanied by similarly sensational cover art. The combination of cheap printing on cheap paper featuring stories written by cheap authors provided affordable entertainment to the readers and became a successful business for the publishers - the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue in the 1920s and 1930s (Haining, 2000). But even though this success resulted in the pulps branching out into virtually all conceivable genres, "weird menace" titles always remained a mainstay for pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s.

However, this horror feature remained highly episodic as the Frankenstein stories were virtually submerged in the otherwise almost exclusively superhero themed content which featured on the remaining 56 out of 64 pages of each issue of Prize Comics. Before too long the wartime success of the superhero genre would even make substantial inways into Briefer's Frankenstein version, and by October 1942 (Prize Comics #24) the Monster had been introduced to the ranks of caped protectors and even found himself battling Nazis in Europe (Goulart, 2001).

After the end of the war, the character underwent yet another change and even became a humour feature from 1945 until 1952, starting out in Crestwood's Frankenstein #1. This versatile accessibility of gothic horror to both the superhero and the humour genre - as demonstrated by Prize Comics - was discovered very quickly by publishers and would become a significant trait of the genre in the 1950s and 1960s.

Myers built on his previous pulp fiction publishing experience and pursued a policy which aimed at having a distinctly "popular appeal" rather than striving for any literary merits. As a consequence, Avon predominantly published ghost stories, sexually-suggestive love stories, fantasy novels and science fiction in its early paperbacks. Myers and his sister knew their trade, and a number of acknowledged authors such as Raymond Chandler, Robert E. Howard and James M. Cain had stories published in Avon's titles such as Murder Mystery Monthly, Modern Short Story Monthly or Avon Fantasy Readers (Canja, 2002).

As with many Avon titles still to come, many would never see a second issue, but after a short hiatus the Myers were back for more and, in January 1947, launched Eerie Comics, a horror-only comic book, and Cow Puncher Comics, a Western title. These were followed later on that same year by The Saint, Penny (a Romance title) and Peter Rabbit Comics.

From an overall perspective, Eerie Comics #1 not only was the first all-horror genre comic book, but it featured several plot archetypes which would become moulds for future horror comic books. It is therefore not only import for the history of comic books as such, but it also has great relevance for both the content and imagery of what would become the genre of horror comics only a few years later, and the influence can still be seen right up to this day. Not all "firsts" in comic book history have aged as well as Eerie Comics #1.

That month, the American comic book market witnessed the first sign of a significant change with regard to the horror genre, although few could probably sense the importance of two specific comic book titles which had started out in the Spring of 1947 and 1948 respectively as International Comics #1 and War against Crime # 1 and which were now reworked, renamed and relaunched as Crypt of Terror #17 and Vault of Horror #12 by a smallish publisher called EC Comics.

Only one month after the publication of Crypt of Terror #17 and Vault of Horror #12, EC reworked yet another of its titles into the horror anthology format: Haunt of Fear #15, which was issued in May 1950, had started out in life in Summer 1947 as a funny title called Fat and Slat for four issues before being turned into a Western comic book called Gunfighter in Summer 1948.

Whilst some stories contained critical authoring and a good sense of black humour, others left even some of the EC staff offended with the questionable taste displayed in the tale (Jacobs, 1972). But overall Gaines and his creative team connected to an adolescent readership, partly also because of the way EC addressed its readers. On one hand, they were greeted in each issue by a trio of ugly hosts (the Old Witch, the Crypt Keeper and the Vault Keeper) who acted as sardonic commentators and mocked and teased readers ("Greetings, boils and ghouls...") with their twisted sense of humor. On the other, Gaines successfully pioneered a house style which formed a relationship with its readers through its letters pages and its fan organization, the "National EC Fan-Addict Club".

"We were just bopping along trying to make a buck and trying to keep alive." (William Gaines in Groth, 1983)

Gaines was also ahead of his time in the way he looked upon and treated his illustrators. Contrary to the established common practice of the industry at the time, EC allowed the artists to sign their art, encouraged them to develop idiosyncratic styles and even promoted their names by publishing one-page biographies.

"Every story was custom-made for the artist. Al and I would sit down and the first thing I would say - because I kept the schedule - would be, "today we're writing an eight-page lead for Ingels for Haunt of Fear number so-and-so". As soon as I'd say that, both our minds are in a certain frame of reference for Ingels. It's not going to be a Jack Kamen story, which is a whole different can of worms. Kamen, you're looking for something light, humorous, pretty women, a little sex, a little double entendre. With Ingels, you know what we're looking for: Yuchh! Rotting corpses, moors, like this. So we knew exactly who we were writing for." (William Gaines in Groth, 1983)

Al Feldstein was joined by Harvey Kurtzmann as editor, and EC quickly attracted more prominent and highly accomplished freelance artists, including Frank Frazetta, Bernard Krigstein, Joe Orlando, John Severin, and Al Williamson, as well as additional writers including Carl Wessler, Jack Oleck and Otto Binder (Goulart, 2001).

Adventures into Terror #43
(November 1950)

Strange Tales #1
(June 1951)

"Horror comics began to show more gore, more violence, ever more explicitly. It became a matter of topping what had come before: if one issue showed a man killing his wife, the next would top that by having him hack his wife to pieces, and the next would top that by having him eat her corpse." (Watt-Evans, 1997)

First out of the starting box in pursuit of EC was Atlas (later to become Marvel), not the least because publisher Martin Goodman's house style consisted precisely of this kind of working on the opposite end of innovation. He would follow what he considered to be proven trends - or as Stan Lee put it:

"[Martin Goodman] would notice what was selling, and we'd put out a lot of books of that type" (Daniels, 1991)

With this content managment setup, Atlas (or Timely Comics, as the company was still called up until November 1951) was able to jump onto the new trend very quickly and - even following EC's practice of reworking the title of an existing book - put out Adventures into Terror  #43 in November 1950, thus turning a funny book called Joker into a new trend horror title.

It proved highly successful, and thus Adventures into Terror saw a new issue #3 in January 1951. That very same month yet another publisher eyeing EC's success appeared on the scene in the form of Harvey Comics and their launch of Witches Tales #1. Just like Atlas before, Harvey found that the market was by now in high demand for horror content, leading them to turn Blondie Comics into Chamber of Chills as of issue #21 in June 1951 before finally settling on Chamber of Chills Magazine (although it was still a comic book) after four issues.

Still in June 1951 Atlas issued Strange Tales #1, following EC's gory take on morality even closer than Adventures into Terror. Finally, in December 1951, DC also joined the horror genre bandwaggon by launching House of Mystery #1 - a title which would eventually become one of the longest running horror comic books.

Witches Tales #1
(January 1951)

House of Mystery #1
(December 1951)

Uncanny Tales #1
(June 1952)

Tales of Horror #1
(June 1952)

Weird Horrors #1
(June 1952)

Horrific #1
(September 1952)

On this path to success, the American horror comic book had virtually set aside completely the genre interpretation set up by its very first representative Eerie Comics #1, which had mixed mostly gothic horror fiction elements with only mild infusions from pulp fiction. Instead, publishers had opted to follow the mould cast by EC Comics, incorporating a heavy leaning towards the gory themes and traits of pulp fiction - where gothic fiction elements more often than not only served to set the stage and the appearances of the protagonists. Arguably, opting for the "EC formula" rather than the "Avon approach" of 1947 was a key trigger for the success the genre enjoyed by 1954, but at the same time the elements which worked so well for the horroc comic book on the market would ultimately also cause its downfall.

The basic dilemma was that with great market presence comes great public visibility, and the general public's growing awareness of horror comics came at a time when American society - even though enjoying material comfort and leisure time for the first time after two difficult and tumultuous decades (Oakley, 1986) - was very much in a state of restlessness.

"Americans spent the years moving and searching. They moved physically, from the Northeast to the South and West (...), from rural areas to cities, and from cities to suburbs (...) Many people were content, but many others felt ill at ease because of the speed at which the world was changing. Searching for new ways of coping, they embraced religion and visited psychiatrists in unprecedented numbers." (Dunar, 2006)

It was a search for identity and values, and it also touched upon age issues. The term teenager was rarely used before the 1950s, but now young people began to view themselves as being a distinct group, and their attempts to forge an identity worried their parents who couldn't understand the shift (Patterson, 1996).

"Much to the delight of young people, adults wrung their hands over their children's strange and worrying behaviors (...) Psychologist Robert Linder claimed in 1954 [that] "the youth of the world today is touched with madness, literally sick with an aberrant condition of mind." (Oakley, 1986)

"Think of the many violent crimes committed recently by young boys and girls (...) The common denominator is comic books." (Wertham, 1948)

Towards the end of the 1940s, however, Wertham's influence began to fade. He faced a series of sharp rebukes from several reviewers and commentators from his own profession, and his public and media appearances decreased markedly - until America's growing preoccupation with juvenile delinquency gave the 55-year old psychiatrist a new lease of life as figurehead of the anti-comics movement. For Wertham and his followers, the decision of the US Senate in September 1953 to set up a "Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency" with the aim of providing a “full and complete study of juvenile delinquency in the United States” and “its causes and contributing factors” (Kefauver, 1955) was a godsend. It was not, however, a coincidence.

Fredric Wertham MD
(1895 - 1981)

"Over a period of several months the subcommittee has received a vast amount of mail from parents expressing concern regarding the possible deleterious effect upon their children of certain of the media of mass communication (...) These include “crime and horror” comic books and other types of printed matter; the radio, television, and motion pictures." (Kefauver, 1955)

"Last week the American Book Publishers Council reported (...) "The censors have won a few skirmishes but lost most of the important battles." (...) In Louisville, "the March grand jury recommended establishment of a committee to censor all magazines, comic books and other publications. The Courier-Journal blasted the idea in an editorial asking: 'Who should tell an American what he can read? Congress? The churches? Our own grand jury? None of them, if you ask us.' The committee was not formed." (Time, 1954a)

From Ladies' Home Journal
(November 1953)

Wertham reiterated his general theory that most (if not all) comic books bring out the worst in youngsters and rebuked the criticism he had met in 1949. The only really new element was his highly obscure - if not downright absurd - claim that certain comic book artwork was intentionally conceived to display pornographic illustrations when certain parts of the images were covered up (wertham, 1953). All of this was still elaborated on with reference to what Wertham called "crime comics", although one large illustration used by Ladies' Home Journal is the first evidence to show that horror comics - and most prominently EC Comics - were now becoming a target for the anti-comics movement.

Incidentally, the picture showing a young girl with a copy of Haunt of Fear #19 (May 1953) in her lap was evidently reworked, as the field of depth of the comic book cover in contrast to the remaining photograph clearly shows.

The article published in November 1953 in Ladies' Home Journal was a preliminary launch of a larger volume of work Wertham had been compiling from his numerous files, and the finalised text was published in book format on 19 April 1954 as Seduction of the Innocent.

It would be too much to fully attribute to Wertham the optimal timing of the publication - only two days ahead of the first hearing of the Senate subcommittee - but it stands to reason, given Wertham's track record as a lobbyist for his cause, that this proximity is not entirely coincidental either.

"I have read a number of your writings. I have read your Seduction of the Innocent. You remember a number of years ago I had several visits with you and you told me about the pressure [the comic book industry] tried to apply on you in connection with this." (Senator Kefauver, during Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

Naturally, Seduction of the Innocent - Wertham's most important work on comic books - more than merits closer inspection and analysis on its own, but in a nutshell it can be summarized as displaying the same characteristics as his earlier work by being an aggressively written pamphlet pretending to be a work of scientific research. Containing 400 pages plus 16 pages of illustrations (although pages 399-400 featuring a bibliography were soon removed by the publisher for fear of lawsuits for libel), the book features an abundance of anecdotal and construed argumentation paired with an almost complete lack of actual facts from scientifically sound empirical studies, be it juvenile delinquency or, as a matter of fact, comic books. As a result, the most substantial element Wertham brought to this publication was his personal opinion.

As always, he set out by establishing his credentials and claiming the soundness of his research and the conclusions and results he would be presenting.

"My opinion is based on clinical investigations which I started in the winter of 1945 and 1946 (...) our study is the first and only individual large-scale study on the subject of comic books in general. The methods that we have used are the ordinary methods used in psychiatry: clinical interviews, group interviews, intelligence tests, reading tests, projective tests, drawings, the study of dreams, and so on." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

1954 Comic Book Hearings - Sen Kefauver holding up , Crime SuspenStories #22 in evidence
(Television Broadcast)

"I know that from many sources. You see, I read comic books and I buy them and I go to candy stores." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

Elaborating further on that point, Wertham mentioned a discussion he had with a small vendor wo claimed to be have been bullied into selling comics. Again, the fact that such statements were taken seriously by at least parts of the subcommittee can only be explained by Wertham's professional standing and his claim to being the well-meaning underdog fighting a vicious industry mafia.

"There are some people who think I have some influence in this matter. I have very little." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

Wertham seized the opportunity to plug his Seduction of the Innocent and once again lashed out at comic books and the industry.

"It is my opinion, without any reasonable doubt, and without any reservation, that comic books are an important contributing factor in many cases of juvenile delinquency." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

"We have found all comic books have a very bad effect on teaching the youngest children the proper reading technique, to learn to read from left to right. This balloon print pattern prevents that. So many children, we say they read comic books, they don't read comic books at all. They look at pictures (...) Now, it is a known fact, although it is not sufficiently emphasized, that many delinquents have reading disorders, they can't read well." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

"Mr. Chairman, as long as the crime comic books industry exists in its present forms there are no secure homes." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

"Well, I hate to say that, Senator, but I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry. They get the children much younger. They teach them race hatred at the age of 4 before they can read." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

"That is why I gave you one example of [Seduction of the Innocent] because I think that could nail it down once and for all, what these people do deliberately." (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

"The question I would like to put to you is this: Will this book [Seduction of the Innocent] be distributed or will the sinister hand of these corrupters of children, of this comic book industry, will they prevent distribution?" (Testimony of Fredric Wertham, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

Wertham's fear of being strapped down and silenced by the comic book industry was seemingly unfounded. Not only was the book distributed (albeit without the bibliography), it also received some amount of coverage in the news whilst Wertham himself was given a number of subsequent platforms, such as the May 1954 Reader's Digest where his article carried the ominous title "Blueprint to Delinquency".

William Gaines at the 1954 Comic Book Hearings
(Television Broadcast)

Crime SuspenStories #22
(April 1954)

Knowing a minefield when they saw one, the comic book industry at large cautiously tried to keep a low profile at the televised hearings (such as DC sending their consultant Dr Laura Bender, herself a psychiatrist), but Gaines misjudged the potential - and indeed very likely - pitfalls completely, possibly also because he was not really well connected within the industry.

"I was always kind of an isolationist (...) I never knew anybody else in the industry. I didn't know 'em at DC either, because we were pretty low-class stuff to DC in those days and they didn't want to know us." (William Gaines in Groth, 1983)

Giving testimony immediately following Wertham made things even worse, and Gaines quickly got himself tangled up and cornered.

Although prepared and building up an argument that e.g. newspapers did not incite juvenile delinquency simply by running news items on acts of murder and violence, Gaines was quickly led into contradictions, and the most well-known sinking moment for the publisher of EC Comics took place when he was being grilled for the cover of CrimeSuspenStories #22. His statement backfired completely, and it featured prominently throughout the press, such as Time Magazine.

"Of the 80 million comic books sold in the U.S. and Canada every month, about a quarter are what the trade calls "horror comics." They deserve the title. Last week, in Manhattan, the comic-book publishing center of the U.S., a three-man Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency began an investigation to find out "the impact upon adolescents" of horror comic books. (...) Publisher (Entertaining Comics Group) William Gaines opposed any censorship, on the ground that the publishers themselves are best qualified to decide what is "good taste." Tennessee's Democratic Senator Estes Kefauver drily asked whether Publisher Gaines considered "good taste" a comic-book cover showing an ax-wielding man holding aloft the severed head of a blonde. Answered Gaines: "Yes, I do - for the cover of a horror comic. I think it would be in bad taste if the head were held a little higher so the neck would show with the blood dripping out." Said Senator Kefauver: "You've got blood dripping from the mouth." (Time Magazine, 1954b)

"Our American children are for the most part normal children. They are bright children, but those who want to prohibit comic magazines seem to see dirty, sneaky, perverted monsters who use the comics as a blueprint for action. Perverted little monsters are few and far between. They don't read comics. (...) What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of our own children? Do we forget that they are citizens, too, and entitled to select what to read or do? We think our children are so evil, simple minded, that it takes a story of murder to set them to murder, a story of robbery to set them to robbery?" (Testimony of William Gaines, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

Gaines fought back passionately, but he may have sensed there and then that it would all be in vain, and in a brief moment of bitterness he lashed out at Wertham.

"Some may not like [horror comics]. That is a matter of personal taste. It would be just as difficult to explain the harmless thrill of a horror story to a Dr. Wertham as it would be to explain the sublimity of love to a frigid old maid." (Testimony of William Gaines, Senate Hearings, 21 April 1954)

The moment that stuck with the public, however, was Senator Kefauver holding up the cover of Crime SuspenStories #22 and the reaction from Gaines. The next day the New York Times ran a front page story under the title "No Harm in Horror, Comics Issuer Says", and the New York Post ironically described Gaines as "the high point of the day". His appearance in front of the subcommittee was reduced by the media (including Time and Newsweek) to the "good taste" incident.

"The hearings on comic books and juvenile delinquency, like the earlier sessions on organized crime, came across as judicial proceedings rather than legislative inquiries." (Hajdu, 2008)

However, the question of "good taste" was closer to the heart of the matter than it may have seemed. Essentially, Gaines had claimed a prerogative to decide on his own terms what was right for one publication or one reader, and that this might be wrong for another of a different orientation or of a different age (Hajdu, 2008).

Horror from the Tomb #1
(September 1954)

In reality, the fight was over in a flash. The subcommittee hearings and the publication of The Seduction of the Innocent - both sparking a firestorm of controversy and bonding parents, teachers and others in a campaign for censorship (Goulart, 2001) - stigmatized horror comics, and even though the subcommittee did not actually blame comics for juvenile delinquency, it recommended that the comic book industry tone down its content. Not wanting to be seen as promoting censorship, the subcommittee emphasized "voluntary content control" by the industry itself, but the public backlash was such that publishers simply had no choice - and no time to lose. Publication schedules were hastily reworked and content was checked and double-checked, but in many cases the cancellation of titles seemed the only quick way out of the fire. In some cases, this meant that newly launched titles which had been designed to cash in on the now toxic EC formula would not see a second issue, such as Premier Magazines' Horror from the Tomb #1 (September 1954).

"The Comics Magazine Association of America, created to combat public criticism of horror comics, last week announced its Comic Book Code, which will be enforced by Censor Charles F. Murphy, former New York City magistrate. Among the provisions: The words “horror” and “terror” are not permitted as comic-book titles, and no “scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism or masochism” are allowed.  Sympathy for criminals, “unique details” of a crime, or any treatment that tends to “create disrespect for established authority” are banned. “Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, ridicule of racial or religious groups” are not allowed, and "all characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society, [with] females drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities.”" (Time, 1954c)

Charles F. Murphy

"Marvel and all the other companies ran into a lot of trouble (...) there was a big trend of these companies just folding up, and along with it went all the jobs, me included. I was out of work for comics for about five, six years." (Gene Colan in Siuntres, 2005)

"In Memoriam" (from Haunt Of Fear #28)

Harvey Comics tried to go with the previously proven "name game" and turned Chamber of Chills into Chamber of Clues in February 1955, but this time things were different and the CCA was not to be trifled with. After only two issues, Harvey called it a day and cancelled the Chamber in April 1955.

There were even some new titles on the market, such as DC's House of Secrets which was launched in November 1956. But it was precisely comic book titles such as this one which illustrated the fact that the days of being a big market success were over for horror comics - running for a total of 80 issues, House of Secrets started out as a toned-down horror anthology title before featuring the adventures of modern-dress sorcerer Mark Merlin as of August 1959 (House of Secrets #23). This was the first sign that the few remaining horror titles were about to hand over their pages to a growing trend of moving towards superhero content.

Whilst parts of the industry could not escape a substantial amount of blame for bringing about a censorship body through their often all too gory publications, the true horror may indeed be seen in the fact of just how easy it was for Wertham to impose his views - even though this seemed to provide him with no substantial satisfaction once the battle was won. He immediately considered the CCA inadequate to protect youth, and in early 1955 Wertham was already testifying before a New York State Legislature committee hearing that the comic books were no better under the Code than previously (Decker, 1987).

House Of Secrets #1
(November 1956)

"When he gets off his comic-book kick, Dr Wertham makes some trenchant remarks on racial segregation and other social problems, yet even these points are vitiated by the author's perplexing bent for truculence and bellicosity." (Deutsch, 1956)

Hearings by congressional subcommittees on violence in mass media were almost a run of the mill phenomenon in the early 1950s, but they mostly reached rather gingerly formulated conclusions, such as the 1952 hearings on television violence as well the hearings run in parallel by the Kefauver subcommitte in 1954 (Hoerrner, 1999). The comic book hearings, however, had far reaching and damaging consequences for the industry and the medium.

By mid-1954, the heyday of horror comics was over, and in 1955 sales in comic books all across the board dropped by 70% (Carter, 2010), leaving the medium hanging virtually by a thread.

Possibly the most frightening aspect of this sharp turning point in 20th century American culture is the fact that it was to a large extent brought about by the lobbying of a New York psychiatrist hell bent on imposing his own moralist and cultural elitist views on the general public (and who insisted on calling horror comics "crime comics"), and a US Senate subcommittee which held a hearing without ever clearly defining the actual object of its investigations.

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." (Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 1742)

BEATY Bart (2005) Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture, University Press of Mississippi

CANJA Jeff (2002) Collectable Paperback Books (2nd Edition), Glenmoor Publishing

CLERY Emma J. (1999) The Rise of Supernatural Fiction 1762-1800, Cambridge University Press

CARTER Mac (2010) Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics [DVD], Warner Home Video

COHEN Ralph (1986) "History and Genre", in New Literary History 17, 203-218

DANIELS Les (1991) Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Harry N. Abrams

DECKER Dwight (1987) "Fredric Wertham - Anti-Comics Crusader who turned Advocate", originally published in Amazing Heroes, available online and accessed 12 July 2007 at www.art-bin.com/art/awertham.html

DEUTSCH Albert (1956) "What Makes a Boy Bad?", in Saturday Review of Literature, 20 October 1956, 25.

DUNAR Andrew J. (2006) America In The Fifties, Syracuse University Press

GORMAN, Joseph Bruce (1971) Kefauver: A Political Biography, Oxford University Press

GOULART Ron (2001) Great American Comic Books, Publications International

GROTH Gary, Dwight Decker & Peppy White (1983) "An Interview with William M. Gaines", in The Comics Journal #83

HAINING Peter (2000) The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines, Prion Books

HAJDU Davis (2008) The Ten-Cent Plague: the great comic book scare and how it changed America, Farrar Straus & Girou

HOERRNER Keisha L. (1999) "The Forgotten Battles: Congressional Hearings on Television Violence in the 1950s", in Web Journal of Mass Communication Research #2:3

JACOBS Frank (1972) The Mad World of William M. Gaines, Lyle Stuart

JONES Robert (1975). The Shudder Pulps: A History of the Weird Menace Magazines of the 1930s, Fax Collector's Editions

KEFAUVER Estes (1955) Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency - Interim Report of the Committee on the Judiciary pursuant to S. Res. 89 and S. Res. 190 (83d Cong. 1st Sess. - 83d Cong. 2d Sess.); A Part of the Investigation of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 77-90720

MELANI Lilia (2008) Terror and Horror, available online and accessed 21 January 2010 at academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/terror_horror.html

NYBERG, Amy Kiste (1998) Seal of Approval: History of the Comics Code, University Press of Mississippi

OAKLEY Ronald (1986) God's Country : America in The Fifties, W.W. Norton

PATTERSON James T. (1996) Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974, Oxford University Press

ROBBINS Trina (1999) A History of Women's Comics from Teens to Zines, Chronicle Books

SIUNTRES John (2005) Gene Colan Interview, transcribed from the podcast Word Balloon: The Comic Creator's Interview Show , available online at www.wordballoon.libsyn.com

TIME Magazine (1954a) "Education: It didn't happen here", Vol. LXIII No. 2, 18 January 1954

TIME Magazine (1954b) "The Press: Horror Comics", Vol. LXIII No. 18, 3 May 1954

TIME Magazine (1954c) "The Press: Code for Comics", Vol. LXIV No. 19, 8 November 1954

TRANSCRIPT I (1954) 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings into Juvenile Delinquency, Transcript of the morning session, 21 April 1954

VASSALLO Michael J. (2011) Fredric Wertham, Censorship & the Timely Anti-Wertham Editorials, available online and accessed 3 May 2011 at timely-atlas-comics.blogspot.com/2011/02/fredric-wertham-censorship-timely-anti.html

WALLACE Daniel, Matthew K. Manning, Alexander Irvine, Alan Cowsill & Michael McAvennie (2010) DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle, DK Publishing

WATT-EVANS Lawrence (1997) "The Other Guys", in The Scream Factory 1997

WERTHAM Fredric (1948) "The Comics - Very funny!", in Reader's Digest (August issue), 15-18

WERTHAM Fredric (1953) "What Parents Don't Know", in Ladies' Home Journal, November 1953, 50ff

WILSON John Albert (1956) The Culture of Ancient Egypt, University of Chicago Press

WYMANN Adrian (2009) Marvel's Monster Mash: Marvel's Bronze Age struggle with the Frankenstein Monster - Part One: The origins of the Frankenstein theme and the development of its visual concepts, available online at www.panelology.info/Marvel/Frankenstein-p1.html

WYMANN Adrian (2010) "He was a psychiatrist, so people listened": Fredric Wertham's Psychopathology of Comic Books - leading the anti-comics movement of the late 1940s, available online at www.panelology.info/Wertham1940s.html

WYMANN Adrian (2011) Eerie Comics #1 (1947) - Spotlight on the first American horror comic book, available online at www.panelology.info/EerieComics-01.htm

first published on panelology.info 19 September 2011

Text is (c) 2011 Adrian Wymann

The illustrations presented here are copyright material, their use in this context is considered fair use.