Seduction of the Innocent: Has anyone else actually read it?

[TrueDave]

I think it's funny that some of the books it protests ( Batman and Superman) are still in print but it isnt.

In Cincinnati the only copy I could find was in the downtown library rare books department and could not be checked out.

When I was in PA at school in a tiny town I found a copy and read it.
And you know what ? as much as Dr Werthiem is cursed to this day I agree with him. For the most part.

He had ONE patient that said he fantasied in a sexual way about being with Batman and living as Robin in the Wayne Manor. One.

Saying reading Superman dimishes accomplishments made by real people was just silly.

He said the Classic book adaptions were badly done . Sure not many novels can be translated into a comic. He said the books spoke in slang and were grammtically poor . Eh it's a comic not a text book! He said having visual pictures instead of JUST text stiffled kids imaginations. Sometimes maybe. I like the Shadow radio show more than the comics or movie adaptions.

But his anti superhero stance was very minor in the book. And so was the other thing everyone always mentions the Horror comics. I have 95% of the entire EC reprint line from the 90's thats True Crime all the way down to M.D. comics.

There were a few gory stories in the Horror.

Werthiem was most upset about the Crime comics. Not Vampires and ghosts but real people. No supernatural.

He said parents thought all comics were like Casper or Superman. No one was checking the content. It's like a bunch of 8 year olds walking in to buy tickets for Saw .

ANd having read ALL those comics they are nasty as could be . Not ALL the EC comics but the crime ones . Werthiem said kids ( he was a child Psych) in Juvie halls would show him in crime books step by step how to commit a crime , how to have a look out how to break a lock etc. yeah okay. Not all kids are going to do that but its not a great influence.Yes there were drug stories too, but you cant get out of everything by showing a happy ending.

What got me were stories like the guy pushing his girlfriend off the top of a roller coaster because he found out she was pregnant and he didnt want to marry her. SHOCK is the harshest title Crime second, then some Crypt, Vault, etc.

I hear comics turned dark after the WW2 vets came back. After what they had lived through they wanted stronger material.

But that's it his main focus in the book was parents didnt know and he was anti crime books

SO anybody else read his book ?

[LadyZod]

I've only been able to get through parts of it. Dr. Wertham is a very dry read.

I'm currently reading Dark Legend (which I picked up for a song), Dr Wertham's 1941 book a case study of a 17 yr old murderer, who blamed radio plays (insert "TV" for today's youth), movies and comics for his killings. Great precursor to Seduction, as in it's the first time Dr Wertham makes the sinister connection between comics and evil.

You can usually pick up a HC copy of this book for nothing on ebay. (compared to the bills a copy of Seduction would set you back...without a dustcover or biblio torn out of later copies)

Anna

[TrueDave]

I've only been able to get through parts of it. Dr. Wertham is a very dry read.

I'm currently reading Dark Legend (which I picked up for a song), Dr Wertham's 1941 book a case study of a 17 yr old murderer, who blamed radio plays (insert "TV" for today's youth), movies and comics for his killings. Great precursor to Seduction, as in it's the first time Dr Wertham makes the sinister connection between comics and evil.

You can usually pick up a HC copy of this book for nothing on ebay. (compared to the bills a copy of Seduction would set you back...without a dustcover or biblio torn out of later copies)

Anna

I got that impression too if I replaced Comics with TV it could be republished.Maybe "the Internet" for today though.

He was a neanthethal shrink. he had to find excuses for everything.

Still CRIME and SHOCK are really harsh.

Dave

[The Toyroom]

Wertham was a quack.....

[ctc]

>I hear comics turned dark after the WW2 vets came back. After what they had lived through they wanted stronger material.

Yeah; it was one of the first waves of the oft-returning "comics 'aint for kids!" idea.

I read "Seduction" a LONG time ago. That, and a strange essay he did about women who chop off their mate's members. Wertham was a weird guy sometimes.

Don C.

[kingdom warrior]

I read it back in the 80's Laughable stuff he was an idiot.......I think he was a cross dresser too

[cjefferys]

I read it back in university. I had always wanted to read it, took a shot looking for it in the university library and was pleasantly surprised to find an old beat up copy there. It was a pretty dry read, and had some ridiculous theories and leaps of logic. So ridiculous that I can't believe that this book and it's nutty author alone managed to create a snowball effect that led to actual senate hearings and threats of government intravention over the comic book industry. Pretty scary that something like that could happen. Although I do admit that by the early 50's, some horror and crime comics were really pushing the boundries, I've always been curious how things would have progressed if Wertham, the hearings and the comics code didn't end up happening.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I read it back in Middle School. Our library had a copy, believe it or not!!! Even then, it was obvious Wetham was grasping at straws with his allegations, and his connections to juvenile deliquency. The fact was, back then just about EVERY kid in the US read comics. So just about every juvie read comics! Of course the EC books, as fun as they were, really put the nail in the coffin of comics. And Gaines folded like a chair at the senate hearings.

But Wertham was a quack. I read later he wrote some other, rather questionable books. He seemed to be into some kinky stuff.

Chris

[samurainoir]

I've read it. His science isn't very sound and mostly falls into the anecdotal category.

However, rather than vilify him, I do see him as someone with a genuine, albeit misguided concern over what he perceived to be the social ills of his day. He's also often attributed with many things that were not part of his anti-comic book agenda... he wasn't suggesting that adult-oriented comics be banned outright for example, he believed that EC comics were intended for an adult audience and should only be sold to adults.

And just to balance things out, in my research into Dr Wertham for a paper in university, I also uncovered the fact that he was a crusader against racism in the field of psychiatric care. Quite socially progressive for his time.

[palitoy]

I've read it and did a paper on it far too long ago, I've always viewed him as more of an opportunist. He used fear as a motivator to sell books. I have no doubt he believed in what he said, just felt that his work spoke for itself.

[Neutron X]

Very VERY dry reading. I really felt the cause and effect hypothesis was not sound. I still have a xeroxed copy of the book somewhere sitting in a box in the basment. LOL

[ctc]

>I can't believe that this book and it's nutty author alone managed to create a snowball effect

I can, having lived through "D&D is evil," "Heavy Metal will brainwash you" and "Mortal Kombat will turn you into a bloodthirsty ninja assassin." People are ALWAYS waiting for the next big scare, especially if it's something kids like and parents don't want to spend money on.

>I've always been curious how things would have progressed if Wertham, the hearings and the comics code didn't end up happening.

It's a tossup. The big problem was that every publisher that WASN'T EC jumped on the "comics is fer kids" bandwagon right away. (The Code was an industry INTERNAL thing.) So they ended up getting all kiddified. (Funny thing, NEWSPAPER comics didn't.) If they hadn't you'd probably get what happened to music and video games: a rating system that allows for the exact type of horrendous stuff that the concerned citizens were hoping to avoid. Unless you got NO rating system; in which case our stuff would probably be more like the Japanese and Europeans.

Don C.

[garagesale]

I read it last year. Sort of. Skimmed it really and used it for some research. There's some good background on Werthem and his practice in David Hajdu's Ten Cent Plague. Werthem really was an just trying to make a sensational "expose" written for a popular market, adandoning good research techniques that he HAD to be cognizant of. Worked out for him at the time.

Sort of reminds me of a book written by a psychiatrist back in 2003 called The Othello Response. Took the VERY basic idea of Shakespeare's play and tries to build some sort of diagnosis/syndrome out of it, but you can tell the author really doesn't know the play that well and stretches the basic themes of the play to fit cases that don't really follow through. Just pop-psychology. Dr. Phil stuff.

JamesD