Earlier this month, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Executive Director, Charles Brownstein sat down with Barry Lynn, host of Culture Shocks on KCAA, NBC News Radio for Southern California. From the Comics Code to the recent Walking Dead ban, Charles…
Tag: fredric wertham
Teaching Comics and Censorship: The National Archives and the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings
“If the mothers of our beloved country would unite to have these pernicious comic books banned I am sure it would be a great step forward in the control of the young, especially the young boys.” – Eugenia Y Genovar, Letter…
How the Comics Code Erased LGBTQ Characters from Mainstream Comics
Fredric Wertham’s attack on comics in the early 1950s is probably most remembered today for his concern about over-the-top horror and violence from the likes of EC. But there was another aspect that preoccupied Wertham just as much: the potential…
CBLDF at the Library of Congress
Last September, Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of CBLDF, was honored with an invitation to speak at the Library of Congress about the history of comics and the role of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in protecting the intellectual freedom…
How the Comics Code Erased LGBTQ Characters from Mainstream Comics
Fredric Wertham’s attack on comics in the early 1950s is probably most remembered today for his concern about over-the-top horror and violence from the likes of EC. But there was another aspect that preoccupied Wertham just as much: the potential…
Beyond Nazi-Punching: How Superhero Comics Grappled With Their Fascistic Roots
When the first draft of the self-imposed Comics Code was drawn up in 1954, virtually every clause directly addressed some point of criticism that had come up in that year’s Senate hearings, which probed for some causal link between comics…
A 1950s Critic’s Nuanced Take on E.C. Comics and Juvenile Readership
Looking back on the anti-comics crusade of the 1950s, it is perhaps too easy to fall back on stereotypes: dull, repressed suburbanites trying to force their children to conform and read only what they considered to be “quality literature.” But…
Tilley to Present at C2E2, Holy Cross College Arts Day
Heads up! CBLDF fave Carol Tilley, the University of Illinois professor and researcher who last year proved that anti-comics crusader Fredric Wertham fabricated evidence for his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, has a couple of upcoming appearances that may…
First Salvos in the Culture Wars: Advancing American Art and the Comics Backlash
This week, we came across a very interesting art exhibit that recreates an exhibit that was censored in the late 1940s, around the same time that the backlash against comics was gathering steam in the U.S. Looking into the saga…
Censorship 2013: Wertham Fabricated Evidence Against Comics
Early in 2013, a library sciences researcher at the University of Illinois proved what many of us already thought: Fredric Wertham, the child psychologist behind the anti-comics screed Seduction of the Innocent, fabricated much of his evidence against comics. The…