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This pamphlet presents its case
specifically against adventure strips
and moronic creations parading un­
der the banner of “comics.” The case
is against “so-called comics” which
fail to meet the wholesome standards
of good recreational reading ; it is
not a wholesale condemnation of
“comics” per se.

The fact still remains, however,
that many parents, misled by the
ring of the word “comics,” are un­
aware of the damage done by the
moronic type. In view of this, we
present Mr. Lynn’s urgent plea to
do something about the problem.
If your school has a Parent-Teach­
er group, you will want to make this
pamphlet available to the organiza­
tion. Copies will be sold below cost,
at 3c each in lots of ten or more.
Single copies 5c.

Send Your Order to

Catechetical Guild
128 E. 10th St., St. Paul 1, Minn.
Deacidified

The Case Against
The Comics
A Study
by
Gabriel Lynn

Catechetical

Guild

1944
St. Paul. Minnesota

FOREWORD
Parents concerned with the growing
problem of juvenile delinquency might
do well to give close scrutiny to a con­
tributing factor found in nearly every
American home today—the misnamed
comics and the multiple newspaper
comic strips.
In ordei· to determine whether there
is any correlation between juvenile
delinquency and the comics an exhaus­
tive study and analysis of 92 comic
books and more than 1,000 newspaper
comic strips was made.
The facts and conclusions which fol­
low in this CASE AGAINST THE
COMICS are based on this survey and
are of a nature to warrant lhe most
thoughtful consideration of parents.
The conclusions concerning the con­
tent matter, the manner in which many
of the comic books are merchandised
and the organized campaign to lull the
fears of parents and educators should
be cause for judicious reflection.
Gabriel Lynn

I: Statement of the Case
Against the Comics.
Children, in increasing numbers, are arrest­
ed by police and juvenile authorities for the
theft of merchandise from markets and other
retail establishments. These unhappy young­
sters have not lacked expert schooling in the
methods used in such circumstances. The
technique is depicted regularly in the comic­
strip adventures of master chiselers, swin­
dlers, and ne’er-do-wells.
Concerned observers are increasingly dis­
tressed by the problem of scantily attired
girls of high-school age. Perhaps they have
been reading and studying a comic saga ade­
quately summed up in the words of the gray­
haired mistress of a band of sharpers: “Bring
on the suckers!” The title page describes this
charmer with the legend: “She’s rough, tough
and nasty!” In the 31 panels of the particular
episode studied there is supplied a detailed
description of the measures employed in
swindling victims. This character poses with
abandoned seductiveness to lure susceptible
males with the brazen invitation of her
exaggeratedly feminine body. She employs
"spiritualism” to hoodwink deluded women.
Only an attempted holdup by gangsters
brings the police and lands her in a cell. Good
has triumphed—but not too definitely. The
concluding panel hastens to assure the reader
that next month will bring more “thrilling
adventures” with this so-called “heroine.”
3

In spite of the ultimate victory over evil
which is the standard formula employed in
nearly all of the comic books, this conquest
by good almost invariably is deferred until the
final action. The preceding portions, making
up most of the whole, are devoted to the
depiction of horror, assault, thinly veiled
seduction, mayhem, sadism, murder, and ex­
tra-legal activities going counter to every
basic principle of American liberty.
The standards of thought and behavior en­
countered in those portions in which the
plot is unfolded are almost without excep­
tion bad. Violence is glorified. In the 92
comic books included in this study, deeds of
minor or major violence were found illus­
trated in no fewer than 91 per cent! It must
be emphasized that the one element which
receives wholly disproportionate treatment in
the comics is violence. Again and again
scenes of physical assault, savage brutality,
sadistic tortures are shown.
Parents of young children have frequently
been obliged to withhold comic books of this
nature from youngsters whose nervous excite­
ment was so great as to prevent sleep. In
an effort to abate the alarm of parents, an
argument is offered by one group of apolo­
gists for the comics who declare: “Psycholo­
gists point out that it is not the comics which
create fear or distress, but rather the child’s
own neurotic fantasy which fastens upon the
pictured people and creatures to objectify his
4

fears. A child who lies awake nights because
of frightening stories, whether in comics or
classics, presents special problems which call
for careful consideration not in relation to
his reading alone but to more fundamental
emotional needs.”*
This statement receives little support from
majority opinion. These unnamed psycholo­
gists claim the problem is traceable to more
“fundamental emotional needs”—not saying
just what these needs are, and leaving un­
developed the fact that every growing child
presents an emotional problem.
Consider the case of seven-year-old Helen
whose mother hastened to her bed when she
heard the child weeping hysterically and in
a panic of fear. Helen had been poring over
a horror comic book early in the evening, one
in which a monstrosity had suddenly “grown”
several heads and arms and hands and had
proceeded, unaided, to capture a band of evil­
doers after first subjecting these criminals to
savage physical assaults. When she quite
naturally cried out and became fearful in the
darkened room, she presented no “special
problem.” Her “fundamental emotional need”
was only for parents wise enough to do what
her parents did do: shut off the supply of
comic books.
It must further be recognized that the
comic books in far too many instances are a
menace to chastity, a fact equally applicable
to many newspaper strips. There is a ten•Child Study, Summer, 1943.
5

dency to present female characters scantily
attired and with their sexual characteristics
emphasized to the extent of exaggeration.
Male heroes are often clad in garments which
stress their masculinity. Episodes abound in
which relations between the sexes are given
lewdly provocative treatment and there is
often a furtively latent rather than overt
suggestiveness which is extremely likely to
stimulate unwholesome sexual curiosity in the
young.
There is an additional sexual menace in the
frequency with which physically abnormal
characters are presented. Such monstrosities
and the unnatural situations in which they
are depicted tend toward the development of
an unhealthy mental state which is recog­
nized as favorable to the growth of serious
sexual disturbances. The behavior of these ab­
normal persons—in the episodes in which are
enacted the evil eventually to be overcome
by good—tends to pervert moral character,
thus providing fertile soil for the growth of
sadistic and masochistic traits. SchrenckNotzing coined the term “algolagnia” to de­
scribe the connection between sexual excite­
ment and pain. Dr. John Rathbone Oliver,
associate in medicine on the faculty of Johns
Hopkins University, records his observation
of the excited lustfully gloating intentness
with which victims of algolagniacal urges
watch any type of action, real or portrayed,
in which pain is inflicted by one person upon
another. While such discussions are properly
6

to be reserved for clinical circles, it is mani­
fest that children should not be permitted
to form reading habits which may with the
passing of time develop into tragically serious
conditions.
A large number of the comic books depict
the heroic adventures of one or more char­
acters whose philosophy may only be de­
scribed as un-American and in a few in­
stances, anarchistic. The vigilante spirit is
rife in the comics : the gestapo method is
glorified. A plot-pattern is used by many script­
writers with a self-imposed mission to cor­
rect injustices, to eradicate evil and its prac­
titioners. Throughout subsequent episodes he
will be shown ferreting out criminals, deter­
mining their guilt, pronouncing judgment, in­
flicting punishment—usually capital—upon
them, all this without reference to due proc­
esses of law. Always, in these sequences, the
offenses committed by the malefactors are
portrayed in such detail as to constitute a
veritable handbook of criminal techniques for
impressionable young readers.
An important part of what we proudly
esteem as “The American Way” has to do
with our lawfully established methods of
dealing with lawbreakers. We set up and
maintain police organizations, prosecuting at­
torneys, grand juries, judges and trial juries,
and have created an elaborate series of safe­
guards to assure that no man, however grave
his offense, shall be tried, convicted, and pun­
ished except by due process of law. Any lim­
7

itation placed upon these safeguards consti­
tutes a threat to the perpetuation of Ameri­
can liberties and represents a step toward the
type of oppression of which Adolf Hitler
stands as a current symbol.
Of late, there has been a tendency on the
part of comics to glorify characters who are
engaged in crusading activities which infringe
upon these liberties. Even harmless appear­
ing child “commandos” act in the comics, as
investigating police officers, as grand juries,
as trial judges and juries, and, in certain in­
stances, as jailers and even as executioners.
The individuals upon whom all of these illegal
attentions are visited are, of course, shown
to be lawbreakers—but where in all the body
of our laws is to be found provision for such
action by volunteer vigilante groups working
outside the regularly constituted agencies of
law and order?
Manifestly the ultimate result of a steady
diet of such fare must be to condition the
child mind for a philosophy akin to that fos­
tered by the dictators. Certainly all of it is
in conflict with the standards and principles
of the United States and of our democratic
form of government. It is one of the noble
and inspiring tenets of our national creed that
it is better that a hundred guilty persons
should escape than that one innocent individ­
ual should unjustly suffer—and to this prin­
ciple the whole spirit of vigilante procedure
is in opposition. The vigilante spirit is the
mob spirit, the Ku-Klux spirit, the unleash­
8

ing of wild, unreasoning passions to deal with
situations which call for the calm delibera­
tion and impartial judgments which are pro­
vided by our laws.
It is a serious count in the indictment of
the comic books and strips that they do vio­
lence to this American principle. The sensa­
tional exploits of individuals or groups en­
gaged in executing masked and hooded jus­
tice have proved profitable for the purveyors
of comic books, but this fact remains un­
shaken: No matter how despicable the vil­
lains against whom this “justice” is aimed,
no matter how triumphant the final defeat
of vice by virtue, it is neither Christian nor
American to permit the young to be taught in
this way the pernicious totalitarian doctrine
that the end justifies the means. This is, in a
majority of all the instances studied in this
survey, the principle upon which the creators
of the comic-book characters operate, and it
is a wicked fallacy toward whose exposure
every generation of Americans from the time
of George Washington has contributed, many
with their lives.
Another serious objection to many of the
comics is that they depict characters and sit­
uations which bear no practical relation to
real life and real persons.
The immature mind, raptly following these
fantastic adventures, becomes ill prepared for
the realities of existence. The world of the
comics is, in the main, an incredible world of
make-believe, with heroes utterly heroic and
v

villains unrelievedly villainous. In this respect
the comics recognize but two tones: a spot­
less white and an inky black. There are no
grays. The effect of this upon the child mov­
ing toward maturity must be damaging.
One need not go beyond the newspaper
comics to obtain corroboration of this. In real
life, the “hero” of one particular strip would
rarely if ever be outside of jail. His activities,
between amorous interludes with waitresses
and chorus girls, consist almost entirely of
swindling operations of one variety or an­
other. A feminine character in the same strip
is regularly shown engaging in escapades
suggestive of adultery. A recent chapter dealt
with the reappearance of one of her former
suitors who was promptly taken into her
home as a “boarder,” and the ensuing
episodes could scarcely fail to suggest even to
youthful readers that her relations with her
returned admirer exceeded in intimacy the
conventional landlady-boarder connection. The
youthful brother of the “hero” in real life,
would assuredly be a regular ward of the
authorities dealing with juvenile delinquents,
so lawless and antisocial are his exploits.
No attempt is made by the artist or writer
of this “comic” plot to suggest that this mis­
behavior is anything but “smart,” or that
retribution awaits the wrongdoer. It appears
daily and Sunday in a large number of news­
papers and also in comic-book format—evil
consistently “outsmarts” good.
There is the further sexual danger in such
10

comic books that they condition the youthful
reader for the openly salacious literature
which has become so grave a menace to
American youth. The youthful comic-book
addict soon finds that he craves ever stronger
and more vicious fare for his thrill-jaded ap­
petite. Like the drug addict, he begins with
the comparatively light dose afforded by cer­
tain of the comics and then, after a condi­
tioning interval, seeks more extreme material.
He then becomes a ready “prospect” for the
peddlers of the indescribably vile porno­
graphic literature concerning the widespread
sale of which Courtney Ryley Cooper has con­
vincingly written in his invaluable book,
Designs in Scarlet. Such vulgar books and
pamphlets depict the men and women made
popular in the regular comic books and strips
as engaging in unspeakably obscene behavior.
Mr. Cooper, an observer and investigator
thoroughly hardened and “seasoned”—or so
he believed himself to be at the outset of his
investigations into this evil which covered a
period of more than a year—found himself
sickened by the widespread prevalence of this
highly organized corruption of American
youth. In roadhouses and other resorts where
mere children nightly gathered to engage in
forbidden drinking, improper dancing, and
general dissipation, the peddlers of obscene
literature were almost invariably present and
active.
Children do not walk until they have
learned to crawl. Neither do adolescents
11

plunge abruptly into the slime of such de­
praved pornography without having first un­
dergone a term of conditioning in which they
have been led, step by step, to the extremes
which Mr. Cooper discovered.
It must not be assumed that there is any
intention here to hold the creators of the
standard comic book and comic strip char­
acters in any degree responsible for the vile
productions of those who publish and dis­
tribute the pornographic material herein
described. But the unpleasant fact must be
faced that in catering to the sensation-crav­
ing tastes of youthful readers as they do in
all too many instances in their books and
strips, they contribute measurably toward
conditioning a market for the filth-peddlers.

Π: What Do the Publishers of Comic
Books Say in Defense of Their Product?
The defensive campaign is conducted on
two principal lines. The first of these is based
upon a slogan of the comic book publishers,
i.e., "Good triumphs over evil in the comics."
The second line consists of variations on the
theme that the comic book is here to stay,
whether parents like it or not; that it isn’t
really so bad, especially when compared with
the penny-dreadfuls of an earlier age; that
even if it does present certain undesirable
aspects, it is nevertheless a force which must
be reckoned with and endured because chil­
dren insist upon its continuation.
12

This line of argument leads inevitably to
some amazing conclusions. For example: in a
survey entitled “Looking at the Comics,” pre­
pared by the Children’s Book Committee of
the Child Study Association, parents are
warned not to prohibit reading of the comic
books by their children, as such interdiction
“may only shake their confidence in our
ability to ‘understand’.” Furthermore, this
group cautions, “Prohibitions are likely to in­
vite undercover reading, black market trad­
ing, and other evils.” And then, in a per­
haps unintentionally revealing afterthought,
the dictum follows: "All taste is a process of
development of the crude to the more subtle
forms.”
Here, surely, is great nonsense. Dangerous
nonsense. Here, moreover, are half truths
which demand close scrutiny and appraisal.
Consider, for instance, the slogan, “Good tri­
umphs over evil in the comics,” already dis­
cussed in the first section of this report. The
evils over which final victory is gained are
first depicted in the most graphic detail, with
the result that youthful readers become fa­
miliar with criminal techniques in every
imaginable department of crime. In the 92
comic books which form the basis of the
present study, I found 14 distinct techniques
of murder, each shown in sufficient detail to
leave nothing to the imagination. True, the
murderer or murderers were in each instance
brought to justice (more often than not by
unlawful means!) but without erasing from
13

the mind the details of the crimes perpe­
trated.
Do children remember the ultimate triumph
of good and forget the details of the evil?
Here is a revealing light on this question,
reported by a prominent state official who
is the father of two small children less than
ten years of age.
This gentleman, hearing excited outcries
from a group of children playing in his yard,
went out to inquire into the cause. He found
them dancing and shouting about one of their
young playmates who had been fastened to
a tree: he was the “bad man” in a scene they
were re-enacting from one of the good-triumphs-over-evil comics. Lacking rope with
which to bind the juvenile villain of their
game, they had procured a wire clothesline;
when the official cited went over to unfasten
the now terrified child, he found that his
arms were already swelling from the tightly
wound wire which confined him. Only this
father’s curiosity prevented serious conse­
quences. On another occasion, reported in
the newspapers, a small boy met death by
hanging while trying to imitate the flying
feats of a comic book hero.
Do children relish the depiction of evil be­
fore the eventual triumph of good? Not so
generally as propagandists for the comic
books would have us believe. The state offi­
cial mentioned above “eavesdropped” on his
young daughter and a few of her playmates
as they looked through a stack of comic
14

books, and was struck by their rejection of
certain of these because “they show people
all bloody,” and was impressed by the com­
ment of one little girl who remarked that “I
can’t sleep so good after I read that kind.”
Is it true, as the propagandists allege, that
“children enjoy silly language” and that they
find a certain pleasure in “words that are
not ‘refined’ ?” Is it true that even members
of the youngest age group (under 12) demand
blood-and-thunder and tales of horror?
Here is an answer supplied by children of
this group, as gleaned from their written
statements, prepared without knowledge of
the use to which these statements were to be
put. Cooperating with this survey, Sister Jane
Frances of the Marquette (Michigan) paro­
chial schools gave to a group of her pupils as
an assignment in composition the problem of
explaining in their own words what they
liked—and what they did not like—in comic
books. On one point, these children were
unanimous: without exception they mentioned
by name one or more of the animal char­
acters of the comic books and strips—Donald
Duck, Porky Pig, Bambi, and others. Else­
where there was less unanimity of opinion.
For example, 66 per cent specifically opposed
“killing people,” “too much shooting,” “bad
things that get you into trouble,” etc. Nearly
half (48 per cent) referred to the presence in
the comics of unrealistic characters and ac­
tions: “I don’t believe some of it,” “they don’t
have true pictures,” "people couldn’t do those
15

things,” were observations noted among the
comments.
Even after allowing for the probable desire
of children to include comments likely to earn
the approval of their teacher, the percentage
of replies in which the words “right” and
"good” and “bad” and "wrong” appeared is
too great to be regarded as other than
significant.
Similar responses from non-parochial
schools, would afford a basis for comparison
between the reactions of children who do not
receive systematic religious instruction and
those who do.
The conclusion drawn from this, in the light
of the comic book propagandists’ assertion
that children prefer violent action, “silly
language,” and the like, is that these are pre­
ferred chiefly by those children who do not
receive instruction and guidance designed to
eliminate such preferences if they do indeed
exist as claimed.
These claims of the comic book propagan­
dists find little or no support in the written
works of such eminent psychologists and spe­
cialists in child psychology as Dr. Carl R.
Rogers (Clinical Treatment of the Problem
Child), Dr. John Rathbone Oliver (Psychiatry
and Mental Health), the Rev. loanne B. Ferreres, S. J., the Rt. Rev. Louis J. Nau, Drs.
Karl Menninger, Starch, Klapper, and others
of equal standing.
The persistence with which these assertions
are made in written and oral defense of the
is

comics suggests that they may have been de­
vised to bewilder and even mislead parents
distressed by what they sense to be the men­
ace inherent in many of the publications un­
der consideration. Since the parroting of
“silly language” and the imitating of swash­
buckling, reckless action almost invariably
follows the youthful perusal of the comics, the
propagandists seek to allay parental concern
over these manifestations by the assurance
that they are “natural,” that they are in
effect a standard behavior pattern for chil­
dren, and that the comics, therefore, repre­
sent no new potential threat responsible for
them.
Further to minimize adult concern, the
comics are casually dismissed as “the Fred
Fearnots and the Frank Merriwells of today."
In other words, the same negative argument
is employed: earlier generations had bad
reading habits, is the implication, so do not
be alarmed because the present generation
also has; the modern super-hero is no worse
than Frank Merriwell. So runs the appeal.
It is a half truth.
The whole truth is that only a minority of
any of the earlier generations cited became
addicted to the Frank Merriwells and other
unrealistic characters of the paper-back
school of “dime novels.” Moreover, compari­
son of the Merriwell books with the average
modern comic leads nowhere. The implausible
Merriwell fought his battles on the baseball
diamond, the football gridiron, and in other
17

such arenas. He did not engage in mass mur­
der, in vigilante crusades against lawbreakers
whose crimes were first described in informa­
tive detail. He did not inculcate in his readers
a habit of vulgar speech; indeed, the heroic
Merriwell was a purist in speech. The choice
of this character and the stacks of books re­
cording his saga was an unfortunate one for
the comic book propagandists.
As for the argument that children must
not be forbidden to purchase or read the
comics lest we “shake their confidence in
our ability to ‘understand’,” or for fear of
inviting “undercover reading, black market
trading, and other evils,” little can be found
to recommend this line of reasoning.
If it were true, then parental bans on
tobacco, narcotics, alcohol, and fornication
might with equal wisdom and propriety be
omitted. But it is not true. Most children
between the ages of eight and fourteen—
the group which the comic book publisher
must enlist if his enterprise is to prosper—■
are not merely willing but eager to be guided
by their parents’ wisdom, so long as this wis­
dom is imparted to them in an understanding
and understandable way. A more careful,
objective study by the “child psychologists”
so often referred to by the comic book
propagandists would have revealed the truism
that young children tend to look upon their
mothers and fathers as the very fountain­
heads of wisdom; that they are anxious to
gain parental approval; that most juvenile
18

misbehavior results from improper handling
by parents rather than from an innate urge
to misbehave or disobey in the child.
That the comics constitute an actual men­
ace rather than a force which is here to stay
and which therefore must be tolerated by
parents, is suggested by such an authority as
Judge J. M. Braude, of the Chicago Boys’
Court, a wise, experienced, understanding
jurist who has handled thousands of youthful
offenders. Judge Braude does not share the
easy complacency of the apologists for the
comic book publishers. He says:
“As long as parents continue to let their
youngsters read them just so long will comic
books and newspaper strips continue to instill
into children a distorted and depraved con­
ception of the meaning of real life and liv­
ing.”

“Distorted,” “depraved” — severe words,
these, but they represent the deliberate judg­
ment of one who has for years dealt with
the youthful victims of parental unwillingness
to control the child’s actions. Listing as
"the motivating forces behind most juvenile
and adolescent crimes” such factors as
“improper literature, shady movies, ‘he-man’
radio thrillers, and the comics,” Judge Braude
blames these in turn upon “nagging or unin­
terested parents,” and asserts that they all
flourish in one soil—“inadequate homes,” and
by this he does not limit himself to homes
which are economically inadequate.
Many parents have no idea of the danger­
19

ous influence of comic books. Perhaps the
word comic has led them to believe that the
subject matter of comic books is humorous
and laugh provoking. Yet this is far from the
truth for the word comic is a misnomer when
applied to the adventures of mythical char­
acters.
It is hard to believe that a parent who
hands a child a comic book would ever for a
moment dream of permitting that child to
associate with the character types portrayed
in comic continuities.
Without exception parents spend a great
deal of time and go to much trouble to pro­
tect their children from the harsh unpleasant
realities of life.
Yet the parent who hands a child an un­
censored comic book is literally saying to
that child: Meet these murderers, sadists and
degenerates; observe and study how these
inhuman monsters torture and kill their help­
less victims; notice how inadequate the law
enforcing authorities are in handling these
criminals, and how necessary it is to set up
illegal methods to bring about law and order.
Sister Mary Clare, S. N. D.,* has a reply
ready for the propagandists who would like
to induce parents to regard the comic book
as a force which is here to stay. She says:
“Decent living, God loving parents will not
sit back complacently and let money-mad
pagans carry moral disease germs into the
souls of their children. Such parents will re•Comics. Our Sunday Visitor Press, Huntington, Ind., 10c.
20

double their efforts to train their children in
self-mastery and self-sacrifice, knowing that
only through self-discipline can there be true
freedom.”
Do the comic books, in fact, carry “moral
disease germs into the souls of children?”
Here are the findings.

Ill: Analysis of Contents
of Comic Books.
The comic books employed in this study
were selected indiscriminately from the total
number available to children and others at
newsstands and “drugstores.” Altogether, a
total of 92 were studied; in several instances
these included one or two successive issues of
the same book. In addition to these, more than
1,000 newspaper comic strips were analyzed.
The latter represents 27 different strips ap­
pearing during the months of August, Sep­
tember, and October, 1943.
The following are the principal objection­
able features noted in the material studied.
It will be understood that if, for example,
four major crimes are depicted in four sepa­
rate panels of the same issue, these have
been counted as four.
MAJOR CRIMES DEPICTED—216
By this is meant 216 separate major fel­
onies, depicted in greater or lesser detail, but
in every instance included, in detail sufficient
to afford at least a working knowledge of
the technique employed by the criminal or
criminals.
21

MINOR CRIMES DEPICTED—309
In this group are included actions depicted
in which the offenses were less than felonious,
i.e., misdemeanors as defined by the criminal
codes of most states.
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR—271
Antisocial behavior, actions not in them­
selves violations of either felony or misde­
meanor statutes. Mere mischievous acts or
annoying conduct are not included.
PHYSICAL ASSAULTS—522
These include scenes in which acts of
physical violence are performed upon human
beings, with no obvious sadistic connotations
but tending to glorify brute force, nearly all
depicted with complete detail and an abun­
dance of gore as the aftermath.
LARCENIES—39
These represent individual panels or series
of panels in which are shown the exact meth­
od employed in carrying out various forms
of larceny, ranging from shoplifting and
pocket-picking to complicated confidence
game swindles.
SADISTIC ACTS—86
Included here are clearly defined acts of
sadism, of a type clearly recognizable as such.
Included are several (11) instances of whip­
ping, revealed in its true light in Courtney
Ryley Cooper’s shocking expose, Designs in
Scarlet, as a vice far more prevalent in
modem America than is suspected by
most Americans. A typical sadistic per­
formance included in this category: A
22

young girl is shown being beaten by a degen­
erate who is clubbing her about the head with
the butt of a revolver; one panel shows the
girl in close-up, prostrate on the floor, one
ear torn loose, her mouth an unrecognizable
pulpy mass, blood pouring from her wounds.
(After eight pages, Good Triumphs over
Evil; a self appointed crusader shoots the
degenerate; following this extra-legal retri­
bution the police are notified.)
VULGAR BEHAVIOR—186
The greatest single source of examples for
this classification was a particular strip in
which, for the three-month period studied,
not a single day failed to contain one or more
examples of gross vulgarity.
SUGGESTIVE ART—114
This ranges from the moderately sugges­
tive to the patently pornographic, and ex­
amples were especially noteworthy on the
luridly colored covers of certain comic books.
The suggestiveness commonly takes the form
of scantily clad females, frequently shown in
wantonly seductive postures. The female form
is drawn so as to emphasize, often almost
grotesquely, the breasts, hips, and legs of
the subjects. Several of the newspaper strips
offend in this particular.
VULGAR SPEECH—^491
This fault is widespread. Included as “vul­
gar” are examples of words and phrases of
underworld origin and use, and manufactured
words intended to suggest commonly employ­
ed profanity and blasphemy, such as “Judas
23

Priest,” “gol dang,” "jeez,” and the like.

GROSS GRAMMATICAL ABUSES—194
This classification is self-explanatory, ex­
amples included being of the nature of ‘Ί
seen,” “I done,” “He hain’t,” etc.
ONOMATOPOEIA—362
These manufactured words include the
usual specimens, “glunk,” “zock,” “pow,” and
the rest.
PHYSICAL MONSTROSITIES—161
These present the total number of draw­
ings of actual physical monstrosities, ranging
from the merely grotesque to the revolting.
FANTASTIC SITUATIONS
AND ACTIONS—204
Included are scenes clearly divorced from
any reasonable resemblance to reality—men
walking up and down the sides of skyscrapers,
holding a battleship up from the water, grow­
ing twenty pairs of arms and hands and a
dozen heads, etc.
UN-AMERICAN, VIGILANTE
ACTIVITIES—246
Those listed include the activities of selfappointed crusaders for righteousness, work­
ing without knowledge of or association with
the regularly constituted agencies of law en­
forcement, presenting a picture wholly unAmerican in principle and practice.
There are the facts as gleaned from the
specimens included in this study. They sup­
ply the evidence upon which The Case
Against the Comics is based.
24

IV: Who Sponsors This Literary
Diet ior American Youth?
Aside from the actual publishers of comic
books, a new sponsorship for these publica­
tions has been obtained by certain publishers
who have established “advisory boards,” con­
sisting of men and women of high national
repute.
Such names as those of Mrs. Eleanor B.
Roosevelt, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd,
Commander Gene Tunney, Dr. Allan Roy Da­
foe, and others of equal renown are to be
found in the various comic books, listed as
members of an advisory board or committee,
the implication being that these persons have
placed the mark of their approval upon the
contents of the book.
A question of grave ethical import is raised
by this practice. Aside from the fact that the
name of Dr. Dafoe continued to appear after
his death, there remain the living whose
actual service in this connection may fairly be
questioned. It appears to be beyond the limits
of probability that such men as Rear Admiral
Byrd and Commander Tunney, both officers
in the armed forces of a nation engaged in
war, could have any time to devote to a study
of the material which is presented to the
public with this suggested stamp of their
approval and sponsorship.
Publishers who employ this device do not
make any specific statement to the effect
that these advisory board members do per­
25

form any actual duties. The implication to
troubled parents, however, is clear. Opening
a comic book, finding the names of promi­
nent men and women listed as members of
the publisher’s advisory board, these parents
are quite likely to conclude: “This book must
be all right, or such people wouldn’t approve.”
Have they approved it? Have these edi­
torial advisors, in fact, inspected the con­
tents of the issues of comic books in which
their names appear as a suggested pledge of
good faith?
These are Questions which may fairly be
asked of the publishers employing this meth­
od of sales promotion. If the method is to
be employed regularly for the purpose of
allaying the doubts of parents, would it not
be reasonable to suggest that these lists of
apparent sponsors be accompanied by a defi­
nite statement as to the exact advisory duties
performed by each member of the board?
The use of “big names” in sales promotions
is an old American custom. We have all read
testimonials to a cigarette by some promi­
nent man—who never smokes. We have seen
the glowing laudation of a cosmetic by a
socialite matron who has never in her life
used the brand she has “endorsed.”
If the members of the advisory boards re­
tained by comic-book publishers are actually
performing a definite supervisory or advisory
function, it should be so stated in clear
English. If, on the other hand, names are used
as mere window-dressing to lull parents into
26

an unwarranted sense of security concerning
their child’s reading, the practice should be
discontinued.

V: A Threat to the
America of Tomorrow.
The comic book plot pattern which appears
with more frequency than any other deals
with the adventures of a self-appointed cru­
sader or liberator who undertakes, wholly on
his own responsibility, to combat crime, evil,
and international intrigue.
He will be, this Whattaman, an incredibly
powerful, superhumanly intelligent individual
whose achievements will surpass anything
ever accomplished by any known law-enforce­
ment agency. Alone and unaided he will dis­
cover the identity of criminals, will pursue
and capture them, will determine their in­
nocence or guilt, pronounce judgment upon
them and, in many instances, execute the
sentence, often death.
What of today’s children whose minds are
being conditioned by a regular diet of this
type of adventure? Is it a training calculated
to imbue these future citizens with respect
for ’the slower methods of constitutional and
statutory procedure ? Are Whattaman ad­
dicts likely to have patience with the dodder­
ing oldsters who cling to the American con­
ceptions of law and order and human liber­
ties?
Even juvenile characters in the comic
books engage in un-American activities of
27

this nature. Fictitious “junior commando”
groups bear a strong resemblance to the
bands of child militarists in Nazi Germany.
Impatience with the regular forces of govern­
ment and law is the keynote in all of these
features. One such little heroine couldn’t
wait for the Army and the Navy and the
F.B.I. She and her “commandos” ferreted
out the espionage gang; they discovered the
hidden submarine nest; they imprisoned scores
of Nazi spies, sailors, and soldiers; before
the end they destroyed a fleet of submarines,
snuffed out the lives of many enemy in­
vaders—while carrying on, as an ennui-reliev­
ing sideline, a municipal election campaign
against political forces of evil.
The appalling by-product is that it is
teaching impressionable youngsters to hate,
to hate savagely, and to applaud and emu­
late those who would demonstrate that two
wrongs make one right. Children all too soon
mature, and if, upon reaching maturity, they
are solicited to follow some leader who
promises fast action against individuals and
forces which he, the leader, declares to be
evil, what reason, what hope is there to
assume that they will not gladly enlist under
his banner?
It is not enough that good should triumph
over evil. The triumph must be gained by
lawful, American methods. In the study of
the comic books upon which this report is
based, there were discovered 246 un-American
plots or episodes of a vigilante nature, a total
28

which indicates the extent to which the
masked-and-hooded-justice falsity appeals to
those who produce the features in which these
were found.

VI: Conclusion.
The overall picture, no matter how persua­
sively the comic book apologists may seek
to minimize the objectionable features of
their product, is a disheartening one. The
actual figures, based upon a thorough study
of a representative collection of the books
and strips, reveal the evil phases of this
contemporary American menace to childhood.
The books paint an unreal and unwhole­
some world and fail miserably to prepare
youthful readers for good living. Success,
in the comics, is gained rapidly, in the
grand manner, and often by questionable
means. Long years of preparation for success,
years of toil and application and frugality,
the frustrations and obstacles of real life all
are lightly passed over or ignored. The world
of the comics is an unreal world.
It is, moreover, an almost totally irre­
ligious world. Moral and Christian values are
rarely to be found identified as such in the
comics. Night clubs, gang hideouts, worldly
scenes are to be seen with wearying fre­
quency, but the church is practically never
seen or referred to. The world of the comics
is an irreligious world. It is, in the main, a
Godless world.
The editor of the NEW YORK SUN has
29

said: “The paganism of our times flows out
of a general denial of all obligations save
those of self-advantage.” This is the out­
standing theme of the overwhelming major­
ity of comics: A general denial of all obliga­
tions save those of self-advantage.
The cure for this cancerous growth must
be administered by three agencies: Church,
school and home. The urgings of those whose
self-interest is involved may be disregarded.
The services of law-enforcement agencies
may be utilized only when the products of
Church, school, and parental failure have
been led into court.
In count upon count in the indictment, we
find evidences of the danger to American
children inherent in the comic books. They
threaten the welfare of our boys and girls.
This is the case against the comics.

30

Timely Quotes
Members of the American Association of
University Women in Gary, Indiana, working
with the schools, made a survey to find how
widespread was the influence of the comics
among school children. During the week of
survey a committee questioned 696 grade
school pupils with the following findings:
these children had read 915 books, of which
137 could be termed “good.” But, they had
read a total of 2,370 comic magazines, or
about 3.4 comic books per pupil. Thirty-five
per cent had read nothing but comics!
THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY, Nov. 4,
1942. Comics Are No Longer Comic. By
Margaret Frakes.
Two factors have combined to skyrocket
comics in the realm of big business: (1) the
well-filled pockets of the nation’s school child­
ren; and (2) the war-developed soldier
market. But children remain the best cus­
tomers. A recent readership survey revealed
that regular readers comprise 95% of the 8
to 11 age group; 84% of the 12 to 17 age
group, and 35% of the 18 to 30 age group.
After 30, comic-book publishers sadly confess,
the urge for their product slackens off. Six
thousand schools now use the comics as
supplementary texts.
NEWSWEEK, Dec. 27, 1943.—Escapist Pay­
dirt.
Seventy-five per cent of leisure-time read­
ing of children in the 9-14 age group is spent
on 125 different comic magazines, of which
there are sold 180,000,000 a year. These facts
were presented to three hundred thirty per­
sons attending a children’s Book Week lunch­
eon in November, 1941, at the Hotel Roose­
velt in New York City. The facts were com­
piled by George J. Hecht, President and Pub­
lisher of PARENTS MAGAZINE, who termed
this form of reading a threat to character de­
ar

velopment and called on publishers of child­
ren’s books to counteract the comics’ effects.
RECREATION, February, 1942.
During a hearing on parole petitions, Crimi­
nal Judge Charles W. Lusk of Chattanooga,
Tenn., blamed the comic strips as one of the
primary causes of crime. “I am fully con­
vinced,” he said, “that some of these strips
based on disreputable, well-nigh criminal acts,
are responsible for creating ideas in the minds
of children,” . . . The unfortunate influence
of the comics on the youth of the country
has either been ignored or deprecated in de­
ference to their money-earning potentialities.
. . . Ultimately, the fate of both comic strips
and comic magazines, must rest upon the
action of the nation’s parents.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD, February, 1943.
What’s Wrong with the Comics?
By Thomas F. Doyle.
The “comics” are a many-sided tragedy.
The chief ill effects are mental and emotional;
sometimes the harm is physical also. Instead
of filling the children’s minds with a balanced
understanding of life-as-it-is and life-as-itcould and-should-be, the "comics” gear the
kids to an impossible unrealistic, fantastic life.
But the bad effect on the moral and religious
life of the youngsters is something far worse.
The “comic” books specialize these days in
filling innocent minds and hearts with hate.
Considering that the children in the lower
grammar school grades are with their
“comics” much more than with books proper
for youngsters—and this goes for Catholic
children as well as non-Catholic—what chance
do Our Lord and His Gospel stand of becom­
ing the dominant Person and the governing
force in the lives of our boys and girls?
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, June 20, 1943.
By Rev. Frank E. Gartland, C.S.C.
32

In presenting an unbiased case
against the comics, it is only fair to
state that there are some commend­
able comics with genuine “kid ap­
peal” or “adult appeal”—lamentably
few and hopelessly outnumbered by
those for which no practical justifi­
cation may be advanced.
Into the “kid appeal” category
fall such strips as “Mickey Mouse,”
“The Teenie Weenies,” “Peter Rab­
bit,” “Uncle Wiggly” and, generally
speaking, all the animal comics. Into
the “adult appeal” group fall “Little
Lulu,” “Blondie,” “They’ll Do It Ev­
ery Time,” and so on. But for adven­
ture strips masquerading as “comics”
and having only moron appeal there
remain the incriminating words of
the case against the comics.

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