Comical Cleansing

In common with all other Ballarat public schools, St. Patrick’s College has banned “comics.” A strong denunciation of “comics” was made in the report of the Principal, Rev. Bro. Healy. The report said that most “comics” were vile in their sex appeal and others were objectionable because of their debased language. The Superman type, if not vicious, tended to lead youths into ‘a world of unreality’.

Southern Cross (Adelaide, SA : 1889 – 1954), Friday 9 January 1953, page 1

Censor comics?

An interstate conference of under-secretaries of Chief Secretaries’ departments decided in Sydney yesterday to recommend to their State Governments a censorship of comic strips and comic books. The conference saw lantern slides of strips claimed to be offensive. Many of the strips placed undue emphasis on violence and crime, according to those who saw the slides.

Censor comics? (1952, November 12). The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 – 1954), p. 3

Cleanup on comics is coming

By a Staff Reporter

The State Government is preparing legislation to deal with the flood of trashy comics on bookstalls. Stronger police action is likely to seize virtually banning it from shops. It is estimated that more than a million comic books a month pass through Brisbane distributors’ hands for the Queensland market. Most of it is printed in Sydney.

The Queensland Government move is being made along with similar moves in other States. In Federal Parliament this week, Mr. H. G.J. Pearce (Lib, Capricornia) will suggest that the Federal Attorney-General confer with the States on uniform laws to deal with offensive books. This week, I checked on the class of comic books being carried in shops in Brisbane.

‘Toning-down’ noted

My impression was that the sex, crime and horror angles were not being stressed as much as they were a year ago. This suggests that the Australian comic-book industry is doing some cleaning-up on its own. One thing I noticed was the increasing number of prurient paperbacks coming in from New Zealand. But the vast majority of offending comics are American, or of American origin, but printed in Australia. Many of them are harmless, but many over-stress sex, crime, and horror angles.

Federal Customs Minister Senator O’Sullivan said in Brisbane yesterday that the Commonwealth could not ban the entry of comics into Australia, without opening all private mail.

Police could check

Many comics came out to Australia as films or photostats, carried in ordinary letters.

We have urged the States themselves to act, said Senator O’Sullivan. There is no reason why policemen should not have a check on the bookstalls, while they are putting chalk marks on parked cars.

Churches in Queensland — Catholic and non-Catholic — have been active in trying to get the bookstalls cleaned up. A ‘Committee for Decent Literature’ was formed recently at Toowoomba, where a public meeting sought a ban on imports of trashy comic books. With their usual political perspicacity, even the local Communists also are climbing on the band-waggon.

Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1926 – 1954), Sunday 6 September 1953, page 7

Judge Charles Murphy: Administrator; Comics Magazine Association of America

Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s 1954 book “Seduction of the Innocent” argued that much of the crime, sex and violence depicted in comic books was harmful to children and the topic was central to a US Senate Sub-Committee investigation of  ‘Juvenile Delinquency’ in the same year.

While the Sub-committee did not find that comic books caused delinquency, it suggested that the industry regulate itself. Hence, in 1954, the Comics Magazine Association of America was formed. The CMAA introduced a ‘Code’ as a form of comic industry ‘self regulation’. The Code required that…

Comics and the innocent

The issue is not simply that comic-book superfolk exploit improbability and far-fetched magic to achieve authoritarian ends or that they justify repulsive crimes on the flimsy basis of high-spirited adventure. What they demonstrate clearly and repeatedly is that the real guilt lies in getting caught. To those who would point out that sundry nursery rhymes – for example, Little Miss Muffet (a horror story), Three Blind Mice, (sadism), and Ten Little Nigger Boys (colour prejudice) and assorted tales by the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen are not calculated to bestow great moral benefit on youngsters, Dr. Wertham comes back with a sharp retort.

Are there heroin addicts in Grimm? he asks. Marihuana smokers in Andersen or dope peddlars in Mother Goose? And are there advertisements for guns and knives?

In any case, he argues, the classic fairy-tales were written for literates. His view of most comic books is that they represent a “retooling for illiteracy.” They can be “read” almost without any understanding of words at all. Such vocabulary as they use is limited; conventions of grammar and spelling are torn to shreds; invented “words” thrive like rank weeds. From one comic book alone, Dr. Wertham extracted the following (among others):

OWW, ARGHH, GLUG, GLHELP, KURRACK, KAPOW, THUNK, BLAM, YEWW, URGH

COMICS AND THE INNOCENT (1954, November 13). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), p. 6