ST103 History of Horror Comics
Wertham, the hearings and the Code of 1954
How a psychiatrist, a Senate committee and a frightened industry ended the horror comic.
Reading for this lesson
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Required The Comics Code of 1954 (text) Comics Magazine Association of America the whole text of the Code
The primary document. Read every clause.
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Required The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America David Hajdu the chapters on Wertham, the hearings and the Code
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As a document of the panic.
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Optional Censorship and the Comic Book: "Seduction of the Innocent" at 70 Library of Congress the roundtable
A free overview of how historians now see the book.