Horror Comics - Backlash

Backlash

In the late 1940s, comic books – particularly crime comics – had become the target of mounting public criticism for their content and their potentially harmful effects on children, with "accusations from several fronts charged comic books with contributing to the rising rates of juvenile delinquency", Many city and county ordinances had banned some publications, though these were effectively overturned with a March 29, 1948, United States Supreme Court ruling that a 64-year-old New York State law outlawing publications with "pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime" was unconstitutional. Regardless, the uproar increased upon the publication of two articles: "Horror in the Nursery", by Judith Crist, in the March 25, 1948, issue Collier's Weekly, based upon the symposium "Psychopathology of Comic Books" held a week earlier by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham; and Wertham's own features "The Comics ... Very Funny!" in the May 29, 1948, issue of The Saturday Review of Literature. and a March 19, 1948 symposium called "Psychopathology of Comic Books" which stated that comic books were "abnormally sexually aggressive" and led to crime.

In response to public pressure and bad press, an industry trade group, the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers (ACMP) was formed with the intent of prodding the industry to police itself. The Association proved ineffective as few publishers joined and those who did exercised little restraint over the content of their titles.