Research Catalog
Pulp demons : international dimensions of the postwar anti-comics campaign
- Title
- Pulp demons : international dimensions of the postwar anti-comics campaign / edited by John A. Lent.
- Publication
- Madison [N.J.] : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; London : Associated University Presses, [1999], ©1999.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | PN6710 .P85 1999 | Off-site |
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Details
- Additional Authors
- Lent, John A.
- Description
- 306 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- "The campaign in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s to rid comic books of their violent content, and often-times to obliterate the medium itself, had far-reaching and deeply felt reverberations. Spearheaded by moralists, educators, politicians, and psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham, anti-comics crusades led to book burnings, town meetings, periodical discourses, and the draconian Comics Code, recognized as the most oppressive act of self-censorship in this country's history. At issue was the possible link between comic books and juvenile delinquency, although then-current concerns about communist infiltration, lowered educational levels, and moral decay also crept into the arguments." "Pulp Demons is the first systematic study of the fallout of the American controversy abroad. Eight distinguished scholars survey the historical roots, chief players, and sociocultural/political implications of anti-comics campaigns in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Using primary data gathered through interviews, content analyses, and searches of private papers and public documents, they fashion a fascinating account overall of one of the most prolonged, wide-ranging, and vicious attacks ever leveled at a mass medium, enveloping a mix of odd bedfellows that included the Communist Party, anticommunist groups, religious denominations, the cartoonists, and others."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Comics debates internationally : their genesis, issues, and commonalities / John A. Lent -- Comic book censorship in the United States / Amy Kiste Nyberg -- Getting a conviction : or, how the British horror comics campaign only just succeeded / Martin Barker -- Comics debate in Germany : against dirt and rubbish, pictoral idiotism, and cultural analphabetism / Goran Jovanovic and Ulrich Koch -- "They have a bad effect" : crime comics, Parliament, and the hegemony of the middle class in postwar Canada / Mona Gleason -- Comics discourse in Australia and Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the innocent / Graeme Osborne -- Comics controversies and codes : reverberations in Asia / John A. Lent -- Fredric Wertham, the sad case of the unhappy humanist / Martin Barker -- Fredric Wertham : a social psychiatrist characterizes crime comic books and media violence as public health issues / James E. Reibman.
- ISBN
- 0838637841
- 9780838637845
- LCCN
- 98030640
- 99954686048
- OCLC
- ocm39633478
- 39633478
- SCSB-5701609
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries