>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> Georgia Higley: My
name's Georgia Higley.
I'm head of the newspaper
section, and it's the home
of the comic book
collection of the Library.
So I want to welcome you to our
latest program that's sponsored
by the Serial and Government
Publications Division.
This program celebrates one
of our special collections,
The Comic Book Collection, and
in particular, one part of it,
The Mini Comics Collection.
So in August of 2011, the
Library signed an agreement
with the Small Press Expo,
SPX, and as a result,
the Library acquires independent
comics and cartoon art
from creators and publishers
that appear at the annual expo.
And also for those that submit
and are nominees and winners
of the Ignatz Award
that they give out.
So, through this talk, we're
actually recognizing the rewards
of the agreement, and I would
say we have over 4,000 items
that have been added to the
collection as a result of this.
And we're also celebrating
the comic book art form.
We're also celebrating the
web comics that we acquired
through this agreement.
And just this week, the
small press, I mean I want
to make sure I get
the right title,
The Small Press Expo Comic
and Comic Art web archive went
public, and some of the titles
from that collection
dates back to 1998.
So it's actually a significant
archive for web comics.
So we're looking forward the
acquisitions that are going
to happen in just two days,
within the next two days
at the festival in North
Bethesda, Maryland.
So, today, let's turn to the
topic that we'll be discussing.
I'm very pleased to have
Charles Brownstein speak to us
about intellectual
freedom and comics.
Please note that across by the
windows we have a selection
of comic books from the Serial
and Government Publications
Division
that highlight comic
book censorship issues.
And I will say there
are a couple surprises
if you take a look
at some of those.
So, Charles Brownstein has
been the Executive Director
of the Comic Book Legal
Defense Fund since 2002.
And I'm going to be referring to
that as the CBLDF from now on.
During his tenure, the
organization has been vigorous
in the defense against
censorship.
It's achieved a number
of legal victories,
and it's been cited
by the Supreme Court.
And it's become really
the leading source
of education advocacy for
combatting comic censorship
in libraries and schools
around the country.
In addition to his jog at CBLDF,
Brownstein also writes
extensively about comics,
and he's written the Oddly
Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen
and Monsters and Titans
Battling Boy Art on Tour.
He's also chair of Banned Books
Week Coalition, and he serves
on the Board of Trustees of
the Freedom to Read Foundation,
the Board of Directors
of the Media Coalition,
and on the steering
committee of SPX.
So, he has an incredible resume
for the talk he's about to give.
So please welcome him
as he discusses the
Comic Legal Defense Fund,
Comics and the Power of
Intellectual Freedom.
[ Applause ]
>> Charles Brownstein: Thank you
for the generous introduction,
Georgia, and before we begin
today, I'd like to take a moment
to acknowledge that so much
of what's great in our fields,
that is to say, intellectual
freedom, librarianship
and comics, is done by
people that volunteer or may
as well be volunteering
for the pay scale
that we devote to
these professions.
And so, I'd like to take a
moment to acknowledge Georgia,
Meagan and all the great folks
here at Library of Congress,
as well as the steering
committee of SPX
who tirelessly make sure
that we can have events
like this here in the D.C. area.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
So today I'm going to be
discussing the history comics
and their impact on
intellectual freedom.
And this comes from
the prism of my work
at Comic Book Legal
Defense Fund.
We're a nonprofit organization
that protects the freedom
to read comics from
courtrooms to classrooms,
all over the United
States, providing legal aid
and education and
advocacy activities.
You can learn about
our work and get many
of our publications
at CBLDF.org.
I know the first rule
of PowerPoint is
don't rea PowerPoint,
but I always make an exception
for this particular slide
because I think a lot of people
throw around the First Amendment
without really taking to
hear the five freedoms
that it guarantees.
And it's so short that it
almost fits on a tweet.
"Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances."
That simple language should
make it appear self-evident
that we all have the right to
express freely without fear
of government restriction.
Now freedom of expression
doesn't give you a free pass
for saying things
that are rejectable
by the marketplace of ideas.
It merely allows you the
opportunity to compete
in the marketplace of ideas.
And yet, throughout history,
we have seen pushback
against the very notion of
some topics finding their way
into the public square, largely
through mechanisms
of moral panic.
This intense feeling that
there's an issue that appears
to threaten the social order.
Usually, this is about
protecting youth and children
because they are our future
and our most impressionable,
and we all forgot what
it was like to be one.
And so there are these
panics that emerge
around what the kids
are looking at.
When I was growing up,
it was heavy metal,
listening to Judas Priest whose
British Steel cover you see
on there, or Slayer,
was going to turn me
into a blood-thirsty
baby-killing marauder.
And it turned me into a person
that protects free speech,
which maybe is worse.
I don't know.
But the truth is that pop
culture has always been sexually
dangerous and awesome
because we're people.
And the contents
of our consciousness doesn't
really change over time,
just the things that are
inflected within those contents.
So here is some popular culture
from the early part
of the 20th century.
A show bill for a
Hedy Lamarr movie.
This amazing gun-toting
flapper lady
that I really wish I
knew what that was from
and somebody would revive it
because I would binge
watch that on Netflix.
Phantom Lady.
Down you see Cliff Sterrett's,
you know, wild composition.
And all of this stuff was
blamed for the downfall
of society in its time as well.
In fact, this handsome
gentleman, Will H. Hays,
is a Presbyterian elder put
into effect the censorship code
that governed motion
pictures in the early 1930s.
The Hays Code or the
Production Code attempted
to really reign in cinema.
This popular and powerful
field of mass communication,
with again, the fear that
youth might see nudity
or might hear language that will
set them off on the wrong foot.
And so thing like pointed
profanity, words like God, Lord,
Jesus or Christ were prohibited.
Any licentious or
suggestive nudity, in fact
or silhouette was prohibited.
The description or depicted
of illegal traffic or drugs,
inference of sex perversion,
whatever that means,
because that certainly
changes over time.
Scenes of child birth,
ridicule of the clergy,
offense of nation,
race or creed,
which obviously was interpreted
very openly in those days.
All of these things were
prohibited by the Hays Code.
And this, again, emerged
out of moral panic.
And so you see, this is what ran
in front of all of those movies.
And let's take a look at
some of the before and after.
Here is Tarzan and his mate,
which was the first act
of the Breen Office
enforcing the Hays Code.
On the left side you see Maureen
O'Sullivan having a scene
that most of us would recognize
as an adult limerence
connection.
And on the right, you see that
the costume has been lengthened,
and it's been changed
to this kind
of dopey family drama format.
And so this kind of just
reflects the attitudes
that this kind of
censorship code imposed.
And it was into this
culture of self-censorship
that comic books emerged.
Comics as a form of mass
communication had enjoyed a
tremendous audience
since the earliest days
of the 20th century,
particularly
through the newspaper format.
And here in the Library,
you can see a lot
of the great old strips
from Winsor McCay,
whose Little Nemo
kind of set the tone
for what the page could do
and was also a very gifted
editorial cartoonist.
Through people like
George Herriman
who was recently explored
in a book called Krazy,
the Life of George Herriman,
who is now recognized as one
of the first great
African-American cartoonist.
But at the time, you know,
really hid that under
the culture of the times.
The strips and the papers would
reach these vast audiences,
and in the middle of the 1930s,
a guy named Max Gaines
was trying
to keep the printing
presses running overnight,
because there was all
of this fallow time.
And he realized,
hey we print all
of these promotional
publications
of old comic strips, what
if we got some new stuff
in there and gave that away.
And everybody said,
that's a horrible idea.
He says okay, fine, then
I'll do and I'll see.
And it worked.
It worked really, really well.
Well enough that he was able
to establish new company
that was putting out a
whole bunch of new comics.
And so that's where you start
to see these early titles
like Famous Funnies, More Fun,
Detective Comics, Action Comics.
And they were hugely popular
amongst a wide range of readers,
but especially younger readers,
for a lot of the same reasons
the comics are popular now.
They were colorful.
Their visuals were engaging.
Their stories of moral
crusades and right
and wrong really
resonated with audiences.
But it was all kinds of
stories for all kinds of people.
That's lost in the shadow
of the 1950s, as we're going
to get into in a moment.
But scenes like this were
happening all over the country.
And it was sending a lot of
early critics into a lather.
In particular, Sterling North,
who was a children's book
author whose books sold
in the thousands,
really took great umbrage
that these comic books had
sold in the tens of millions.
And so he wrote an
editorial that appeared
in the Chicago Daily
News in 1940
where he characterized comics
as badly drawn, badly written
and badly printed, a
strain on young eyes
and young nervous systems.
Their crude blacks and reds
spoil the child's natural sense
of color.
Their hypodermic
injection of sex
and murder make the child
impatient with better,
though quieter stories.
And you wonder how much
of that was the writings
of a frustrated children's
book author who A, couldn't use
that kind of prose in
any other setter, and B,
was seeing this stuff
really outselling the work
that he was doing.
And so it was framed
in the context
that we've seen time
and time again.
This kind of stuff is going
to corrupt younger people.
This kind of stuff is going
to diminish their reading
and language skills.
This kind of stuff is going
to make them morally
bankrupt and suspect.
I heard it when I was
listening to Raining Blood.
Some people in this
room heard it
when they were playing
Grand Theft Auto.
Some folks heard it in this room
when they were listening
to Miles Davis.
This argument never
really goes away.
But against comics, it stuck.
And so you saw the national
disgrace being reprinted all
over newspapers throughout
the United States by 1941.
In response to that criticism,
National, which was one
of the companies that would
merge into be DC Comics,
developed an editorial
advisory board in 1941
where they recruited a
variety of child psychologists
and educators to give a stamp
of approval to the comics.
And it's an open
question how much
of this stuff was a publicity
exercise and how much
of this stuff they actually
did engage with the content.
Despite the criticism that
was leveled against the field,
though, it was more
and more potent
with every year that went by.
And with the United States'
entry into the Second World War,
a new audience of military
personnel came to comics
that would represent
a full quarter
of the printed matter going
to military post exchanges
during the conflict.
So let's back up and think
about that for a second.
We're talking about
audiences between the ages
of 18 and 25 predominantly.
Mostly men, but young women
as well, who under the strain
of the conflict in the
European and Pacific theaters,
were reading comic books.
This isn't terrifically
different
from the readership
of comic books today.
It's still largely
young adult audiences.
And yet, lost in the
sands of time is the fact
that so many young adults
were reading comics as well.
Here on the home front,
you saw that trend advance
with the crime comic that
emerged most forcefully
after 1942's Crime
Does Not Pay debuted.
It was developed by Charlie
Biro and Charlie Wood
for Lev Gleason's publishing and
marketed itself as true crime,
focusing on the lurid depiction
of criminals and their deeds.
And here you can see a
variety of the imitations.
It was kind of like
MSNBC on the weekends
but a little bit
more interesting just
because somebody had to draw it.
The news stand provided
this huge range
of full-color fever dreams that
ranged from the whole semantics
of funny animals to
the sultry exploits
of adventurers taming
their cousins of the wild.
Superheroes, successful,
suspenseful adventurers,
sports, detectives.
Comics didn't pay good wages,
but it offered a limitless
canvas for the imagination
for the people that
were working there.
It also allowed underprivileged
and otherwise culturally
disadvantaged people
to find a place to
do their work.
There's been much
scholarship done
that early comics were largely
created by Jewish populations.
They were largely
created by populations
that came from the ghetto.
They were largely
created by populations
that could not get a job in
the quote legitimate fields
of advertising or
strip cartooning.
It's there that you see people
like Jack Kirby and Will Eisner
and Matt Baker, one of the first
African-American cartoonists
who was instrumental in
Phantom Lady create their work.
It was here that you started
to see early women cartoonists
find an audience for their work.
There were obviously
exceptions in the strips.
I had mentioned Herriman before,
and there was, of course,
women cartoonists in
the newspapers as well.
But comics provided a
more level access to entry
and a big appreciative audience.
So you can look at
a lot of this stuff
and the 9010 rule
definitely applies.
It might even be in 9505,
you know, looking at it.
But that doesn't excuse
the fact that there,
it doesn't overwrite
the fact that there was
so much amazing material
reaching an interested audience.
These image-filled stories
attracted the disapproval
of a variety of groups,
especially the Catholic Church
and PTA groups in the 1940s.
John Francis Noll, the Bishop
of Fort Wayne, Indiana,
used his National Organization
for Decent Literature
and the publication Our
Sunday Visitor to speak
out against immoral
reading material.
So every month they
would publish a blacklist
of publications disapproved
for youth
in their publication,
The Acolyte.
Now you and I might look at
that now and say, all right,
well that's the stuff to read.
But the people that were
reading the Acolyte were going,
I don't want to go to hell,
so I'm not going to
sell Wonder Woman.
You know, seriously.
Much to the chagrin, by
the way, of Max Gaines,
one of the publishers
of Wonder Woman.
And he went and said why are
you putting my book on this.
I publish, you know, picture
stories from the Bible.
And they go well, the skirt's
a little bit too short.
I mean, that wasn't
the only thing
in Wonder Woman,
let me tell you.
But that was the thing
that they picked on.
The NODL also created
other publications
like the one you see
on the screen here,
The Case Against the Comics.
And you see this devil with
the hypodermic needle injecting
these sleepy-lidded
kids with the fantasies
that you see behind him.
This is the kind of depiction
that comics were painted as.
This was what comics
were shown to be.
And again, you see this
recur time and again.
Video games are going to
make your kids shoot people.
The internet is going
to ruin everything.
Well, maybe that's true.
But nonetheless, comics were
one of these early moral panics
that got some traction.
Here is a news story from
The Pittsburgh suburbs
in 1947 published in
the Lewiston Daily Sun.
Comics blamed in death
of 12-year-old youth.
So here this poor kid, Bill
Becker, hanged himself.
The mother tearfully
blamed it on the comic book.
She said at the coroner's
inquest,
I burned every one I found,
but Billy always found
ways of hiding them.
Now this is an unfortunate story
where the coroner's
inquest stopped
at the media effects argument.
You saw the same
thing in the 1980s
when some unfortunate teenager
killed himself in the room,
and a copy of Ozzy Osbourne
Suicide Solution was
in there as well.
And they said, see, it
says suicide and solution.
This is obviously it, without
actually listening to the song
and figuring out
that it had to do
with alcohol being the suicide
solution they're speaking of.
This solution, this chemical
solution that makes people mad.
So again, there's always
this kind of shortcut
that moral panic likes to take.
And comics, and especially the
prevalence of crime comics,
like the ones I showed
you a few moments ago,
became targets of moral panic.
In 1948, law enforcement
began to take an interest,
particularly the
first two passed laws,
was Detroit Police
Commissioner Harry S. Toy,
which is a name nobody
could invent, right.
That's just, your editor
would throw that out.
So Harry Toy of Detroit
created this ordinance
that would ban an
initial 36 titles.
According to David Hajdu of the
indispensable Ten-Cent Plague,
the city classified a comic
as objectionable if it met any
of these four criteria.
Number one, it depicted
characters planning
or perpetrating a crime.
Two, it had stories
involving youth in a crime.
Three, the entire
comic was dealing
with crime or criminal deeds.
Or four, it portrayed
gruesome or brutal conduct
on women, children or race.
And so this was the template
from which copycat bans
would follow in Ann Arbor,
Mt. Prospect, Illinois,
Hillsdale.
According to Hajdu, in
the months to follow,
more than 50 municipalities,
including several
of the most populous
in the United States,
would develop initiatives to
curb the sale of comic books.
It was into this climate that
Dr. Fredric Wertham emerged.
Now, how many here have already
heard of Wertham before this?
So about half of you in here.
Wertham his somebody
that posterity might look
at differently were it not
for his publicity-seeking
campaign against comic books.
He was a pioneer of the
study of neuroscience.
He was a pioneer in
advocating for the rights
of disenfranchised young people.
He was central in the
Brown versus Board
of Education decision
that led to desegregation.
And did a tremendous
amount of work
that I'm sure was
sincerely motivated
to ameliorate the condition
of disadvantaged kids.
Having said that, he
also used junk science
to propose this notion
that comic books were
a direct causal factor
in juvenile delinquency.
And in 1948, he presented
a symposium in New York
on the pathopsychology
of comic books.
Here you see some
articles that developed
as a result of this symposium.
This is Judith Crist,
Horror in the Nursery,
which ran in the March edition
of Collier's discussing
Wertham's findings.
Time Magazine also
made a freelancer's day
when he published
the headline Puddles
of Blood covering
the same symposium.
Now Wertham had the Lafargue
Clinic in Harlem, New York.
He dealt with kids
that were already
in a segregated environment.
He was dealing with kids
that were already at risk,
that already were in
socioeconomic conditions
that would predispose them to
have more difficulty than kids
in better socioeconomic
conditions.
Now, what kind of
faces do you not see
in these staged photographs?
What kind of inferences are
not being fully disclosed here,
right?
He's blaming everything
on the comics
and not the other
factors around the comics.
And this led to a severe
public concern that this kind
of material was in fact going
to take the normal child,
the kind depicted in the staged
photographs I showed you,
down a bad road.
He published this article
in the Saturday Review
of Literature dubbing comics
the marijuana of the nursery.
Which might explain
why Portland, Oregon,
where I now live,
is Comics Town USA.
But there was this
notion of, you know,
taking these panels
out of context.
You know there's
pictures within pictures,
if you know where to look.
Batman and Robin will teach
kids to be homosexual.
You know, all of this
kind of stuff was put
out there in these articles.
So this in tandem with the
laws against comics led
to a big public debate about the
value of comics and ultimately,
led to anti-comic sentiment
that included church
and school groups having
public burnings like the one
that you see here
in Connecticut.
So just a few years
after we came back
from the Second World War, where
we were fighting against Nazis
that literally burnt books, we
had these public demonstrations
that would encourage
kids to bring in a bundle
of comic books to
get a clean book.
You know, being held
all over the country.
In an attempt to
diffuse this criticism,
some people within the comics
industry developed an early
comics code, the Association
of Comic Magazine
Publishers comics code,
which you can read
in full on CBLDF.org.
But ultimately, there
was not uniform buy-in.
And so comics continued
to do what they would do.
And that is to say
companies like Dell
that were primarily
licensing movie franchises
and Disney comics and
things of that nature said,
we're not associating
ourselves with these other guys.
Everybody knows who
Walt Disney is.
We're clean.
We're not going to
buy into this.
Publishers like National
said we got our own stuff.
We're not going to participate.
And so the industry kind of
collectively put its head
in the sand while
more laws passed.
1948, September, LA County
passes a misdemeanor law
outlawing any adult person,
firm or corporation to sell,
give or any way furnish anyone
under 18 a book, magazine
or other publication depicting
an account of a crime,
with a penalty of 500 bucks
or six months in jail.
Steep penalty for 1948.
More than 50 cities or towns
ban the sale of comics either
through legislation or
censorship committees.
And by March of 1949,
laws regulating comics,
prohibiting their
sale to minors,
were occurring in 14 states.
Canada also got into the act
providing a maximum prison
sentence of up to two
years for anybody printing
or publishing any
sorts of crime comics
that would have an
undue negative influence
on youthful persons.
So, by 1950, you saw crime
comics really taper off.
And the industry
recognizing a void said,
we've got to find
something else.
And so there was a boom
for romance comics.
And I present these to
you without comment.
But these were some
of the titles
that were published at the time.
And, you know, very, very
successful materials.
It led to a company in,
I'm sorry, a university
in Connecticut to do a study
about the causal effects
of comics, good or bad,
and they found nothing good
or bad about comics.
Simply that kids read them.
Which directly countered
what Wertham was saying.
And when the Lafargue
Clinic was asked about this,
they said, well, just wait.
He's on sabbatical.
He's working on something big.
So let's let Wertham
work on something big off
in the Lafargue Clinic
in Harlem and talk
about this fellow, Bill Gaines.
Now, I talked about his dad, Max
Gaines, the guy who was trying
to keep the printing
presses running all night
and created the comic
book as a result.
Bill was his least
favorite child.
Bill was the kid that would come
to work and would get yelled
at for being a screwup
for spilling the coffee,
for being a no-good.
He was just persona-non-grata
in his dad's eyes
and a perpetual disappointment.
So this tubby schlub
wanted nothing to do
with his dad's life or
livelihood and was in school
at NYU to be a chemistry
teacher.
His social skills with
women were about as good
as his coffee-carrying skills.
And so he was, his marriage
was arranged by his mother.
And late in 1948, he called his
mom and said, I'm very sorry,
but we're getting a divorce.
Oh, the shame.
We cannot relate to this now.
Oh, the horrible shame.
The stigma of divorce being
visited upon this family
by Bill the screwup.
And so Max Gaines took his
wife out to their vacation home
in Lake Placid to comfort
her from, you know,
this horrible situation that
this no-good kid was going
to bring upon the family.
And while they're there and
she's soothing her nerves
with Lord knows whatever they
soothed their nerves with,
he's out on a boat with a
friend and that friend's kid.
And another boat is speeding
out of control towards them.
Max Gaines grabs the young
boy that is fishing with them,
throws him overboard,
takes the full brunt
of the oncoming speedboat.
So, now Bill Gaines has not
only broken his mother's heart
with the stigma of divorce,
he's inadvertently killed his
father, who he hated anyway.
But still, nobody's ever
ready to deal with that,
particularly suddenly.
And so, Mrs. Gaines
calls Bill and says,
this company is your
father's legacy,
you're going to carry it on.
What the hell do I know
about running a comic
book company, he asks.
I don't care.
You're going to do it.
So he trudges down to
Little Italy in the offices
on Lafayette Street
where educational comics
were doing business,
and he signs the
checks once a week.
And then he goes back to study.
And after a few months starts to
look at this stuff and go, well,
we're losing money and
it's really terrible.
What can we do to change it?
So, they started chasing
different fads and started,
you know, they got
into the love business.
They got into the
funny animal business.
They changed their
content a number of ways.
In walks another young man,
Gaines is about 26, 28,
in this period, named
Al Feldstein,
who was around 23,
24 in this period.
And Al Feldstein worked
for Victor Fox Publishing,
and he was trying to get into
the teenage magazine segment
of the market that was
opened up by Archie.
And he brought in
a bunch of drawings
of well-endowed teenage
girls in brassieres
that were affectionately called
headlight cartoons at that time.
And he shows his
portfolio to Bill,
and Bill goes [chuckles] boobs.
And the two of them had a
friendship that sparked one
of the greatest creative
collaborations
in the history of comics.
They would drive home
each day together and talk
about well, what can we do?
What can we do?
What can we do?
Now both of these guys,
you know, not just fans
of headlight cartoons,
were also fans
of the other popular culture
of the time, science fiction,
horror, radio drama, all of
these kind of nascent genres
that were booming in
the early television
and film period in
the United States.
And on one of those rides
home, Feldstein reportedly said
to Bill, although
Feldstein's one of those guys
that if you listen to him,
he invented the world.
And if you listen to Bill,
he invented the world.
So parse it as you will.
Feldstein says he said to
Bill, hey, instead of chasing
down these trends, why
don't we start our own.
And so that was the birth of the
new trend that EC introduced,
beginning with the Vault of
Horror and Tales from the Crypt
and Crime Suspense Stories
and the science fiction
titles Weird Fantasy,
Weird Science and many others.
Now what makes EC
distinct is not merely
that they captured the zeitgeist
of the culture in terms
of their subject matter.
Not merely that they
employed the best artists
that the field had to offer.
Paid them just a
little bit better
than the shitty wages they
were getting elsewhere.
For which Bill kept
the original art,
which is a whole other
conversation for historians.
But they were also
actively engaged
in making comics for each other.
They were engaged
in making comics
that certainly a kid could
read, but that kid needed
to raise themselves to the
level of an adult genre reader.
It was the same logic that
in-fueled pulp science fiction.
It was the same logic
that in-fueled a lot
of the popular magazine
content of the time.
And in fact, if you look at the
EC Comics, they had an awful lot
to say about social
justice issues of the day.
There's a terrific strip
called In Remembrance
that I definitely
recommend everybody seek out.
It's a seven-pager by Wallace
Wood written by Al Feldstein
that tells the story of
a young man coming home
from the Korean War.
And it happened to be
published the same month
that the Armistice was signed.
This young man is wounded.
He gets to a small town,
white kid, white town.
He's met with a victory parade.
And he goes home with is
parents, and they say hey,
before the big victory
parade tonight,
when we all celebrate what
you did out there, do you,
is there anything
you want to do?
He says yeah, I want
to visit Sam's grave.
And the parents get
very nervous,
and they say well, about that.
I know you wanted him
buried in the family plot.
I know he took the grenade
and saved your life,
but we had to bury him
in the colored cemetery.
There's simply no way that we
could continue to be a part
of this town and do business
in this town if we put him,
you know, in the white plot.
And the kid's very upset.
And the parents say look, we
spent more than we could afford.
You know, we did
everything that we can,
but this is the best we can do.
So the soldier withdraws.
He goes to the parade
that night.
They ask him to give a speech,
and he says, I went out there
to protect all of our freedoms.
And I mean all of our freedoms.
I am ashamed by what
you did to this man
who sacrificed himself
for me and for you.
You have completely diminished
everything that we stand for.
Powerful stuff for
1952 in a comic book.
In the months that followed,
you saw a debate in the pages
of Shock Suspense Stories
letter column from members
of the armed forces
talking about this,
beginning with a person in
the Air Force that wrote in,
Dear Editors, I am in the
Air Force and there's no way
that we would ever put N words
in the same bunks
as white people.
This is liberal propaganda.
So, as you can see, some
things never change.
In the months that
followed, other people
in the military wrote
in and said, hey,
that guy's a disgrace.
We are members of the
Army, Navy, whatever.
We all fight for equality.
And in fact, three months
somebody wrote in and says hey,
I looked up that
guy that wrote in.
He was dishonorably
discharged a few months ago.
So, one of the big
social justice discussions
of the time being had by adults
in the pages of these
comic books.
1953, Fredric Wertham is
ready to release the work
that would define his legacy.
And it came out in the
Ladies Home Journal,
which was the highest
circulated magazine of the time.
And really one of the
most influential organs
for determining what came
into American households.
An article called What Parents
Don't Know about Comic Books,
which was an excerpt from his
upcoming book, The Seduction
of the Innocent,
which was published
as an immediate bestseller
in 1954, where he posited
that comic books are
a corrosive influence
that has a direct
causal relationship
on children engaging in
delinquent behaviors,
whether that is sexual
delinquency.
Whether that is crime
delinquency.
Whether that is disrespect
for authority.
It is all there.
He defined pretty much all comic
books as crime comic books.
If there was a crime happening,
whether it was Captain Marvel,
Jr. thwarting somebody
stealing candy,
or one of those proto-MSNBC
comics
that Charlie Biro published,
it was all a crime
comic to Doc Wertham.
And it was a compelling argument
because at the same time
that he was putting
it out there,
we had this new thing
called the teenager.
There had never really been
a group of young people
with that much disposable time,
income and hormones let loose
in their own way, right.
And so, of course, there
were increases in delinquency
because that's what young people
do when they don't need to go
down to the factory to
earn any money that,
you know, the family needs.
You know, and there's going
to be some bad apples there.
Because here's a
secret everybody,
the job of young people is
to horrify their elders.
That's the social contract.
Some of them do find
the wrong path.
The simplistic argument
that comic books were
leading them there was very,
very appealing.
So, these good intentions
that Wertham poured
into it were backed up by
ultimately poor science.
He had no control group.
He was working primarily with
at-risk kids, at-risk kids
that would come see him, and
they called him Dr. Quarter
because for a quarter he
would listen to your problems,
and you know, helped
diagnose you.
You know, all of this
stuff, but Dr. Carol Tilley
who does her research
in Chicago later found
that he actually falsified a lot
of his information
conflating evidence,
taking one kid's written
statement and tying it
to another kid's written
statement in the quotations
that he used in Seduction of the
Innocent to assert his claims.
So this was not known
at the time.
All that was known
was that this guy
who helped us end
segregation and wrote,
literally wrote the book
on neuroscience is saying
this stuff is bad for kids.
So what are we going
to do about it?
The US Senate determined that as
they were holding their hearings
on juvenile delinquency
that when they got
to New York they were going
to investigate the
comic book industry.
This incensed William Gaines
because two years before,
in 1950, Estes Kefauver, I'm
sorry four years before 1950,
Estes Kefauver had had
the subcommittee hearings
on organized crime.
And this was the birth of the
Court TV genre that plagues us
to this day where they had,
you know, members at the top
of the various New York crime
families being televised
with their testimony
for the first time.
And Gaines, who really lived
up to that Leonard Cohen line,
if your abandon your masterpiece
and find your real
masterpiece felt
that he had found his
masterpiece in EC Comics.
I'm pouring my heart and soul
into this, and they're going
to make me look like I'm one of
these organized crime crooks.
Oh hell no.
And so he created this ad
that you can actually see
on the table over there,
are you a red dupe?
Where he asserted the
group most anxious
to destroy comics
are the communists.
This was in the days
of the red scare.
He sent this to every
senator on that subcommittee.
So, in this incredible
defiant act of smartassery,
he determined that,
you know, the reference
to communism would
be a sly pointed jab
at Wertham, at the lawmakers.
He was actually denounced on
the Senate floor for this.
>> No he wasn't.
>> Charles Brownstein: Really?
>> All right.
>> Charles Brownstein: Go on.
>> No, when he went out on the
Senate floor, what he said was.
>> Charles Brownstein: Are you
talking about the testimony,
or are you talking about --
>> I'm talking about
when Hendrickson went
out on the Senate floor to talk
about why they were having the
Senate comic book hearings.
He said, look, the reason
why we're doing this is all
of these people have
sent us mail saying
that comics are the cause
of juvenile delinquencies.
They had a public relations
problem on their hands.
And so between they had all
these experts telling them
that there was a
cause and effect,
because they had already written
one document about the cause
of juvenile things
in the United States.
They said, we've got to
do something about this.
We can't not investigate it.
>> Charles Brownstein: No
I think, that's correct.
But the red dupe was
specifically called out.
>> Right. The red
dupe was called out.
>> Charles Brownstein:
That's what I'm saying.
>> Yeah.
>> Charles Brownstein: I wasn't
saying comics were denounced.
I said the red dupe
was denounced.
>> No, the red dupe
was sort of called
out because Hendrickson
basically said well now wait a
minute, all right.
And he said on the Senate
floor, I'm not looking
to censor anything, okay.
>> Charles Brownstein: Warren,
we're agreeing with each other.
>> Sort of.
>> Charles Brownstein: Okay.
>> I don't want to
hijack [inaudible].
>> Charles Brownstein:
So anyway.
Red dupe was definitely an
irritant to the senators
that were in this position of
the public relations problem
that Warren is identifying
of the moral panic saying
that comics are this thing
that are harming kids.
What are you guys
going to do about it?
And so the senate subcommittee
hearings that happened
in New York City in April
of 1954 gave those senators
the opportunity to respond
to their constituents' letters
and also created the opportunity
to really get to the
bottom of this concern.
Now, Gaines was not
on the witness list,
and he saw this,
and he was furious.
He felt that, you
know, if they're going
to be making a mockery of
our business, I'm going to go
out there and set it straight.
And these are, you know,
all lawfully-elected people.
They'll see it my way, surely.
Which was not a smart move,
as we'll get into in a moment.
So, Wertham began the
afternoon session.
He was given very careful
treatment in the way
that he outlined that comics
were detrimental to youth.
And although the science has
been debunked, it carried a lot
of weight at the time,
particularly when he said
that the normal child
is the one that is more
at risk by comic books.
And the other quote of the day
was that the Nazis had nothing
on the comic book industry when
it comes to poisoning youth.
This is strong stuff.
And Gaines is sitting
there, and he's squirming
and he's fuming and
he's sweating.
And it's not just
from the content
of what Wertham was saying,
it's also that the
drugs were wearing off.
So let me explain.
Bill is this kind of
portly 32-year-old guy
who has the self-righteousness
of youth on his side.
And he's going out there to
read a statement that is going
to tell these guys,
look we're all in this
for the right reasons.
We're protected by
the First Amendment.
You're looking for
simple solutions.
But you know, he went
out there and, you know,
he's been taking these diet
pills to control his weight.
Which we would now call speed.
And he had been taking
them for days up, you know,
late at night working
with Lyle Stuart who went
on to be a famous publisher
in the underground
press in his own right.
You know, this big
defiant statement.
And Gaines was going to go
on slightly before lunch.
The proceedings ran late.
This German quack is up there
pulling up a copy of my comic
about discrimination where
we use the word spick to show
that discrimination is bad.
And he's saying we're teaching
kids how to use the work spick.
I can't believe this monster.
And then the drugs crash when he
goes up to give his testimony.
So sweaty, nervous, looking
down at his prepared statement.
He's mumbling.
He's muttering.
He looks like hell.
And the senators who see this
guy that asked to be there
and that called them communists
in there are you a red dupe ad
smelled this blood in the water.
So Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser,
let me get the limits as far
as what you put in
your magazine.
Is the sole test of what you put
in your magazine
whether it sells?
Is there any limit you can
think of that you would not put
in because you thought a child
shouldn't see or read about it?
No, says Bill.
I wouldn't say there's
any reason,
limit for the reason
you outlined.
My only limits are the
bounds of good taste.
What I consider to
be good taste.
So you think a child
could not in any way,
shape or manner be hurt by
anything a child reads or sees.
I don't believe so, says Bill.
So there's no limit to what
you put in your magazines,
only the bounds of good taste.
And they produce this cover.
Here is your May 22nd
issue, says Kefauver.
This seems to be a man with a
bloody ax holding a woman's head
up which has been
severed from her body.
Do you think that
is in good taste?
So drug-addled-crashing
Gaines says, yes sir I do,
for the cover of a
horror comic book.
So all of the reporters
are like this is great.
I'm going to go to the bar.
I've got my story.
But then he kept talking.
A cover in bad taste, for
example, might be defined
as holding the head
a little higher
so the neck could be seen
dripping blood from it.
Or moving the body over a
little further so the neck
of the body could be
seen to be bloody.
You have blood coming
out of her mouth.
A little. It did not go well.
No harm in horror, comics issuer
says, rang out the headline
in next day's New York Times.
The following week's
Newsweek piled on.
If the comic book industry is
not going to regulate itself,
if their own moral judgment
are these people like Gaines,
then something has
to be done about it.
And either they clean up their
own act, or Congress needs
to clean it up for them.
And so the moral panic was
now at a new fever pitch.
And Gaines knew that
he didn't just step
in it, he stepped in it.
The whole floor collapsed,
and now everybody was
in the muck along with him.
And so he called the industry
together and said, all right,
not my finest moment up there.
But, we got to do
something about this.
Let's make this code
they're talking about so
that we can put this
all behind us.
And so the heads of National
Publications and the heads of,
you know, which was DC,
Archie Publications,
now they go, this
is a great idea.
And as it came into the
drafting, it became clear
that this great idea was going
to be putting Bill and others
like him out of business.
This is not what I had
in mind, Bill said,
as the code determined
that it was going
to basically sanitize the
content of comic books in a way
that it would be appropriate for
only the youngest of viewers.
And in fact, in the up yours
Bill Gaines rule that I call
in here, no comic shall
use the word horror
or terror in its title.
Fundamentally, and you can read
all of the code on our website,
fundamentally, what the code
did was assured the public
that the industry took
their concerns seriously.
There was no need for
government regulation.
It assured the public that
your kids will be safe reading
comic books.
But in doing so, it
sanitized the subject matter
and really infantilized
the medium.
I'm going to show you just a
couple of quick before/after,
to show you how the code
actually executed its work.
So, here is a War of
the Worlds-type story
that was published pre-code.
Look at just the top two panels.
The man's eyes are
fully dilated and wide
in panel one on the left side.
But on the right, his
expression has been put
to a half-lidded,
less excited state.
The three-eyed weirdo
is now a dude
with an unfortunately
large head.
The conclusion of, you know,
getting away from these aliens
that have come to invade
us and conquer our planet,
in the original story
is a murder-suicide.
In the sanitized story
is packing their bags
and going to who knows where.
We just got to put this
thing on the stands
and hope nobody looks
for the logic in it.
This is too, again, deal
with the way the
code managed content.
Here's a Simon and Kirby
Captain America page.
You can see that they changed
the features of the red skull
to make him less gruesome.
Here's another one that also
reduced not only the gruesome
menacing of the fanged
character,
but also removed the
woman who is being menaced
by the centaur over the altar.
And just two more here.
This is to show you how the
edits were actually done.
When they sent these to the
school teachers that worked,
retired school teachers
that worked
at the Cartoon Magazine
Association of America
that administrated the code,
they would just take white out
and go write on the boards
to correct the materials.
And finally, this last one,
while the previous scenes
were being gruesome,
this one you can see that this
hint of cleavage is too much
for the teenagers and
children of the 1950s.
And so Gaines deciding
that he was going to try
to make an earnest go of it did,
and he launched a new
trend in magazines.
But ultimately, that
became clear
that this new stuff
wasn't going to work
when he sent an inventory story
in to be approved by the code
that was called Judgment
Day by Joe Orlando
where an astronaut is going
to a planet to admit them
into the Federation
of Planets and finds
that there's discrimination
against orange robots
by blue robots.
And in the last panel
of this story,
recommends we're not
going to let them
in because they haven't
advanced enough,
takes off his helmet,
and it's a black man.
And Feldstein took this
over to Charles Murphy
that ran the code.
Murphy says, you can't have it.
This is not going
to be approved.
Well, why not?
Can't have it.
I'm going to tell Bill.
He's going to go
through the roof.
He's going to tell everybody
that you're a racist.
Can't have it.
So he goes down to Bill, and
Bill goes all right, Murphy.
He picks up the phone.
I'm going to have a press
conference and tell everybody
that you're a racist and the
CMA is racist and, you know,
you're not going to let me
run this story that's clearly
about discrimination.
And Murphy says, tell you what,
take the sweat beads off the
astronaut, and you can have it.
So Bill just recognizes
that they're just
completely messing with him.
So he looks, you know, does
a double-take, looks at phone
and yells as loud as
he can, well fuck you
and slams down the phone.
Gets out of the comic
book business completely.
And redirects that energy into
what would become Mad Magazine.
Really proving the
Leonard Cohen maxim
of you abandon your masterpiece,
you sink into your
true masterpiece.
Because it was Mad
Magazine that proved
to have a lasting influence,
not only on the youth of America
and the medium of comics,
but all of American satire,
humor and politics in
the time that followed.
The rest of the comics
weren't so lucky.
If you look at the end
of Ten-Cent Plague,
you'll see pages after
pages after pages
of 11 point single-spaced
three-columns per page
of cartoonists that
never worked again
after the purge of the 50s.
Comics went from a diversity
of subject matter and content
for a diversity of
audiences to these charming
but dopey illustrations that
I selected here on the screen.
It wasn't until the early 1960s
that comics finally started
to in the comic book format at
least, nudge a little bit way
up from being just for,
you know, little children.
And the Marvel Comics, in
particular, that emerged in 1961
and 1962 and 1963 under the
watch of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby,
Steve Ditko and other
cartoonists,
introduced a more
realistic teenager and hero
into their comic subject matter.
And that matured over
the course of the decade,
reaching a following in
college environments as well.
Now, in those same college
environments starting in 1965,
the kids that grew up reading
the EC comics didn't know
where they went.
They just knew they were gone.
There's a great Spain
Rodriguez quote that growing
up in Buffalo, New York, you
know, you're told, hey kid,
you've got all this freedom.
We're the United States.
We stand for freedom.
Then they take away
the Vault of Horror.
It's like, no kid, you
ain't got no freedom at all.
And these kids that grew up with
that stuff learned in college
when they had access to the, you
know, reproduction technology
of the college newspaper,
oh, we can do this.
So in Texas you started
to see underground cartoonists
emerge including Gilbert Shelton
and Jack Jackson.
Jack Jackson did God Knows.
Gilbert did Wonder Warthog.
He would later go on to
create the Fabulous Furry
Freak Brothers.
In California in 1965, Joel
Beck created Lenny of Loredo,
which came out of the
free speech movement led
by Mario Savio and
referenced Lenny Bruce
as a martyr of free speech.
In Chicago in the Midwest
area, you had Jay Lynch
and Skip Williamson, both of
whom died earlier this year,
produced Bijou Funnies,
Denis Kitchen,
created Kitchen Sink Press.
In New York, you had Spain,
Trina Robbins, Kim Deitch
and others create
Gothic Blimp Works.
But the real person that brought
it all together was Robert Crumb
whose Zap Comix, which were, you
know, sold in the first issue
from a baby carriage
in Haight-Ashbury
in 1968 was the one
that really brought home
that comics had something
to say in the context
of the young adult rebellion
that was happening in rock
and roll, experimental film
and the protest movement.
This in its own way
advanced the subject matter
of comics far beyond what was
possible in, certainly the code,
but even the pre-code area.
And it was quickly stamped out
by law enforcement as well.
In 1971, a pair of book
store clerks were convicted
in New York for selling copies
of Zap number four
to an undercover cop.
In 1973, when the Supreme
Court's community standards
decision came in in
Miller versus California,
the head shops decided
we're going to get
out of this business entirely.
It's just far, far too risky.
And so, first in the 50s comics
were intellectual freedom was
attacked by the moral panic that
emerged because of the contents
that were sold on
the news stand.
In the 1970s, the more
intellectual freedom
of comics were attacked
because of the subject matter
that was reaching to
counterculture audiences.
From that collapse, the direct
sales market emerged as a place
that fans could actually
use, you know,
comics as a form of expression.
It happened because
Phil Seuling got busted
for selling Zap number
four in a sting at one
of his monthly conventions.
Phil was a conventioneer
in New York.
He created a mechanism by
which comics didn't need
to submit to the comics code.
He created a mechanism by which
comics could reach directly the
audiences that were
interested in them.
And so you started
to have a renascence
of self-published comics
that continues to this day
at the festival we're going
to attend this weekend at SPX.
It created the circumstances
for mainstream companies to put
out books for adult audiences
without the comics code.
It created the opportunity
for new formats
like the graphic
novel to emerge,
which Will Eisner popularized
with his short story collection
A Contract with God in 1978.
By 1986, there was this great
confluence of work that emerged
out of the combination of
finally having an environment
where you could sell
comics without censorship
and having an environment
of readers that were able
to take the form for what it is.
So you had the simultaneous
arrival of,
by accident I might add,
of Maus in first volume
by Art Spiegelman, Batman
the Dark Knight Returns,
the Reagan Allegory by
Miller and Janson and Varley
and Watchmen by Alan Moore
and Dave Gibbons emerged
to show this is what
comics can do.
They are the high-water marks.
There was a lot of other
stuff happening as well,
but those are the ones we
looked back on and went,
and the popular press at
the time said, this is it.
Comics aren't just
for kids anymore.
Again, law enforcement comes in.
In late 1986 in November
while monitoring places
where youth congregate
in Lansing, Illinois,
Officer Anthony Van Gorp and
his partner purchased 15 comics
from Michael Correa, the manager
of a store called Friendly
Franks and busted him
for possession and sale of
obscene materials for some
of the titles that you see here,
as well as some innocuous stuff
like Wonder Woman,
which the judge said,
this isn't obscene,
I'm throwing it out.
But I can definitely see
the satanic overtones in it.
The more things change, right.
He was convicted at the lower
court level, and Denis Kitchen
who published some of the comics
there determined this isn't
right and led an effort by the
industry to raise the funds
that would ultimately go on
to hire the lawyer Burt Joseph
that would win the appeal.
For the first time in our
history, comics had stood
up for our intellectual freedom
and for the intellectual freedom
of our retailers and one.
It was from this basis that the
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
was established as
an ongoing concern.
And in the decades that have
followed we've engaged in dozens
and dozens of cases for
retailers who have been targeted
for selling work but also for
artists who have been prosecuted
for the contents of their work.
Our most notable loss came
when we were a very
young organization,
and in underground cartoonist
from Florida named Mike
Diana was convicted
of creating obscene
material as a result
of his comic book Boiled Angel,
which would not be out of place
on today's Adult Swim.
But at the time, the
grotesque subject matter
and visual style was
too much for audiences,
and the prosecutor said, if
you think this stuff belongs
in a museum, then
you think it's art.
And if you think this
stuff doesn't belong
in a museum then you
think it's obscene,
go ahead and convict it.
And the jury did.
It was a bad decision,
and it showed no matter
how much you might think
that the First Amendment
will prevail.
Certainly, everybody in
comics at the time did.
In fact, so many people
went out of their way
to distance themselves
from Mike Diana's work
and say well surely
his stuff is gross,
but the First Amendment
will prevail,
that everybody was
caught flat-footed
in the industry when, in fact,
the First Amendment
didn't prevail.
This is the less of the moral
panic, even when you think
that you have advanced
to a point
where there are these victories,
there's always the
danger of setback.
And we're seeing those setbacks
today with a new generation
of challenges to some of
the most innocuous comics
and graphic novels
that are happening.
In fact, when I got into
this job 15 years ago,
I thought for sure for the rest
of my life I was going to be
that guy that defends creepy
porno comics for a living.
It's a bittersweet
thing to find that no,
I'm defending the rights of
young people to read authors
like Raina Telgemeier.
Just last year, the top two
most frequently banned books
in the United States was
This One Summer by Mariko
and Jillian Tamaki, a very
sensitive, intelligent coming
of age tale about
these two girls
on the brink of adolescence.
And Drama by Telgemeier.
Now, a lot of these are
happening in environments
where comics isn't really what
the parents are upset about.
Or is it the fact that
they love their kids,
and their kids are going
through changes in life.
And you can attack the
John Green book more easily
than you can attack say Tumblr.
I'm sensitive to all of that.
I wouldn't want to be a parent
raising a teenager right now
because nobody over 25
has any idea what it's
like to be under 25.
And that's a fact you
can take to the bank.
Nonetheless, our
job as elders is
to help them understand the
world that they're coming into.
Is trying to ban a comic
that you morally disagree
with the right thing to do?
I don't think so.
I think that you have
a right as a parent
to determine what you
want in your home.
I think you have the
right as a parent to ask
for an alternative
assignment if it is
so offensive to your values.
But you don't have
the right to parent
for the rest of the community.
And that is where a lot
of the funds work these
days is concentrated.
Despite these challenges,
which I could to into in much,
much greater detail if you
want to find me afterwards.
Comics are the future.
Comics are the 21st century's
most potent form of literature.
They marry the visual
literacy and textual literacy
that our audiences
now crave and demand.
And you can see it in
the growing success
of the graphic novel category.
You can see it this weekend
as SPX approaches fire
marshal levels of attendance.
You can see it every year
when Sand Diego Comicon
sells out in a day.
You can see it every
time you turn on your TV
and there's a new
television program adapted
from a graphic novel series,
whether it's an all-ages cartoon
on the Disney Channel
or an AMC show
like The Walking
Dead or Preacher.
And in the end, I want to come
back Bill Gaines and what he had
to say about comic's
intellectual freedom.
Because I think it sparks the
resonant through line note
that applies whether we're
talking about people being mad
at Raina Telgemeier because her
comic has a gay character in it.
Or people being mad
at William Gaines
because he publishes
these gruesome images,
or he talks about racism.
What are we afraid of, he asks
in his prepared statement
to the Congress.
Are we afraid of
our own children?
Do we forget that they are
citizens too and entitled
to select what to read or do?
The basic personality of a child
is established before he reaches
the age of comic book reading.
The truth is, that juvenile
delinquency is the product
of a real environment
in which the child lives
and not the fiction he reads.
There are many problems that
reach our children today.
No pill can cure them.
No law will legislate
them out of being.
The problems are economic and
social, and they are complex.
Our people need understanding.
They need to have affection,
decent homes, decent food.
I can never remember
having seen one boy or girl
who has committed a crime or
who became neurotic or psychotic
because he or she
read comic books.
The job of young people is
to horrify their elders.
It's what they've done
since time and memorial
and what they are going to
do until the end of time.
Our job as elders is to have
those conversations with them
that make them into good
citizens in training.
Instead of attacking their
intellectual freedom,
whether that takes the form of
a comic book or a video game
or a television show
or something
that hasn't been invented
yet, watch it with them.
Listen to them.
Talk to them, because
they're going to be
in your shoes one day too.
Thanks for your time
this afternoon.
[ Applause ]
>> Georgia Higley:
[Inaudible] for questions?
>> Charles Brownstein: Yeah,
it's a little bit after one,
so if anybody needs
to go, no problem.
If anybody has any questions,
I'm happy to field any.
Yeah, Mike.
>> Can you flip back
to the Captain America
censorship stuff?
Those reprints are from
like '68 or '69 aren't they?
>> Charles Brownstein: Mike's
asking if I can flip back
to the Captain America
censorship stuff
and asking the providence
of the reprint.
And yeah, that's '66.
>> Yeah, so much later than
people would have thought.
>> Charles Brownstein: Yeah.
>> Still being aggressively
[inaudible].
>> Charles Brownstein:
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
So to summarize.
This was in the mid-60s that
these comics were amended.
Are there other questions?
>> Was that Bill Gaines
book from his testimony?
>> Charles Brownstein: Yeah,
that was from his
prepared statements,
which I encourage
people to read in full.
They're much more
eloquent than he was
in his naivety down there.
Emily, you were next.
>> You said something,
and I wasn't able
to get the last part of it.
You said comics are the
21st century's most potent,
and I just wanted
to get the rest.
>> Charles Brownstein:
Oh, form of literature.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Charles Brownstein: There
was another one over here.
Yes.
>> Have you seen, now we're
seeing actual novels being
converted into graphic
novels and things like that.
Have you seen and has
there ever been a case
where a graphic novel
has, somebody has gone
after the graphic novels
and not the original novel?
>> Charles Brownstein: Yeah,
that's a good question.
The question was that
there are now an abundance
of graphic novels that
are, that come from novels
that they've been adapted
from the novel form
and have I seen any cases
where the graphic novel has been
challenged and not the original.
Yes, in fact, the fund
has been very active
in defending The Graveyard
Book graphic novel adaptation
of Neil Gaiman's
prize-winning novel
where the novel adaptation was
attacked in several localities
because it addresses
the death of parents.
And that being too
upsetting or inappropriate
for the middle school audiences
that are confronting
that material.
>> Wait a minute.
The graphic novel
is attacked but --
>> Charles Brownstein:
But not the novel.
>> I was going to say,
and I guarantee you they
will let [inaudible] Bambi,
which is --
>> Charles Brownstein:
Yeah right.
Yeah.
>> As a continued thought,
are there formalized groups
that are, like we
had in the past?
>> Charles Brownstein: Sure, the
question is, are there any kind
of formal pressure
groups that are going
after graphic novels now
as there were in the past.
And the answer, thank fully,
is that not at the
moment that we are seeing.
However, there are
campaigns that happen
in local environments
with great frequency.
Some of the slides I had to pass
over for time involve
media attacks on teachers
and librarians that are making
graphic novels available.
Earlier this year, we defended
a book edited by Ariel Schrag,
an anthology called Stuck
in the Middle, which is,
I think it was called 12
Stories from a Difficult Age.
And it was anthology of stories
about being in middle school.
And the mother of a middle
school kid that checked it
out in the school library
where it had resided
for the last ten
years or so objected
because it depicted kids
smoking, and there was a scene
where a kid talked
about his fantasy
of how he would murder people.
Which I guarantee you, if you've
ever met a 12-year-old boy,
or 12-year-old, like
this is a thing
that happens in their head.
It wasn't just on the page.
But they don't do it, right.
It was a safe place to access
these feelings and emotions.
And it was kind of talking
about everybody feels this way.
So this parent didn't
just challenge the book,
she went to the local TV station
that took the flagged copy,
the parent's flagged copy of
the book and did the old saw
of this book is so dangerous,
we can't even show
you what's in it.
You know, that stuff
happens with great frequency.
And the fund is active
in providing resources
both intellectually,
and in some cases,
actually sending, you know,
experts that we pay for in to
help deal with these situations.
Was there on this side, yes.
>> I grew up in a
dictatorship in Spain.
And it had a very
active censorship office.
And those two remind me
of the [inaudible] stuff.
For example, [inaudible]
which was the main comic book
publisher in Spain [inaudible].
And I wanted to add also
that during the same period
of the dictatorship, one of the
creators became very famous,
and he created two
comic book [inaudible].
And those comic books
defied today's dictatorship.
I mean the censors
missed the big picture.
Because usually we have
the [inaudible] story
that you would defeat the
enemy, meaning the dictator.
And he would establish sort of
like a local governance council.
And the censorship
missed the big picture.
And he was laughing at
[inaudible] in the 1990s.
But yeah, they had to fight
those things, but for him,
it was a way to fight
the dictatorship.
And he was a communist,
which means that in [inaudible]
it automatically means you're an
enemy of the state.
But he used those two comics,
the most popular comics
in Spain, to fight the
dictatorship and the censorship.
>> Charles Brownstein:
That's a great story.
Thank you for --
>> And I just recommend those
two titles for the library.
>> Charles Brownstein:
And what are they?
[ Foreign Language Spoken ]
>> [Foreign Language]
was created in 1956,
and [Foreign Language]
was created in 1958.
The first one was set
in the Middle Ages.
The second one was set
in the [inaudible].
>> Charles Brownstein:
Before I get to you, Shannon,
thank you for sharing that.
And it brings up a really
great aspect of comics
in that their ability
to be subversive is
very, very important.
Whether it is these
example in Franco, Spain.
Walt Kelly taking on Estes
Kefauver in the strip Pogo.
You know, modern efforts of
editorial cartoonists that are,
you know, in some cases really
putting their livelihood
on the line by speaking
truth to power.
You know, all are
contained within this medium.
And for a long time,
because it was regarded
as low value speech,
it was a place
where people could really
give voice to these sorts
of concerns either
about political justice
or social justice and the way
that I shared the EC stories.
And I think it continues
to perform that function.
Shannon.
>> Yeah, I was just curious,
like '48 is where you said
all these laws were beginning
to be passed against comics
and against publishers.
I'm just wondering,
what convictions were
happening at that time.
Because until Mike
Diana came along,
that's the first time I've
heard of a comic artist being --
>> Charles Brownstein: Sure.
So the question was with the
laws passed against comics
in 1948, what's the
conviction record?
And that's a very good question
that there aren't
really good answers to.
The first serious
conviction that I'm aware
of involving the sale of
comics was the 1971 conviction
of the New Yorker Bookstore
in the Zap number four case.
Prior to that in the underground
comics there were a lot
of cases brought against
head shops and bookstores
that would sell underground
comics didn't make it all the
way to court.
Ron Turner, famous, the
publisher of Last Gasp,
tells a story about a comic
book pungently entitled Felch
which was the basis of a
prosecution in Long Beach,
California, and it
was they were going
to bust the store that sold it.
And they were going to put
these guys in jail forever.
But one of the cops stole it
because they wanted to pass it
around the office, so it
never made it into evidence
and the case was thrown out.
There's a lot of stuff
like that that happened.
The first one that really stuck
was this Zap number four case.
The stuff in the
1940s and the 1950s
after the Kefauver hearings were
really about being deterrents.
They were about creating
an economic deterrent
to distribution of the material
that was found objectionable.
And in a lot of ways were
using the laws in a way
that was unconstitutional.
Because they were attempting
to create a prior restraint
upon the freedom of expression.
But there wasn't,
certainly there was no group
like the funds and the ACLU,
while they spoke out for comics
in the 1950s, and in particular,
in the 1954 subcommittee
hearings, you know,
wasn't really bringing cases
against those sorts
of laws at the time.
And I don't think it
would have helped anyway
because the public
was so adamant
that this stuff is a
danger to our youth
that something needs
to be done about it.
That the economics
dictated the code.
Never forget, the
code is a creature
of the comic book
industry first and foremost
and always had been
throughout its time.
There's on this side, and
then I'll get to you, Mike.
Was there on this side?
Okay, I'm sorry about
that, Mike.
Go ahead.
>> Oh, I was just going to say
the current comic [inaudible]
and talks a little bit about
his trial first edition
in World War I.
So he was actually affected
and had economic consequences.
>> But that was for violating
the then [inaudible] law.
[ Overlapped Speaking ]
It's still for his
cartoons, though Warren.
>> Yes.
>> So how do we actually
give you money, Charles.
That was my main question.
>> Charles Brownstein:
You can contribute
to the Comic Book
Legal Defense Fund,
and thank you for that, Mike.
You can contribute to the
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
in a variety of ways.
I actually have some
publications I'll be giving
folks at the end of this where
you can sign up for membership.
Membership is as little
as five bucks a year.
And it does two things.
It gives us the economic
resources we need
to protect the people
that need protection.
And it also gives us standing
in cases where we have
to fight unconstitutional
legislation and can point
to membership within
that environment.
You can also support our work
by coming to SPX this weekend
where we're going to
be having signings,
and we've got graphic novels
available that are signed
by their creators to
raise money for our work.
But yeah, when we break up here,
I'll pull the publications
out of the bag.
We have our new brand
books [inaudible] handbook
that I can give to everybody.
And that has all of
our signup information.
Whatever you can do to help,
whatever's within your budget,
does help us achieve our book.
We're a small staff of
three full-time folks,
and a part-time editorial
director
that does all of this work.
And we pride ourselves
on being transparent
and being good stewards
of your contributions.
>> And you get an
awesome looking lapel pin.
>> Charles Brownstein:
We do have good merch.
Our Deputy Director Alex
Cox makes amazing merch.
>> Georgia Higley: Okay, let's
thank Charles one more time.
[ Applause ]
>> Charles Brownstein:
Thank you folks
And here are those handbooks
with our membership info.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.