Confidential File: Horror Comic Books

A report by Paul Coates. Produced by Jim Peck. Directed by Irvin Kershner. Aired October 9, 1955. A KTTV Production, Los Angeles, for TimesMirror. In 1954 the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency conducted an investigation into how the comic book industry was supposedly contributing to the moral decay of a nation s youth. The investigations were spurred on by a number of articles that blamed comics for the rise in juvenile delinquency in postwar America. Chief among the critics was Doctor Frederic Wertham, whose book, Seduction of The Innocent has been blamed for nearly singlehandedly crippling the entire comics industry. In 1955, the comic book publishers formed the selfregulating organization, The Comics Code Authority, which great impacted on how comic books were perceived by the public and what kind of stories were told in the comics for decades. The effects of the virtual witchhunt from this period in American history still has effect on the comic book in