Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:22:35.293Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Doctor versus the Dagger: Comics Reading and Cultural Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Christopher Pizzino
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While the graphic novel has gained a measure of respectability in the United States, the medium of which it is a part has not. Even in the claim that comics are “not just for kids anymore,” adult comics readers are still stereotyped as immature. his paradoxical situation calls for a new assessment of the midcentury moment when comics were attacked and threatened with censorship and of the igure of Fredric Wertham, a famous anticomics crusader who is still hated in comics culture today. Far from being symptoms of immaturity, as they are sometimes described, attacks on Wertham are evidence of the longterm efects of illegitimacy on the experiences of comics readers and creators. Subject even now to regulatory discourses of maturity, contemporary comics are best understood not as a literature reaching adulthood but as the basis of a vital literacy still struggling with a long history of marginalization.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 130 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 631 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Barker, Martin. “Fredric Wertham—the Sad Case of the Unhappy Humanist.” Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-comics Campaign. Ed. Lent, John A. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1999. 215–33. Print.Google Scholar
Beaty, Bart. Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Beauchamp, Monte. “Destruction of the Innocent.” Blab! 1 (1986): 2–12. Print.Google Scholar
Bendiner, Robert. “Psychiatry for the Needy.” Tomorrow Apr. 1948: 22-46. Print.Google Scholar
Brooker, Will. Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon. New York: Continuum, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Chute, Hillary. “Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative.” PMLA 123.2 (2008): 452–65. Print.Google Scholar
“A Comickazi Bonus Extra.” Comickazi Sept. 1969: 30–31. Print.Google Scholar
Crist, Judith. “Horror in the Nursery.” Collier's 27 Mar. 1948: 22+. Print.Google Scholar
Dagger. Letter to Fredric Wertham. 1952. MS. Papers of Fredric Wertham, 1818-96. Box 125, folder 3. LC Rare Bks. and Spec. Collections Div., Washington.Google Scholar
Doyle, Dennis. “‘Where the Need Is Greatest’: Social Psychiatry and Race-Blind Universalism in Harlem's Lafargue Clinic, 1946-1958.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83.4 (2009): 746-74. Project Muse. Web. 9 July 2012.Google Scholar
Edwards, Don. “The Forbidden Fruit.” Qua Brot 1 (1985): 9–10. Print.Google Scholar
Fiedler, Leslie. “Cross the Border, Close the Gap.” Playboy Dec. 1969: 151+. Print.Google Scholar
Fiedler, Leslie. “The Middle against Both Ends.” Encounter Aug. 1955: 16-23. Print.Google Scholar
Gabilliet, Jean-Paul. Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. Trans. Beaty, Bart and Nguyen, Nick. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2010. Print.Google Scholar
Gardner, Jared. Projections: Comics and the History of Twenty-First-Century Storytelling. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Gilbert, James. A Cycle of Outrage: America's Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s. New York: Oxford UP, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Hatfield, Charles. “Defining Comics in the Classroom; or, The Pros and Cons of Unfixability.” Teaching the Graphic Novel. Ed. Tabachnick, Stephen E. New York: MLA, 2009. 19–27. Print.Google Scholar
Heer, Jeet, and Worcester, Kent, eds. Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Hill, Joe, writer. “Freddy Wertham Goes to Hell.” Illus. Seth Fisher and Langdon Foss. Grave Tales. Issue 6. Forest Hill: Cemetery Dance, 2009. N. pag. Print.Google Scholar
Hill, Joe. Introduction. Incognito: Bad Influences. Writ. Ed Brubaker. Illus. Sean Phillips. New York: Icon, 2011. N. pag. Print.Google Scholar
Hill, Joe, writer. Locke & Key: Guide to the Known Keys. Illus. Gabriel Rodriguez. San Diego: IDW, 2011. Print.Google Scholar
Hill, Joe. Script. Welcome to Lovecraft. Spec. ed. San Diego: IDW, 2011. 181–294. Print. Vol. 1 of Locke & Key.Google Scholar
Hill, Joe, writer. Welcome to Lovecraft. Illus. Gabriel Rodriguez. Issue 2. San Diego: IDW, 2008. Print. Vol. 1 of Locke & Key.Google Scholar
Hill, Roger. “The Death of E.C.” Squa Tront 3 (1969): n. pag. Print.Google Scholar
Kyle, Richard. Editorial. Graphic Story Magazine Summer 1970: 46-47. Print.Google Scholar
Lopes, Paul. Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Mendes, Gabriel. “A Deeper Science: Richard Wright, Dr. Fredric Wertham, and the Fight for Mental Healthcare in Harlem, NY, 1940-1960.” Diss. Brown U, 2010. Proquest Dissertations and Theses. Web. 12 July 2012.Google Scholar
Nyberg, Amy Kiste. “Comic Book Censorship in the United States.” Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-comics Campaign. Ed. Lent, John A. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1999. 42–68. Print.Google Scholar
Nyberg, Amy Kiste. “How Librarians Learned to Love the Graphic Novel.” Graphic Novels in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History, and Cognition. Ed. Weiner, Robert G. Jefferson: McFarland, 2010. 26–40. Print.Google Scholar
Nyberg, Amy Kiste. Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Park, David. “The Kefauver Comic Book Hearings as Show Trial: Decency, Authority, and the Dominated Expert.” Cultural Studies 16.2 (2002): 259–88. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Sept. 2012.Google Scholar
Pizzino, Christopher. “Autoclastic Icons: Bloodletting and Burning in Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar.” Image-TexT 7.1 (2013): n. pag. Web. 13 Aug. 2014.Google Scholar
“Psychiatry in Harlem.” Time 1 Dec. 1947: 50–51. Print.Google Scholar
Rasula, Jed. “Nietzsche in the Nursery: Naive Classics and Surrogate Parents in Postwar American Cultural Debates.” Representations 29 (1990): 50–77. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sands, Jim. “Dr. Wertham and the Classics Horror.” Rocket's Blast and the Comicollector Feb. 1976:44-45. Print.Google Scholar
Spiegelman, Art. Interview by Gary Groth. Pt. 1 of 2. Comics Journal Sept. 1995: 52-106. Print.Google Scholar
Stark, Larry. “Elegy.” Hoohah! The Best of E.C.'s Finest Fanzine. Ed. Parker, Ron. Oakland: Parker, 1984. N. pag. Print.Google Scholar
Stewart, Bhob M., and White, Ted. “The Gaines Mutiny Courtroom Scene.” 1956. Hoohah! The Best of E.C.'s Finest Fanzine. Ed. Parker, Ron. Oakland: Parker, 1984. N. pag. Print.Google Scholar
Tabachnick, Stephen E. Introduction. Teaching the Graphic Novel. Ed. Tabachnick, . New York: MLA, 2009. 1–15. Print.Google Scholar
Thompson, Don. “Here Come Da shrink!!!” Monster Times 31 May 1972: 10-11. Print.Google Scholar
Tilley, Carol L. “Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics.” Information and Culture 47.4 (2012): 383–413. Print.Google Scholar
Tomb, Eleanor M. Letter to Fredric Wertham. 4 Nov. 1955. MS. Papers of Fredric Wertham, 1818-96. Box 125, folder 1. LC Rare Bks. and Spec. Collections Div., Washington.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. “Comic Books: Blueprints for Delinquency.” Reader's Digest May 1954: 24-29. Print.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. “The Comics … Very Funny!” Saturday Review of Literature 29 May 1948: 6+. Print.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. “Doctor Wertham Strikes Back!” Letter. Monster Times May 1973: 6-7. Print.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. “It's Still Murder: What Parents Still Don't Know about Comic Books.” Saturday Review 9 Apr. 1955: 11+. Print.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. Letter to Eleanor M. Tomb. 10 Nov. 1955. MS. Papers of Fredric Wertham, 1818-96. Box 125, folder 1. LC Rare Bks. and Spec. Collections Div., Washington.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. Letter to William Kennedy. 1 Dec. 1954. MS. Papers of Fredric Wertham, 1818-96. Box 126, folder 1. LC Rare Bks. and Spec. Collections Div., Washington.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. Seduction of the Innocent. New York: Rinehart, 1954. Print.Google Scholar
Wertham, Fredric. “What Parents Don't Know about Comic Books.” Ladies' Home Journal Nov. 1953: 50+. Print.Google Scholar
West, Mark I. Children, Culture, and Controversy. Hamden: Archon, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Wright, Richard. “Psychiatry Comes to Harlem.” Free World Sept. 1946: 45-51. Print.Google Scholar