7. The 'Seduction Of The Innocent' Begets The Comics Code
Rinehart & Company
Fredric Wertham is sort of the bogeyman of the comic book world, what with the pathos behind the 'Seduction of the Innocent' having censored the comics industry for some time.
Basically, in the fifties, comics sales were booming. Superhero stories were of course popular, but pulpy tales of suspense and horror were also finding a massive audience and that, much to the annoyance of creators everywhere, didn't sit well with one Fredric Wertham, whose book spawned a congressional inquiry into the effects of comics on America's youth and later gave way to the Comics Code Authority.
The comics code severely limited what publishers could and couldn't show in their stories, and, while it did continue to exist in a somewhat neutered aspect until 2011, counter-organisations like the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund were still being founded as late as 1986.
As far as critics of the comic industry go, they don't get any worse - or notorious - than Fredric Wertham.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
