Podcasts about great comic book scare

TERRIFICON Mitch and artist JERRY ORDWAY are back at Colony Pizza talking about the great comic book scare of the 50s, the Comics Code and even talk about the flaws in The Batman movie... all that and more in today's episode of the Power Cosmic..See the guys at TERRIFICON every summer at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.. #terrificon #comicon #CtComicon 

February 4, 1955. In a New York courtroom, the Comics Czar takes the stand. He's in charge of enforcing a new code, meant to keep comic books from corrupting America's youth, and he's here to prove that his work has cleaned up the industry. But that afternoon, a noted psychologist named Fredric Wertham argues that his work has not nearly gone far enough. When the hearing comes to a close, the committee is left to decide: what is the future of the comic book? Why did one of the country's leading psychologists see them as a major threat to American children? And what can the Great Comic Book Scare teach us about moral panics?Special thanks to our guests, David Hajdu, author of The Ten-Cent Plague, and Jeremy Dauber, author of American Comics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stereotypes should always be viewed with skepticism. That said, when we consider Jewish kids from Brooklyn we ordinarily think of well-behaved, studious types on their way to “good schools” and professions of one sort or another. Rude boys roving the streets of New York seeking to “cleanse” the city by assaulting and even killing “bums” do not readily come to mind. Yet there were such Jewish thugs in the 1950s. Mariah Adin tells their tale in her wonderful book The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s (Praeger, 2014). In the summer of 1954, the Brooklyn “Thrill Killers” murdered two men and tortured several others. All of the victims were essentially indigent men. After the boys were captured, it was discovered that their leader, troubled teenager Robert Tractenberg, was fascinated with the Nazis. Not only that, he was a big fan of violent horror comic books, some of which contained avenging characters. These facts led investigators to believe that the message found in the comics influenced the Thrill Killers’ violent mission and methods. In other words, the violent comics were corrupting youth and were, perhaps, at the root of a perceived national upsurge in “juvenile delinquency.” If this were true, then some sort of censorship might be in order. But what of constitutional considerations? Listen in and learn how it all played out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stereotypes should always be viewed with skepticism. That said, when we consider Jewish kids from Brooklyn we ordinarily think of well-behaved, studious types on their way to “good schools” and professions of one sort or another. Rude boys roving the streets of New York seeking to “cleanse” the city by assaulting and even killing “bums” do not readily come to mind. Yet there were such Jewish thugs in the 1950s. Mariah Adin tells their tale in her wonderful book The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s (Praeger, 2014). In the summer of 1954, the Brooklyn “Thrill Killers” murdered two men and tortured several others. All of the victims were essentially indigent men. After the boys were captured, it was discovered that their leader, troubled teenager Robert Tractenberg, was fascinated with the Nazis. Not only that, he was a big fan of violent horror comic books, some of which contained avenging characters. These facts led investigators to believe that the message found in the comics influenced the Thrill Killers’ violent mission and methods. In other words, the violent comics were corrupting youth and were, perhaps, at the root of a perceived national upsurge in “juvenile delinquency.” If this were true, then some sort of censorship might be in order. But what of constitutional considerations? Listen in and learn how it all played out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stereotypes should always be viewed with skepticism. That said, when we consider Jewish kids from Brooklyn we ordinarily think of well-behaved, studious types on their way to “good schools” and professions of one sort or another. Rude boys roving the streets of New York seeking to “cleanse” the city by assaulting and even killing “bums” do not readily come to mind. Yet there were such Jewish thugs in the 1950s. Mariah Adin tells their tale in her wonderful book The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s (Praeger, 2014). In the summer of 1954, the Brooklyn “Thrill Killers” murdered two men and tortured several others. All of the victims were essentially indigent men. After the boys were captured, it was discovered that their leader, troubled teenager Robert Tractenberg, was fascinated with the Nazis. Not only that, he was a big fan of violent horror comic books, some of which contained avenging characters. These facts led investigators to believe that the message found in the comics influenced the Thrill Killers’ violent mission and methods. In other words, the violent comics were corrupting youth and were, perhaps, at the root of a perceived national upsurge in “juvenile delinquency.” If this were true, then some sort of censorship might be in order. But what of constitutional considerations? Listen in and learn how it all played out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stereotypes should always be viewed with skepticism. That said, when we consider Jewish kids from Brooklyn we ordinarily think of well-behaved, studious types on their way to “good schools” and professions of one sort or another. Rude boys roving the streets of New York seeking to “cleanse” the city by assaulting and even killing “bums” do not readily come to mind. Yet there were such Jewish thugs in the 1950s. Mariah Adin tells their tale in her wonderful book The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s (Praeger, 2014). In the summer of 1954, the Brooklyn “Thrill Killers” murdered two men and tortured several others. All of the victims were essentially indigent men. After the boys were captured, it was discovered that their leader, troubled teenager Robert Tractenberg, was fascinated with the Nazis. Not only that, he was a big fan of violent horror comic books, some of which contained avenging characters. These facts led investigators to believe that the message found in the comics influenced the Thrill Killers’ violent mission and methods. In other words, the violent comics were corrupting youth and were, perhaps, at the root of a perceived national upsurge in “juvenile delinquency.” If this were true, then some sort of censorship might be in order. But what of constitutional considerations? Listen in and learn how it all played out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stereotypes should always be viewed with skepticism. That said, when we consider Jewish kids from Brooklyn we ordinarily think of well-behaved, studious types on their way to “good schools” and professions of one sort or another. Rude boys roving the streets of New York seeking to “cleanse” the city by assaulting and even killing “bums” do not readily come to mind. Yet there were such Jewish thugs in the 1950s. Mariah Adin tells their tale in her wonderful book The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s (Praeger, 2014). In the summer of 1954, the Brooklyn “Thrill Killers” murdered two men and tortured several others. All of the victims were essentially indigent men. After the boys were captured, it was discovered that their leader, troubled teenager Robert Tractenberg, was fascinated with the Nazis. Not only that, he was a big fan of violent horror comic books, some of which contained avenging characters. These facts led investigators to believe that the message found in the comics influenced the Thrill Killers’ violent mission and methods. In other words, the violent comics were corrupting youth and were, perhaps, at the root of a perceived national upsurge in “juvenile delinquency.” If this were true, then some sort of censorship might be in order. But what of constitutional considerations? Listen in and learn how it all played out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(Elizabeth and Mariah)  This week, Elizabeth interviews Mariah Adin about her book The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s to explore why juvenile delinquency kept so many parents up at night in the US in the 1950s.  Were comic books leading kids to lives of crime?

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture was first created in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. Join us for a discussion of the lost world of comic books, their creativity, irreverence, and suspicion of authority.