In 1950, a Senate Committee released a report connected comic books and delinquency. Soon afterward, parents and educators began to ban comic books from schools and homes. The Comics Code was the ultimate goal of the psychiatrist Dr. Frederick Wertham. Having started his anti-comic campaign in the late nineteen forties, Dr. Wertham believed comic books were the main cause of the deterioration of young people. The former Yale professor lecturer released his book, The Seduction of the Innocent in 1954. In this book, Dr. Wertham states that comic books are responsible for almost all juvenile misbehavior from racial hatred to petty crime. Soon, the U.S. Senate ordered that a set of standards be made in order to minimize the negative effects of comic books. Many newsstands were thrilled to not carry comic books that didn’t have the comic code seal on them (comic books were often tedious to inventory due to their smaller size and large numbers).
Even though the contents of the code were created by a union of comic publisher as a means of self regulation, its effect proved disastrous to the industry. [2] Under the code, comic books had to display limited violence, sexual contact and negative language. [3] Changes could be seen in almost every genre of comic.
In Western comic books, there were fewer gunfights. In romance comic books , there was less romance. Even Funny Animal titles were forced to “curb” their violence. Horror comic books nearly suffered extinction. Science fiction titles seemed to survive this baptism. The recent creation of the atomic bomb combined with UFO interest (stemming from the Roswell incident in 1947 and numerous pulp literature that followed), brought out a surge in science fiction Comic books. To appease this interest, Marvel Comics brought out World of Suspense, World of Fantasy, Mystical Tales and World of Mystery.
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