Pulp Demons International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-comics Campaign

The campaign in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s to rid comic books of their violent content, and often-times to obliterate the medium itself, had far-reaching and deeply felt reverberations. Spearheaded by moralists, educators, politicians, and psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham, anti-comics crusades led to book burnings, town meetings, periodical discourses, and the draconian Comics Code, recognized as the most oppressive act of self-censorship in this country's history. At issue was the possible link between comic books and juvenile delinquency, although then-current concerns about communist infiltration, lowered educational levels, and moral decay also crept into the arguments.