What it says on the tin. As a lapsed comic book reader, I've always been fascinated by the history of both pulp adventure magazines and comic books. What I'm wondering here, is how would American horror comics, a genre that was basically killed by Wertham and his book gaining widespread attention, have developed had Wertham not published his book? Any thoughts?
How would Horror Comics have developed without Seduction of the Innocent?
- Thread starter Cymry-Korean
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- comic books horror media
Would it be too simplistic to speculate that they would have developed roughly the same as horror movies? Lots of half-naked chicks getting dismembered by deranged psychos, devil-worshiping cults running amok, etc?
Oh that's definitely a direction that they could go. I think a horror comics industry not crushed by backlash might go for more than movies. Much easier to portray blood and gore with pencil and pen than with special effects.
I think it was more Rambo stuff back then. Or that might have been before that. Blood, bones, and exposed muscle tissue isn’t the sort of thing that was overly focused in mainstream comics. I imagine that there just outdated be as much of a following for those comics really. Parents would still try to limit access of children too it which removes a big potential source of revenue. Perhaps some of the larger are dovetailed into DC as so many other comic companies were. End up with their hosts and some monsters becoming recurring characters for whenever a hero is off to fight the supernatural. Who knows? Might be be one group can eventually be seen as the Twilight Zone of comics, with high quality standalone stories. Though they might be they reprint the same runs or stories every ten years. Continuity wouldn’t be that big a deal for them, and the stories having dated settings for horror, sci-fi, and fantasy... I dunno, people might like it. So many comic companies went under though that we should think of a couple example companies and see what they had to offer.
When people mentioned would revert to a niche, expect they copy the biggest hollywood trend and milk all for is worth. For example, mike myers expy, poltergeist and exorcist and so on
I was actually thinking 1970s Jack Chick.
But yeah, anything non-code and in the general vicinity of horror, action or superhero would probably do.
Wait , wasn't the Code a direct response to Wertham's book? I could be wrong but I swear that's what I remember.
It was, still i think comics would remain on their niches, not Wertham will focus the industry to self regulated on a way, maybe with movie like rating system
Yeah, I think you're correct. But how does that relate to my sayìng that non-Code horror would resemble Jack Chick's stuff?
Sorry, I misread your original post. I didn't see the non part. Which was rather important.
No problem.
A rather ironic aspect of religious comic-books is that, being non-Code, they often portrayed things that would never have been allowed in the certified publications. In addition to satanism, cannibalism, and human sacrifice, Jack Chick would also occassionally portray the bad guys as winning, in order to drive home just how powerful the Illuminati is. (See the ending of Spellbound).
Even Spire Comics, much tamer than Chick, featured storylines involving illegal drugs(complete with visuals), prostitution, and in one memorable instance, female POWs being raped by German soldiers in the aftermath of World War II.
Honestly, I might have to look into that. I knew religious comics existed, but I thought they were all just morality tails ala Twilight Zone.
Well, if you're interested...
The Broken Cross
Spellbound?
It's unfortunate the pictures aren't bigger on that site, because the art in those comic books is actually quite good.
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