At the age of around 11 through whenever the comics were withdrawn (not banned by the government, but withdrawn by the corporation under pressure the same way Hollywood created its own censorship board under pressure), I feasted on these gory comics, and also read Wertheim's book itself, which revealed something I hadn't caught on to: there were sexy pictures within the comic frames, if you knew how to look for them. Some comics showed torture of eyeballs and other things not suitable for many children. Hard to say what society should do in a situation like that. Today, of course, on prime time TV every other crime show opens up with a color high-def shot of a sexy semi-clothed women's mutilated or bruised body. Draw your own conclusions.

I keep thinking about my comic book youth. I loved Thor and the Hulk. The age of the gory comic was way before me. I do remember seeing Modern Romance and True Story, those were a bit lock the bathroom door moments.

I don't know what I would have thought about those. Probably would not have been my cup of tea, except to be fascinated by it.

Eventually a comics code would have been adopted. It happened to film, it happened to TV, more recently to music and video games.

I would like to find research on comparing the comic literature with American society. I think we are a repressed culture.

Interesting post rodgerlodger

putting comics in tag so that I can find these posts again.