My own experience with the horror comics of the early fifties was itself uncanny; they disappeared from the market as soon as I was old enough to read them. But nothing more magical had been at work than the U.S. Senate, whose collaboration with publishers set up a Comics Code that essentially wrecked the comics medium by imposing self-censorship. The very words HORROR, TERROR, CRIME -- even WEIRD -- were banned from the titles of comics. The Senate hearing on April 21, 1954 suggests that the solons may have been more afraid of the comics than the kids were -- especially after they got a load of what these books had to say. Sometimes symbolically, sometimes with shocking directness, the comics could slip forbidden subjects, from war atrocities to child molestation, under the radar of official culture. But they were never just social commentary. For instance, the vampires who invade their adopted kid's room one night can't be reduced to child abusers who might appear on Dr. Phil today; rather, that story unmasks the abusers as vampires, restoring horror to its rightful place in the reader's imagination. Sleazy as they could be, then, the comics may have allowed their readers to recover some genuine inner experience in a society married to every type of denial.
More than fifty years later these vilified comics are revealed once again in all their eye-popping glory. In "The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You to Read!" (Abrams ComicArts), I uncover over two hundred pre-Code horror and crime comics of the 1950s. What follows is a gruesome sampling: nine comic books banned by Congress. Perhaps they were right.
Well... you've been warned.
Ellen Hopkins: Banned Books Week 2010: An Anti-Censorship Manifesto
Andrew Shaffer: The Book That Was Banned Before It Was Written
BOOK REVIEW: 'Banned in Boston'
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Crypt of Terror...
For real horror in comics, more contemporary work is much better- Hellblazer, Moore's Swamp Thing run and From Hell, and Greg Rucka's Sudden gravity come to mind.
Read Aloud Dad
www.ReadAloudDad.com
EERIE FACT: NPP (aka DC Comics) was behind the expose books "Seduction of the Innocent" and "Parade of Pleasure". EC was killing them at the newsstands, so the affected publishers notoriously unleashed a campaign of piety on EC to put them out of business. It worked. The CCA annihilated EC. All that remained was Mad Magazine (the CCA's purview didn't include magazines).
The death of EC gave DC new blood. Enter the Silver Age of comic books. The rest is history.
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Turns out that was a huge con job carried out by the "superhero" based comic books. At the time, their main competition was from horror based comics... which were banned by the CCA.
I remember one comic someone gave me when I was a kid, it was old at the time. Wish I still had it- the story was some guy robbed some paintings, and I think one was a Picasso. Then afterward, the entire world started looking to the guy like abstract art. It was pretty cool!
However, there was a group who DID want the CCA to allow that kind of stuff, so the CCA was modified to allow mentions of drugs if it was showed negatively.
I remember some of the comics came back as paperbacks in the late 60s, I seem to remember a Dracula tale being reprinted a lot.
Evan after the comics code, Creepy had some pretty good stories, there was a paperback of those also. Way better than the Magna or whatever people like (I lived in Japan it was common to have dozens sold weekly)
By "cool", I think you mean more "common-place" yes? I imagine the only time they were cool was when the hippie counterculture discovered underground comics in the late '60's and you had Crumb drawing the Janis Joplin album cover and the birth of the rock poster scene.
Regardless, thanks for this gallery Huffpost! Gotta love those HAND LETTERED TYPE covers. Too many comics depend on ugly computer type for their titles. Shame.
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