Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/122

110 However, before we get into that, I just want to take a moment to acquaint you in some degree at least with my own experience and I think it might be of use or value if the other gentleman would give you somewhat of their background.

The. I am sure it would be very helpful.

Mr. . I lave been in the newspaper business and animated cartoons and cartooning generally since about 13 years of age. I regret to say that constitutes about 28 years now.

I got into the comic-book business at one time back in 1940 or 1941 and had some experience with its early days as before the 1947 debacle of so many crime magazines and so on.

In those days there was even then a taste on the part of children for things which are a little more rugged than what I drew. So that I was faced with the problem of putting into book form, into comic form, comic-book form, things which I desired to make popular, such as an American fairy story or American folklore type of stories.

I found after a while that this was not particularly acceptable.

The. Would you raise your voice just a little.

Mr. . I decided I would help clean up the comic-book business at one time, by introducing new features, such as folklore stories and things having to do with little boys and little animals in red and blue pants and that sort of thing.

So when my comic book folded, the one I started doing that with, I realized there was more to it than met the eye.

Perhaps this was the wrong medium for my particular efforts. Since then I have been in the strip business, the comic-strip business which is distinguished from the comic books.

We have found in our business that our techniques are very effective for bringing about certain moral lessons and giving information and making education more widespread.

Despite the testimony given before, I would say right offhand that cartoonists are not forced by editors or publishers to draw any certain way. If they don't want to draw the way the publisher or editor wants them to, they can get out of that business.

We have about 800 members of our society, each one of whom is very proud of the traditions and I think small nobility of our craft. We would hesitate, any one of us, to draw anything we would not bring into our home.

Not only hesitate, I don't think any one of us would do it. That is about all I have to say in that regard.

I would like very much to give one statement. May I do that now?

The. You may.

Mr. . This group here endorses a particular statement by the National Cartoonists Society. That statement is this:

The National Cartoonists Society views as unwarranted any additional legislative action that is intended to censor printed material. The society believes in local option. We believe that offensive material of any nature can be weeded from the mass of worthwhile publications by the exercise of existing city, State, and Federal laws,

Further, we believe that the National Cartoonists Society constitutes a leadership in the cartoon field which has previously established popular trends. We therefore will restrict any action we take to continually improving our own material and thus influencing the coattail riders who follow any successful idea.

We believe good material outsells bad. We believe people, even juveniles, are fundamentally decent. We believe, as parents and as onetime children ourselves,