Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/18

6 favorite bootlegger and the son goes to school by himself. En route he is struck and killed by an automobile.

Informed of the accident, she returns to find her husband gloating over his new supply of liquor.

This next picture shows the mother killing her alcoholic spouse with an ax. She then cuts up his body into small pieces and disposes of it by placing the various pieces in the bottles of liquor her husband had purchased.

If you will look at the picture in the lower right-hand panel, you will see an ear in one bottle, an eye in another, and a finger in another, and so forth.

Senator. I wonder if Mr. Clendenen has any figures on the relative circulation or sale of this character of things as against the more innocuous kind of comics? To what extent, in other words, do these appeal to the children to a greater or less degree than the kind we are all more or less familiar with, the harmless comic strips?

Mr. . Well, about one-fourth of the total comic-book titles, that is the different comic books are of the crime and horror variety.

Now, perhaps not all of those are as rough as some of these that are shown.

On the other hand, this does constitute a not insubstantial segment of the comic-book industry.

Mr. . It is about 20 million a month, Senator Kefauver suggests.

Mr. . That is right; 20 million a month of the crime and horror variety.

The. The Senator from Tennessee.

Senator. Do I understand, Mr. Chairman, the 20 million per month is the number sold or placed on sale? How do you get that figure, Mr. Clendenen?

Mr. . That is a circulation figure which refers to sales.

The. Distribution and sales?

Mr. . Yes, sir.

Senator. Is that from the industry itself?

Mr. . No, sir; those figures, Senator, are from Audit Bureau of Circulations and the Controlled Circulation Audits.

The two organizations are companies that collect and issue data on circulation of various kinds of magazines.

Senator. Thank you, Mr. Clendenen.

The. Does the Senator from Missouri have any more questions?

Senator. I just wanted to ask Mr. Clendenen another question and I do not want to break into his fine presentation of thisThe Yellow Kid was the first comic strip, was it not?

Mr. . Yes, sir.

Senator. Then we went into the Happy Hooligan and Katzenjammers and the ones we used to think were funny as youngsters.

At any rate, the funnies we knew were really funny, there were things in them that were calculated at least to amuse. The daily papers throughout the country nowadays carry more and more of the so-called serials, whether they deal with crime or whether they