Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/181

Rh average production per mouth of 85 consics approximately per month. It breaks down as follows:

We have no crime books. We have two anticrime comics. One is cajled Justice and the other is called Police in Action. Justice is an old title; we published it for many years and it is based primarily on true cases, and so on, and in both of those anticrime comics we carefully adhere to what we think is the correct pattern, that forces of law and order are never held up to ridicule, government agencies as well as agents representing government are respected, and in the end the criminal always has a disastrous disappearance or experi- ence. We have never had any adverse comment concerning those, to the best of my knowledge. I can't recall any correspondence, nor even one letter, about those two anticrime conics. We publish approxi- mately 9 western comics per month, about 9 of the so-called war-lype comics per month. I just saw a few up there, Combat Casey, Combat Kelly, and so on.

We have a large number in this so-called teen-age field, including some comics which again are very old, Miss America, Patsy Walker. They have a large sale and have gone on for years.

That is roughly 15 teen-age books, 9 in the war-iype field, 9 in the westerns, 2 books which we call anticrime, Justice und Police in Ac- tion, and § so-called weird or science fiction or fantastic lield.

Mr. . Now we had one that was put in as an exhibit yester- day, or rather we were shown a picture of it. I will have it brought on. It is from your Marvel comic group, Strange Tales, May 1954, which is a story of roughly a doctor committing hart-kari, letting his patient die early in the story, and ultimately it winds up with the scene showing the wife dead, the doctor with a knife in hin beside her.

Now, you are a member of the Comic Publishing Association

Mr. . Yes, sir. Weare just as disappointed and unhappy about the way the assoctation has progressed as Mr. Shultz, who testi- fied yesterday. Incidentally he is our attorney, and L wud the other members of our firm have been very vocal in the last year trying to get a real association. As Mr. Shultz testified, it has been difficult. We feel the association hast lost a great deal rather than gained.

Mr. . Mr. Shults said something about the fact that the seal of ihe association, which is on your publication Strange Tales, is there but it is w self-policing business, that you yourself are the conscience of the enforcement.

Mr. . That is the way it is now, Up to 3 years ago there was a real active self-censorship program in effect. Now I believe there are only three publishing companies that belong to the association.

Mr. . Would you say that a seal such as that, with the doctor lying there thrusting a knife in his stomach, and lyme there dying, would you say that would conform to the code?

Mr. . I would say this, Mr. BGeaser. From what story is that?

Mr. . Strange Tales, that one right there.

Mr. . It is very diflicalt for me to answer that properly because what we are doing here is taking four panels and trying to interpret a story from those four panels. I have read through these books. I can't say I scanned them extremely objectively but I do go through every one of our titles. I don't believe I can answer that.