Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/19

Rh deal with romance or whether they deal with one thing or another, they are more stories now and less of the old comic-strip variety.

Have you any material on that transition and any observations to make as to why obviously that must appeal to the public, or they would not run these syndicated strips in the papers as they do.

What is your view of that, Mr. Clendenen? Why has public taste changed apparently? Ave we advancing or progressing in that sort of thing, or is it the obverse?

Mr. . There really, of course, are not research base data on which an answer to your question could be founded. I am not sure whether the public taste has changed or not.

Certainly the comic-book industry which was born in and of itself during the depression years of the thirties, the latter thirties, represented perhaps rather than reflected any change in the taste of the public, represents a new idea, that is, to put the comics up in book form of this kind.

Just exactly why you have had a transition from the type of comicsand now I refer to comic strips, which appeared in an earlier day and on which each separate day represented a separate episode and were funny to the serious type of stripI don't have any idea and no opinion on it.

I am not at all sure I said, and if I failed to say, I would like to say, that our investigation has not pertained at all to the comic strips appearing in the daily newspapers but rather the comic books.

Senator. Thank you.

Mr. . The next slide, the next comic that we would like to present to you is entitled "Crime Must Pay the Penalty". This particular comic has 4 stories in which 27 people meet a violent death. One story in this particular issue called "Frisco Mary" concerns an attractive and glamorous young woman who gains control of a California underworld gang. Under her leadership the gang embarks on a series of holdups marked for their ruthlessness and violence.

Our next picture shows Mary emptying her submachine gun into the body of an already wounded police officer after the officer had created an alarm and thereby reduced the gang's take in a bank holdup to a mere $25,000.

Now, in all fairness it should be added that Mary finally dies in the gas chamber following a violent and lucrative criminal career.

Now, this is strictly of the crime variety.

The next comic book is entitled "Strange Tales" and has five stories in which 13 people die violently. The story actually begins with a man dying on the operating table because the attending doctor is so absorbed in his own troubles that he pays no attention whatsoever to his patient.

It develops that this is the story of a promising young surgeon who begins to operate on wounded criminals to gain the money demanded by his spendthrift wife.

After he has ruined his professional career by becoming associated with the underworld, the criminal comes to get help for his girl friend who has been shot by the police. When the girl is placed upon the operating table the doctor discovers that the criminal's girl friend is none other than his own wife.

This picture shows the doctor, first of all, as he recognizes his wife, and as he commits suicide by plunging a scalpel into his own chest.