If you happen to own any Golden Age crime comics then you owe a small debt of gratitude to Doctor Fredric Wertham. If you know who that is, and if you’re also a comic book lover, at this point you might think: “That makes no sense. Wertham was the guy who single handedly inspired a Congressional inquiry into banning comic books after he published his Seduction of the Innocent in 1954”.
All the above is true. And I would even add: Wertham’s influence extended all the way to the forcing of comic book publishers into adopting the stifling ‘Comics Code’ from 1954 until 2011. Thanks to him, a comic burning trend was revived in the mid-1950s, and the pulping of tons of classic pre-code comics took place.
Wertham gave legitimacy to the anti-comic book movement that had started in the 1940s. Comic book burnings were apparently already happening periodically, by 1950, by some estimates, circa 100, 000, 000 comics were being printed and sold per week in the US alone. With racy themes and controversial topic matter, moralistic parents (with way too much free time) decided to gather up and burn all comics. After Werthem published his book, these same people now had medical proof that comics made kids: anti-social, illiterate (?), criminal deviants and sexual perverts. Burn them all!
And it was precisely because of the above that we owe Dr. Wertham a debt of gratitude. If all those comics hadn’t been burned and thrown out, and if the attention Wertham gave to crime and horror comics hadn’t occurred, most of the existing Golden Age crime comics would likely be worth a lot less. Partly, this is just a simple and straightforward consequence of the law of supply and demand. A great example being the current fair market value of some of the more iconic pre-code classic crime comics. If you own a copy of the EC comics, Crime SuspenStories issue #22 in the almost impossible to find 9.8 grade, today this comic in that grade has a fair market value of $470, 000.00 according to GoCollect.com. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Lower grades are still worth thousands. Something to keep in mind. Of course, it would have been much better for comics if the Comics Code had never come to be. But that fact only makes revisiting these pre-code classics all the more interesting.
Crime Does Not Pay #24 (November 1942) – Introduction, First appearance of Mr. Crime
Here’s a gruesome pre-code crime comic from Lev Gleason Publications, Pennsylvania. This one might almost convince people today that Wertham and his morality brigade were right. Where to start with this classic of 1940s crime comic. The cover features a man taking a woman’s face and burning it off on the flame of a hot stove. Behind him stands a specter-like figure (Mr. Crime), as a policeman enters the open window too late to save the woman. A 4.0 graded copy sold in January for over 4,000 dollars.
Shock SuspenStories #12 (December 1953) – Drug Addiction Cover
A common motif of 1940s and 50s crime comics was that the writers would find the most titillating and shocking stories they could and then present them as lessons for the kids. See kids, when you chop your teachers head off, you’ll eventually be sent to prison, so don’t do it, okay? The main themes other than rape and murder were theft, fraud and drug addiction. Shock SuspenStories #12 features a classic drug cover. The hypodermic needle lying next to the drugged out man with taught pulled back grey skin is what sells this as a classic and it’s surprising that this one wasn’t mentioned by Wertham in his book. In 2015 a 6.5 copy sold on Ebay for $365.00.
Crime SuspenStories #20 (1953) - Suicide Cover
EC or Entertaining Comics, was the home of some of the most iconic crime comic titles. With artists like Joe Orlando, Frank Frazetta and Johnny Craig, and writers such as James Cain, Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman, EC had the talent to produce great comics. And they did, excelling especially in the horror, science fiction and crime genres. Crime SuspenStories #20 features a dead man swinging from a noose on the cover. A 9.2 graded copy of this popular suicide issue with artwork by Johnny Craig sold for $2,400 on Comic connect in 2012 and a 4.0 broke the $500.00 mark on Ebay in April.
Crime SuspenStories #22 (1954) – Classic Murder Cover
Finally, I’ll end with yet another EC classic. With its startling Johnny Craig cover featuring a woman’s bloody head in the hands of a murdering ax-wielding killer, this comic was used in EC editor Bill Gaines’ testimony during the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency or comic book hearings of 1954. It may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back leading the comic book publishers into prescribing a self-imposed Comics Code for all comics published in the US. This is a classic of pre-code crime comics and can command prices in mid-grade range of 6.0 of just under $5000.00.
