THE CASE AGAINST THE COMICS

The Case Against the Comics by Gabriel Lynn (printed by Timeless Topix of St. Paul 
Minnesota, 1944)

Well now I know where I went wrong; or could have gone wrong had I not been born by 1944.

It's the fault of comics and comic strips according to the author of this vague, accusatory, and unsubstantiated pamphlet -- a screed issued by Catechetical Guild Education Society, which paradoxically published comic books distributed to millions of boys and girls in Catholic schools, including 496 issues of Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, issued every two weeks during the school year, exept during the holidays.

So, you want to now the cause of juvenile delinquency in this country?  Look no further than the funny pages, that cesspool of degradation aimed directly at our nation's youth.  Nonspecific and unnamed examples of this attack are (well, not quite) cited; strangely, these axamples could not be found by people seeking them out. 

Anyway, here are some kinda sorta specifics, taken from an analysis of 92 comic books and more than 1000 newspaper comic strips that appeared during August, September, and October of 1943:

• Major Crimes Depicted - 216.  Each included "in detail sufficient to afford at least a working knowledge of the technique employed by the criminal or criminals."
• Minor Crimes Depicted - 309.  Misdemeanors "as defined by the criminal codes of most states."
• Antisocial Behavior - 271.  Things not covered above, but excluding mere mischievous acts or annoying conduct.
• Physical Assaults - 522.  Those with no obvious sadistical connotations, "but tending to glorify brute force , nearly all depicted with complete detail and an abundance of gore in its aftermath."
• Laecenies - 39.  Including shoplifting, pocket-picking and confidence game swindles.
• Sadistic Acts - 86.  Including eleven examples of whipping, " a vice far more prevalent in modern America than is suspected by most Americans."
• Vulgar Behavior - 186.  "The greatest single source of examples for this classification was a particular strip in which, for the three-minth period studied, not a single day failed to contain one of more example of gross vulgarity."  I wish the strip had been named; I'd like to read it.
• Suggestive Art - 114.  Ranging "from the mildly suggestive to the patently pornographic."  This reminds me a bit of Kitty's Aunt Mary, who stormed out of a screening of Dr. Zhivago because it was pure filth.
• Vulgar Speech - 491.  Including such words and phrases as "Judas Priest," "gol dang,"  and "geez." 
• Gross Grammatical Abuses - 194.  "I seen"  "I done" "He hain't," etc.
• Onomatopedia - 362.  Made-up words:  "glunk," "zock,' "pow," and the like.
• Physical Monstrocities - 161.  Ranging from "the merely grotesque to the revolting."
• Fantastic Situations and Actions - 204.  "Scenes clearly divorced from any reasonable resembalnce to reality."  Strange, since these are the underpinnings of many of the world's major religions.
• Un-American, Vigilante Activities - 246.  This hit a core with me for three reasons.  1)  I read Batman and the like; 2)  I really distursted the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover; and 3) Because my childhood address was 246 Acton Road -- coincidence?  Or was God trying to tell me I was a lefty, pinko, liberal, Commie rat out to destroy the American Way?

Anyway, there it is laid out, if not in black and white, then in gray and gray.  Why the country went o Hell in a handbasket.

I could not find much about writer Gabriel Lynn,  Two years after The Case Against the Comics  appeared, Lynn  issued another screed published by the Catechetical Guld, The Teacher and the Comics.  Lynn's work preceded Dr. Frederic Wertham's sadly influential book Seduction of the Innocent and influenced an anti-comic crusade in Cincinnatti which had national implications.

If you can stomach it, here is The Case Against the Comics:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=76912