Review by Frank Plowright
In 1954 psychiatrist Frederic Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book connecting the violence in comics read by youngsters to a process of brutalisation, which others then associated with the new and rising problem of teenage delinquency. Misguided and with evidence exaggerated, it nonetheless attracted the attention of legislative axe-grinders, which resulted in senate hearings and the castration of creativity in the comics industry. Why, then, hasn’t there been a graphic novel about Wertham before now?
Collaborating writers Harold Schechter and Eric Powell construct a convincing life story. They previously collaborated on a graphic novel about Ed Gein, and Wertham’s associations with other serial killers are comprehensively aired, their activities at times supplanting his own, indicating perhaps what drew the creative team to their subject.
It’s almost halfway through before Wertham is connected with comics. Before then Schechter has recounted an early life as a German interned in the UK during World War I before emigrating to the USA and changing his name from Wertheimer to Wertham. His clinical career is shown almost derailed by his anger at being undervalued, which is one of several occasions when the accusations of others seem to be accepted as truth. These incidents are interspersed with the activities of a serial killer known as the Werewolf, whose path crosses with Wertham at his trial.
Powell’s illustrative greytoned art is seductively attractive throughout, even when dealing with unsavoury activities, and he successfully ages Wertham, although ever-present spectacles are a useful aid. The art copes well abutted against large blocks of text in larger than standard type.
Before turning to the devastating effect Wertham’s observations had on the comics industry we learn of Wertham’s good work, particularly his struggles to establish a clinic for the disenfranchised Black population in Harlem. His testimony also played a significant role in the desegregation of American schools. The portrait to this point is of a sincere clinician whose fractious nature could alienate, but he then turned his attention to comics. Although his condemnation would finally lead to his being taken seriously in the short term, in the long term it’s the rope with which he hung himself for posterity.
We’re left in no doubt that while he may have felt undervalued in other areas, Wertham’s crusade against comics wasn’t initially publicity seeking. He genuinely believed them to be a bad influence, and Schechter and Powell indicate that in some respects his opinion was valid. In others he saw subliminal excess no-one else would notice, and the evidence presented in Seduction of the Innocent is academically flawed. Schechter and Powell also include Wertham’s testimony in which he rails about the pernicious effect of consequences seemingly without ever considering the hundreds of thousands of comic readers who commit no crimes. It presents a puzzling blindness.
Nevertheless, despite Wertham’s shortcomings the glib “Dr. Werthless” title is equally an error of judgement. It’s taken from a Mad magazine parody, but trivialises a serious account of a largely well meaning life that took a turn into misguided beliefs in later years.
