A to Z Challenge - F is for...
...Fredric Wertham! From the mid-50s until the early 2000s, almost every comic book carried the Comics Code Authority logo on its cover. The CCA was formed in 1954 as an alternative to government oversight in the comic book industry after a U.S. Congressional Inquiry into the comic book industry. The formation of the CCA began fifty years of censorship in comic books and it was due, in no small part, to one man: Fredric Wertham. Seduction of the Innocent Wertham was a psychiatrist and author and in the early 1950s he turned his attention on what he saw as the detrimental effects of comic books. In those days, crime and horror books were prevalent in the industry, alongside the super-hero comics that are more recognizable today. Wertham's book "Seduction of the Innocent" described images of violence, overt and covert sexuality, crime, and drug use, that he claimed encouraged children to emulate. While horror and crime comics did have their fair share of ...