[JVJ]

I wasn't suggesting cutting him any slack, DL, just observing that some of the motives attributed to him might not actually have been there.

And I was wrong, he DID write a book in 1973, "The World of Fanzines" subtitled "A Special Form of Communication" which I finally located on my shelves (I have about 2000 feet of shelving in my house). Or course I haven't read it since '73. I'll put it on my reading stack and give a report. Or you can get your own copy at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0809306190/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

Peace, Jim (|:{:>

[Drusilla lives!]

Just a thought, but looking at those hearing transcripts, in the end I think the senators were more concerned with the question of "tie-in" sales and whether organized crime had taken control of magazine distribution in general... with the obvious implications that that would have on newspaper and news magazine dissemination... than with comic book violence, that quickly became a side issue.  But that's just my opinion.

[JVJ]

Turns out (as I've just finished my taxes and begun to read "The World of Fanzines), DL, that Wertham actually respected Fanzines quite a bit. Here are a couple of quotes from his introduction:

"I have been asked - and asked myself - where my empathy with such an unusual and unrecognized subject comes from. Having seen, in my years in psychiatry, so much of the general flaws in our human relations, I was attracted to something that was so positive and was not acknowledged as such. I felt that it was essentially unpolluted by the greed, the arrogance, and the hypocrisy that has invaded so much of our intellectual life."

"Their claim to attention, certainly not a small one, lies in the fact that they belong to the American cultural environment, that they exist and continue to exist as genuine human voices outside of all mass manipulation. These unheralded voices, not loud and strident, not ponderous, but cheerful, deserve to be heard."

So far, 55 pages into it, he's extremely respectful (if a little scattered and unfocused) in his approach. I'll keep you posted.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

Interesting...

[Drusilla lives!]

Humm... "unpolluted by the greed, the arrogance, and the hypocrisy that has invaded so much of our intellectual life."  Coming from him perhaps I should suppose he felt this was the case with the comics industry... too much cynicism (among other things) being bandied about in what they published.   
 
Btw JVJ... when I speak of Wertham possibly considering fanzines as a form of "group therapy," I should point out that I'm really thinking of the first fanzines as they were in the fifties.  Not the modern incarnations that we have today... or that were around by the early 70s for that matter. 

Well, so far so good... although IMO he already seems to be over intellectualizing what were in many instances originally just fun outlets created by fans, for fans, to share in their thoughts, mutual appreciation and enjoyment of the works they found so fabulously entertaining.  One must wonder (well at least I do) if this guy understood the concept of fun... was he ever happy?