"Dr. Werthless"

by Harold Schechter, Eric Powell (Illustrator)

From the creative team behind the award-winning Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? comes an examination of one of the most polarizing figures in pop culture, Dr. Fredric Wertham.

Reviled by comic book fans as a witch-hunting zealot who stirred up a panic among the parents of America for his own self-promoting purposes, he was also a renowned psychiatrists who, among other accomplishments, opened a clinic in Harlem for disadvantaged African-American patients and played an important role in the desegregation of the nation's schools. Believing that murder could be abolished through a proper understanding of the mental and social roots of criminal violence, he took a genuinely humane approach to some of the most notorious homicidal maniacs of his time, while simultaneously exploiting their stories for his own commercial ends.

Acclaimed true crime author, Harold Schechter, and multiple Eisner award winning cartoonist, Eric Powell, present a graphic novel that takes an unbiased look at this flawed and enormously and complex man—whose obsessive dream of freeing the world from violence nearly murdered the comics industry.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, History, Biography, True Crime, Comic Book

200 pages, Hardcover

Published July 1, 2025

About the author

Aka Jon A. Harrald (joint pseudonym with Jonna Gormley Semeiks)

Harold Schechter is a true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He attended the State University of New York in Buffalo, where he obtained a Ph.D. A resident of New York City, Schechter is professor of American literature and popular culture at Queens College of the City University of New York.

Among his nonfiction works are the historical true-crime classics Fatal, Fiend, Deviant, Deranged, and Depraved. He also authors a critically acclaimed mystery series featuring Edgar Allan Poe, which includes The Hum Bug and Nevermore and The Mask of Red Death.

Schechter is married to poet Kimiko Hahn. He has two daughters from a previous marriage: the writer Lauren Oliver and professor of philosophy Elizabeth Schechter.

Reviews

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eric Powell dropping two great books this year!

This is his followup to Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? also co-written with Harold Schechter.

There's basically three parts to this. Fredric Wertham as a psychologist to a couple murderers, Wertham assisting with the dismantling of school segregation, and then the thing we comics fans know him for: creating the environment for the Comics Code to come into play and shut down EC Comics. Ushering in a sanitized superhero comics are for kids environment. Which really didn't change until the late 80s excepting some really great underground comics. Meanwhile Japan and Europe continued to create classic literature in the medium.

The first part was way too grotesque for me. Holy. The snapshot of a certain X-ray will stay in my nightmares for years to come.

I really loved the second part. Wertham's work to help Black Americans and his testimony that helped end school segregation. It's pretty inspiring, and helps to paint Wertham as an actual person - flawed but not evil or anything like that.

It was interesting to see that the scientific community finally started to deny Wertham's claims about comics. Nowadays, it feels so silly that he was taken so seriously. His research seems very unethical to me, surely he knew the great leaps in logic he was taking (correlation is not causation is a pretty rudimentary principle).

With a title like Dr. Werthless, and it being a comicbook about the guy that destroyed comics... I really wasn't expecting this to be as well-rounded and respectful as it was. Fantastic work. I'm excited to see what these two decide to tackle next. Hopefully not something too grotesque.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tolerable study of the life of Fredric Wertham, a man despised by most people in or around the comic book industry.

The first half of the book uses Wertham's life as a clothesline upon which to hang profiles of four murderers: Jesse Harding Pomeroy, Albert Fish, Robert George Irwin, and Anthony Cianci. Wertham wrote books about Fish, Irwin, and Cianci that were ostensibly about his psychological treatment and study of them but apparently veered from the strictly academic into true crime territory. (The co-author of this book, Harold Schechter has also written several true crime books with sensationalistic titles about Pomeroy, Fish, and Irwin.) For this graphic novel, the gory details are mostly left to the word balloons and captions (so much text!) but a few bloody panels of art sneak into the midst of the sea of talking heads.

The middle section delves into Wertham's involvement in the Civil Rights movement. He provided low-cost mental health care at the Lafargue Clinic to the residents of Harlem who otherwise faced financial and discriminatory barriers. He gave key testimony in one of the cases that was ultimately combined into the Brown v. Board of Education decision that struck down "separate but equal" school segregation.

Having established Wertham's credentials and his brittle, fame-seeking personality, the final third of the book finally tackles his crusade against comic books. He firmly believed that the violent and racist imagery they contained were influencing the impressionable minds of America's youth and creating a wave of dangerous juvenile delinquents. And writing about this belief happened to gain him lots of interviews and opportunities to testify as an expert witness, occasions when he could mention his books available for purchase.

I appreciated the irony of turning a book about Wertham into a study of his own glorification of violent killers in print. It's timely too, since I've heard rumblings against the current surge in true crime books and podcasts, with people wondering about the morality, ethics, and psychology of the murderinos driving its popularity.

But I'm not a big fan of true crime. I picked this up for the comic book aspect, and I found that section to be too small to be really satisfying, though the tidbits provided were tasty.

Overall, it's a decent effort. The ratio of words to images is often way too lopsided, though, resulting in this book taking me three times longer to read than I expected based on the number of pages.



FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Special Thanks -- Prologue. The Dead-eyed Boy -- Chapter 1. The Doctor and the Werewolf -- Chapter 2. Of Madmen and Murder -- Chapter 3. Legend in the Dark -- Chapter 4. In the Basement of St. Philip's -- Chapter 5. Cheap Dime Store Hoods -- Chapter 6. Werthless and Woody -- Bibliography -- Sketches + Extras: Notes from Eric Powell -- Biography

[Steve Chaput · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up as a comics reader in the '60s and '70s, the doctor was the ultimate boogeyman of our hobby. With no real knowledge of the man's earlier career, he was just the guy who almost single handedly destroyed the comic book industry.

Powell and Schechter here spend almost have the book examining Wertham's early career, his involvement with civil rights, friendship with the writer, Richard Wright and others. The latter half deals with the controversial stance Wertham took against almost all comics, crime/horror related or not.

Whether you can 'forgive' the doctor for his campaign or not, it's fascinating to see him revealed as brilliant but flawed individual.

[Michael J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this biography of Dr. Fredric Wertham to be very infomative, and it changed my opinion of the man, who I previously only knew as the author of SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT and his influence on comic books, the establishment of the Comics Code, the demise of the EC horror titles, etc.

Despite the text-heavy panels, illustrator Eric Powell did a remarkable job of hitting the key points in just the right way. His profile of Wertham is realistic without being a caricature.

You might think that, based on the title, this is not an objective biography. I thought it was very fair, and showed all sides of the complex Dr. Wertham. If anything, he was a sympathetic psychiatrist who did his best to understand the motives of some very horrific serial killers in an effort to help derive a cure for the condition. He also established a free mental health clinic in the Harlem borough of New York City.

So,despite his zealous campaign against comic books, he had a good side as well. The author shows how his individual personality quirks held him back, and how he used the comics campaign to promote himself.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am part of the I Read Comic Books group through Goodreads, and this book was this month’s book selection. It was the push I needed to read this book by the team that had previously written and illustrated the excellent Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done true crime graphic novel.

Dr. Fredric Wertham (1895-1981) was a polarizing psychiatrist whose earlier good deeds were overshadowed by his insistence that comic books were corrupting youth. Wertham was an egotistical and overbearing man who insisted his way was the only correct path, which led to professional difficulties as he ostracized his work peers. However, he later achieved professional success, overseeing several clinics. He opened a volunteer mental health clinic in Harlem in 1946 to serve disadvantaged Black youth, and also testified in court in favor of desegregating schools, which was admirable and forward-thinking.

But Wertham earned the nickname Dr. Werthless due to his zealotry against violence and sexuality in comics, which led to comics being burned and the passing of the Comics Code Authority, which led to much censorship. He strongly believed that aggression in people was not innate, instead he believed it was due to outside forces vs human nature. He wrote a controversial book, Seduction of the Innocent, but his research was spotty and relied more upon anecdotal evidence that he tailored to fit his agenda. Thus, the prevailing opinion of him years later skews negative.

The author, Harold Schechter, known for his true crime novels, has certainly done his research on Wertham, but he needed to edit his text, especially towards the end. Plus, in the beginning, the narrative covers several serial killers that the doctor interviewed, so at first, I wasn't sure what direction the story was going. The art by Eric Powell is strong, as he recreated the era and people accurately, as proven by some photographs. He worked exclusively in pencils and ink wash, with some unique modern art touches.

I enjoyed reading this non-fiction graphic novel, for it introduced me to a fascinating and flawed historical figure who left the public with an equal measure of good deeds and exploitive fanaticism.

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is a more perfect pairing in the graphic novel world than Harold Schechter and Eric Powell I would love to hear about it because so far these two are totally unmatched.

The genius author and illustrator behind Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? have spun a harrowing but fascinating yarn out of a very strange chapter in true crime/psychiatric history, that of the enigmatic Dr. Frederic Wertham a polarizing figure from the early days of psychiatry. Dr. Wertham was a tireless advocate for mental health, particularly with regard to children and by all accounts a truly gifted practitioner who cared deeply about his patients. He worked tirelessly to assist with the desegregation of public schools and personally opened a clinic in Harlem to offer psychiatric services to the hugely underserved people who lived there.

He was also, apparently, a self important dick bag who considered himself the final word on any diagnosis and spent a huge portion of his life advocating like a madman to have the comic book industry destroyed because of his truly bizarre belief that comic books were single handedly responsible for every type of juvenile delinquency known to man.

In the midst of all that he also personally interviewed and built relationships with some of the most horrifying killers and criminals in the history of the United States and made incredibly valuable contributions to the study of mental health in the criminal justice setting.

I read this in one fevered sitting and I can't wait to do it again. This is a riveting story about a truly fascinating man so convinced of his own inestimable brilliance that he destroyed his legacy with one misguided crusade. Harold Schechter's brilliant writing is paired so perfectly with Eric Powell's haunting illustrations I almost want them to go back through Schechter's macabre back catalog and tell every story all over again together.

It seems like such a basic thing to understand, that one man could do so much good and still be capable of doing so much damage because of blind arrogance, but Schechter and Powell, much like Wertham did himself when he saw through to the humanity inside even the most horrifying of monsters, show us both sides of genuinely remarkable man. Remarkable and grievously, deeply flawed.

Its fascinating to get a window into a time when our country sat on a precipice so similar to the one it balances on right now, when men so sure of their own rightness and drunk on their own power tried, and almost succeeded, in destroying art and literature in the name of "protecting the children." There's a cold comfort in that ancient adage, "the more things change the more they stay the same" though I can't say it actually makes me feel better to know that we seem doomed as a species to constantly repeat our history rather than learn from it.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a great book to read before bed... Dr. Fredric Wertham is more commonly known (in comic reading circles) as the guy who inveighed against comic books in the 50s, saying they were turning kids into depraved killers. This led to decades of neutered literature. Not great!

Dr. Werthless covers this element of Wertham's biography, but it also goes in depth on his interest in mentally ill murderers early in the 20th century. Wertham's interactions with these killers gives the author an excuse to go full "true crime narrative" for long stretches of the book. While this is super engaging in a "can't look away" manner, it feels like a bit of a scam to get readers to pick up a book about a psychiatrist. (I did appreciate the interlude with Wertham fighting racism, though)

Solid, simple artwork contrasts with dense text on the page. Much of the verbatim dialogue in giant word bubbles is skippable after you read the narration. I don't know how much I truly liked Dr. Werthless, but it certainly held my attention far more than I expected.

[kaitlphere · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite thing about this book is that the modern biography about the guy who hated comics the most is itself a comic book.

I like the art style used for the time period of the book and the choice to make it one-color.

I struggled with the tall, tight serif font of the narration and the incredible amount of narration. I felt like a lot of it was repetitive, especially towards the end of the book.

The book does a good job at showing Dr. Fredric Wertham to be an opinionated man of strong values. He fought to remove segregation in schools and elsewhere, and argued against censorship while at the same time villainizing all comics.

[Luke Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly nuanced portrait of a complex man with a complex legacy. I was completely unaware of how noble and important his life and career were before his bizarre anti comics obsession. Don't go in lightly tho, the book contains some extremely frank and distressing discussion of a plethora of horrifying crimes, including direct accounts of the worst imaginable crimes against children by their perpetrators.

[Alex Sarll]

A comic about the sanctimonious old fraud who nearly killed comics? Co-written and illustrated by Eric Powell, who makes exactly the sort of comics that would have Fredric Wertham turning in his grave? Guaranteed hatchet job, right*? Well, as it turns out, not exactly. Wertham was not the blanket reactionary one might assume: away from the mass media, he even campaigned against censorship in other cases. He knew Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, saw the corrosive effect of racism on mental health when that was far from mainstream in white America (if, indeed, that's changed), worked to bring about a free psychiatric service in Harlem, played a part in ending school segregation...and yet, even in these laudable causes he was proscriptive, thin-skinned, eager to claim credit, apt to alienate natural allies (just as he would with the horror comics where, whatever their other failings, EC were also staunch if gruesome anti-racists). Still, showing his career in the round (we're more than halfway through before comics even get mentioned) does make more sense of the man, clearly scarred by his dealings with a number of proper psycho killers, of whom 'the Werewolf' in particular is still truly appalling despite decades of culture fixated on murderers in the interim. But equally, the fact of having seen that up close makes it all the more stupid that he could, rather than blaming profoundly disturbed individuals themselves, or society at large, put the blame entirely on comics and later TV, when human violence clearly preceded them and most readers and viewers, as Wertham's slanted and unreliable 'research' so utterly failed to acknowledge, don't go on killing sprees. In summary: OK, his time on Earth wasn't entirely destructive, but I'm still glad he died unable to find a publisher for his last mendacious screed The War Against Children, and knowing he was loathed. And even better that this biography of his life, while sticking to the facts (and, by often favouring illustrated narration, avoiding many of the pitfalls of clumsier graphic biographies), has ended up as exactly the sort of lurid publication to really get him frothing at the mouth.

*Possibly a hatchet like the one on the infamous cover of Crime Supenstories #22. No matter how many times I read the quote, for all that obviously Wertham and the committee were wrong and Bill Gaines was right, I always crack up at how spectacularly Gaines walked right into it there: "This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman's head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?"

[Evilblacksheep · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

I realize I'm in the minority here but this book was a bit of a slog to get through for me. I truly wish I liked it more than I did, as I loved what they did with Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? but here we are.

The art is great, the story is interesting (I had never heard about this, probably because I'm not american) but WHY the walls and walls of text (in a font that is kind of terrible for that amount of reading). Just write a book, don't make it a comic if it's just to overfill every page with more text than drawings.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never knew there was such an outcry over comic books to the point they were almost entirely abolished. People actually burned comic books because they thought they were destroying the morals of young children.

But this book while informative was very verbose and at times I struggled to keep up with all the wording. I think it would have been better written as a book but I appreciate the artists making a comic book about a man who despised them.

[Bracken · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is marvelous. The legit only thing I knew about Fredric Wertham was his role at the center of the anti-comics moral panic. I had no idea he provided testimony that was influential in overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, that he did anti-racist volunteer work trying to help Black people in Harlem heal from trauma, and that he was essentially a narcissist who believed in his own intellectual superiority to all of his peers, but was unfailingly compassionate to people who suffered from mental illness (including violent psychopaths like Albert Fish). What an interestingly complex (and terribly flawed) person. This is 100% worth the read!

[Villain E · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a comics fan, I, of course, know Dr. Wertham as the author of Seduction of the Innocent, who testified before Congress about the evils of comic books, which resulted in the Comics Code Authority. But it turns out that he was one of the first therapists to work with serial killers, and was also an integral part of ending racial segregation in schools. The man was a contradiction of egomaniacal and empathetic.

The creators clearly have their bias, but they don't shy away from highlighting the positives of Wertham's work. The story, told in black and white ink washes, is documentary style and mostly tame, but occasionally illustrates the horrific actions of Wertham's patients. Unfortunately, I found myself agreeing with Wertham to some extent. The horror and crime comics had very sensationalistic covers and were on the newsstands for all to see with no guardrails against children purchasing them.

My only quibble with the book is that, once we get into Wertham's anti-comics crusade, that's the only thing they talk about. I'm curious about the rest of Wertham's career after that.

[Amanda [Novel Addiction] · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning of this was quite graphic, and I was not prepared.

Honestly, it takes until about 75% into the book for it to finally get to how he nearly killed the comics industry, which I expected to see more of, considering it's part of the subtitle.

But overall, and intersting story.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often fascinating, at times somewhat dry, this covers a vast range of events that spans most of Dr Fredrick Wertham’s career.
It tries to be objective, painting him as a progressive and at the same time a zealot, a man who achieved good and bad but as driven by his ego and need to be right as he was his moral compass.
The book looks at his early career dealing with some of the most horrific true crime events I’ve ever read, his efforts in improving segregation conditions in the 1940s, his involvement in the destruction of the thriving 50s comics industry including the appearance in court vs Bill Gaines of EC, his book Seduction of the Innocent and his possible impact on the tragic life of Wally Wood.

He gained the notoriety in his profession he so clearly pained for, but upon reflecting in his latter years, probably not for all the right reasons.

A worthy follow up to “Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?”, albeit not quite as entertaining is it is educational.

[Rana Biswas · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is the reality - art imitates life or life imitates art. On surface level this might appear a simplistic matter to form an opinion about, but in deep down it might be a much more complex issue to disect and conclude, especially if you consider each human mind and psyche as unique and separate from each other. This book doesn't only explore Dr. Frederick Wertham's life (Wally Wood named him Dr. Werthless in one of his mad magazine strips, hence the name is within inverted commas in the title), his beliefs and his crusade against comics industry, it also tells us about so many other issues that impacted his life and contributed to so many contradictory viewpoints. He was a problematic man no doubt, but the lesson we shall learn from his life is that - when you see everything in the world with limited 'monkey-see-monkey-do' view of human behavior, you are ignorantly and ironically undermining the underlying human as well as societal psyche. The most damaging error from his judgement was probably his belief in utopianism, where his denial to believe that human brutality or aggression is innate in human nature and hardly a product of social or environmental forces.
The fact that Dr Wertham did a remarkable work in desegregation of racial school system in America as well as fought against the systemic racism in those days and treated poor black Americans in Harlem, NY, for without any fees (or just for a quarter in some cases) - totally get shadowed when you see the double standard and hypocrisy in his character when he charges thousands of dollars for his stories to be shared or charges commission for appearing as an expert witness in court trials or how he appears to be progressive liberal and against capitalism but how every move he makes was influenced by financial motivation (a trait so relevant in today's progressive world and society).
Long story short, it's a remarkable book, even better than their previous book (Did you hear what Eddie Gein Done), and I am not exaggerating. And everyone should read this. But I won't recommend this to everyone. If you have an interest in human psychology, criminal psychology, pls read this book. If you have an interest in history, how society gets impacted if you form your opinions based on selective issues and outrages and closed minds, pick up this book. If you are only looking for a fun read, don't read this.

[tony dillard jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

The back cover to this graphic novel biography of the controversial psychiatrist, Dr. Fredric Wertham promises 'an unbiased look.' However, that claim is a little hard to believe based on the title, Dr. Werthless (sic). And yet true crime author Harold Schechter and artist Eric Powell managed to give Wertham both praise and criticism whenever it was due.

The German born Jewish M.D. was known to be bullish and divisive with his medical colleagues. Yet, when it came to his patients, he was very compassionate and non-judgmental. Prior to the 1950s, Wertham treated some of the most depraved serial killers and re-offenders of the time, including the pedophile torturer Albert Fish, and the troubled struggling artist Robert Irwin. Wertham would testify at these men's trails that the psychiatric system failed them and that if these murderers had been committed to a qualified mental institution and not institutionalized as part of the revolving-door prison system of 'common murderers', they would not have gone on to later commit the atrocities that Dr. Wertham would be called in to testify on their behalf.

As much as Wertham would decry the influence of violence from magazines, books and movies had on these men, the doctor had very little qualms with making a little bit of money recounting the perverse exploits of Albert Fish and others in a number of books. Meant to be scientific studies on the inner workings of the criminally insane mind, Wertham 's works read more like the pulp fiction 'garbage' that he was preaching against. He also didn't have any misgivings about selling the rights to his books to the producers of Broadway and Hollywood, as long as they didn't change the facts too much.

It is for this reason that Frederic Wertham is considered by some as the grandfather of true crime. His Dark Legend: A Study in Murder, an account of a preteen boy who slaughtered his mother in front of his siblings predates Truman Capote's 1959 opus, In Cold Blood by almost 2 full decades. Dark Legend was optioned to become an Off-Broadway play in 1952, to which Dr. Wertham gained a low level celebrity status. Enthralled by the notoriety, the doctor begin a crusade against comic books and sealed his legacy in the annuals of modern American history and pop culture.

In the 1940s, Wertham was made aware of the plight of black youths and how they became lost in the psychiatric system because of inequitable conditions of black hospitals and sanitariums. Often a mental health crisis for a black American would result in their becoming institutionalized, perhaps for life, whereas an white American might be prescribed medication and some out-patient therapy. After meeting writer and activist Richard Wright, Wertham would open a low-cost mental health clinic in the basement of St. Philip's church in Harlem. From his work at the LaFargue Clinic beginning in March, 1948, Wertham treated black youths, particularly males ,who would claim to be depressed and oppressed because of their treatment in society. One young boy said that it was how comic books portrayed blacks that made him feel the most stereotyped. Intrigued by this session, Wertham went to a nearby newsstand and perused the selection of comics. What he found shocked him and it would lead him on a crusade against sequential art for the rest of his life.

One of the biggest complaints I would have about this book is the time jumps. Just when you think Schechter is about to explore Wertham's assault on comic books, the narrative goes back to the 1940s or earlier. This happens at least thrice. If you've read a lot of accounts of the comics scare of the 1950s, you would have a fairly good idea of Wertham's work with youths that led to him publishing Seduction of the Innocent and becoming the expert witness in 1954 during Senate subcommittee hearings on juvenile delinquency. Dr. Werthless provides a fascinating look at the early case history of the infamous psychiatrist. It is interesting to note that Wertham, while being an expert witness in the landmark Brown V. Board of Education lawsuit, the doctor's fixation on the dangers of comic books almost derailed the NAACP's case. Even when he was attempting to do good, he let his own prejudices overtake common sense!

After reading this book, I have no doubt that Fredric Wertham had care and compassion for his patients and the more impoverished they were, the more empathy the doctor had for them. However, I also believe that Wertham saw dollar signs with every case he was presented with. Because of his intolerable nature with his colleagues, Wertham stunted his professional growth. Passed over for promotions and fellowships because of how he put patients in front of peers, Wertham turned to print media as a way of boosting his stature. If Wertham couldn't become a celebrity amongst his colleagues, he would become one in the public eye. To do so meant elevating, and sometimes exaggerating the effect of society on America's highly suggestible youth and mentally ill from the pulps and comic books. 1950s America was already in a state of panic on hidden Communists thanks to Senator Joseph McCarthy; why not add to those fears by claiming that comic books were turning children into raving lunatics?

Harold Schechter is the type of crime author that could write the phone book and I would read it. However, the life and times of Fredric Wertham comes to a very odd abrupt end. The title of this book 'Doctor Werthless' was based on a parody ad Wally Wood created in the pages of MAD after the Senate hearings. It looks at how baseball could be considered the source of all juvenile delinquency if viewed using the methods of Wertham. Even the last chapter is titled 'Werthless and Woody'. With it, you'd expect some sort of final showdown between the psychiatrist and Wood. But it never happened. The Dr. Worthless parody was explored in the previous chapter, making the reader wonder just what was the connection between the two men that the writer was trying to achieve?

Regardless of my dissatisfaction at how this graphic novel biography ended, I very much would love for the author and illustrator Eric Powell to collaborate again with another shocking true crime exposé.

[Yoshiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are historical figures who are difficult to pin down. Frederic Wertham definitely falls into this category. For some, he was a doctor fighting for the well-being of children and the marginalized; for others, he was responsible for one of the greatest crises in the history of American comics.

In their comic book Dr. Worthless , Eric Powell and Harold Schechter don't attempt to create a straightforward portrait of either hero or villain. Instead, they portray a man full of contradictions whose life defies easy judgment.

The filmmaker begins his story with a series of memorable criminal cases. Wertham appears here as a psychiatrist who encounters people capable of unspeakable acts. He is deeply interested in the question of what drives a person to transgress the limits of humanity.

The beginning of the comic book resembles, at times, a crime report . Harold Schechter, who has been researching true crime for years, bases the narrative heavily on facts. The reader is provided with information about specific cases, psychiatric interviews, and analyses of criminal behavior. However, this is not cheap thriller. What attracts the most attention here is the attempt to show the mechanisms of evil.

The first part of the book focuses primarily on Wertham's professional career as a psychiatrist. It is here that the comic is at its most intense and emotionally powerful . The reader is transported into the world of ancient investigations, courtrooms, and offices where attempts were made to understand those responsible for exceptionally brutal acts.

Wertham believed that a person could be understood by analyzing their past. He looked for causes, not just effects. The problem was that the same method that helped him analyze criminals later led him to very controversial conclusions about comic books. The author illustrates this paradox very well. A man who recognized the immense complexity of the human psyche was simultaneously capable of drawing very simplistic conclusions about the influence of pop culture on young people.

The greatest conflict in Frederic Wertham's life, of course, comes when his psychiatric interests begin to intertwine with his appreciation of popular culture. It was this phase of his career that forever cemented his name in comic book history.

Harold Schechter takes a very interesting approach to this part of the hero's life. He doesn't portray him as a mere comic book villain. He shows a man convinced he was acting in good faith. The problem was that his reasoning led to some very dangerous simplifications.

Wertham noticed that some young people with behavioral or psychological problems were exposed to comics. However, he drew a conclusion from this that today seems highly controversial. He believed that comics may be one of the causes of aggression and social problems. He did not sufficiently consider other factors, such as family environment, poverty, or difficult living conditions.

This is where Dr. Worthless takes on added significance. The story told in the album isn't just about old comics. It's also about how society reacts to new media, and how easy it is to blame it for problems that lie much deeper.

It's hard to miss the parallels with contemporary discussions surrounding video games, the internet, and social media. Schechter and Powell demonstrate that the modus operandi remains remarkably similar. A new phenomenon emerges, fear ensues, and then someone tries to pinpoint a simple culprit.

Among the album's strengths is the intriguing portrayal of its protagonist. Wertham isn't a one-dimensional antagonist. He's a man full of contradictions, capable of fighting for the rights of the marginalized one day and articulating views that offended comic book creators and readers the next.

His social activism is particularly interesting. Many may be surprised to learn that a man primarily associated with restricting artistic freedom was also involved in the fight against racial segregation.

The album's visuals perfectly complement its subject matter. Eric Powell created illustrations that aren't intended to be showy embellishments. Their purpose is to create the right atmosphere and emphasize the weight of the story.

The black-and-white style from the very first pages lends the book a documentary feel. The frames sometimes look like photographs pulled from archives or illustrations prepared for a vintage reportage. This gives the reader an even stronger sense that they're experiencing a story based on true events.

Powell is exceptionally skilled at conveying emotion. The characters' faces often speak louder than the dialogue itself. Wertham's portrayals are particularly effective, with his distinctive physique and stern facial expressions creating a character that's difficult to decipher.

The artist also makes excellent use of contrast. Shadows, empty spaces, and strong contours create a sense of unease. This is fitting both for the sections about serial killers and the later section devoted to the social debate surrounding comics.

A very interesting technique is Powell's presentation of the old comics that appear in the story. Their style differs from the main narrative, allowing the reader to immediately notice the contrast between reality and the world of fiction....

https://popkulturowykociolek.pl/dokto...#

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fredric Wertham was a pioneer in 20th century psychiatric medicine. He was involved in examining convicted killers like Albert Fish and Robert Irwin, was instrumental in ending segregation in America’s schools, and played a key role in the censorship of comics, particularly crime and horror comics, leading to the creation of the Comics Code Authority (boo!).

Harold Schechter and Eric Powell reunite to follow up their brilliant book on the strange case of Ed Gein with a book on… a disagreeable psychiatrist? It’s an odd choice although Dr Werthless turns out to be a pretty decent book - mainly as it doesn’t totally abandon the true crime angle.

The first half is definitely the best. This is focused almost entirely on true crime cases, like serial killers Jesse Pomeroy, Albert Fish and Robert Irwin. I’d have liked it if the whole book was only on killers as I think this is what the creative team do so well and is what made their first collab stand out for me.

The second half is much less compulsive reading. While the perspective of a comics fan/creator on Wertham would likely be quite negative for what he did to the medium, Schechter/Powell provide a more rounded view on the man. Though very difficult to get along with on a professional level due to his unpleasant personality, he was clearly a kind person who treated even repugnant murderers like Fish and Irwin with dignity and politeness.

He also had a progressive mindset for the time. He worked hard to end segregation in America’s schools with his testimony playing a big part in bringing this about. He also set up community clinics to allow poor minorities to access mental health services for a quarter a session. He also stood up for Ethel Rosenberg, despite this being the height of the Red Scare and he might’ve even faced dire consequences by being labelled a commie himself.

Then, for whatever reason, he became fixated on comics as the reason for why da yoof of America was “acting out” and began his lifelong crusade against comic books. Unfortunately, his actions did gain traction leading to a decades-long censoring of the medium via the formation of the thankfully long-defunct Comics Code Authority. Wally Wood, an artist on MAD magazine, gave Wertham the nickname that is the title of this book: “Dr Werthless”.

Obviously this idea of “(blank) is popular with kids and must be what’s making them do bad things” is an endless, ongoing obsession with modern society. It’s why the book opens with the case of Jesse Pomeroy, the 13 year old who was eventually convicted of killing 2 kids in the 1870s (decades before comic books were invented) but was suspected of killing more than 9, with his actions being attributed to his fondness for trashy dime novels about cowboys and injuns.

Dime novels, comics, TV shows, the “Satanic Panic” of the 80s, rock music, video games, and now social media - sure, maybe some kids are influenced to do bad things because monkey see monkey do, but most aren’t. It’s just weirdly naive, almost absurd, that an intelligent man like Wertham would have such a simplistic view of the unfathomable complexity of the human mind and think that with his brand of enlightened psychiatry he could rid humanity of criminal violence.

That elementary perspective then is rather tedious to keep reading about for nearly half the book. And, while I appreciate Schechter/Powell showing the different facets of Wertham’s character, reading pages and pages of scenes set in court about segregation and morality becomes quite wearying and slow going, particularly in comparison to the first half of the book. This is a text-heavy comic, especially the second half, with huge blocks of text on nearly every page and all of it, while informative, very dry to read.

Powell’s art is excellent. I’ve been a fan of his for years and his style is very skillful and expressive. It’s mostly pencils and the whole book is in black and white, to befit the time period. He especially nailed the disturbing look of Albert Fish and he showed range with imitating art styles from the 40s and 50s in certain sequences.

I would’ve preferred instead if Schechter/Powell did away with Wertham entirely and produced another true crime comic because the true crime parts of this book were riveting while the Wertham parts were the polar opposite. As it is, for those interested in comics history, here’s half a book on one of the chief architects of censorship in 20th century comics, although, if you were somehow expecting it, don’t expect compelling reading. But if you’re after more of the morbidly fascinating stuff Schechter/Powell gave us in Ed Gein, the first half of the book is worth checking out.

Not entirely worthless then - satisfying and unsatisfying in equal measure, Dr Werthless is a middling follow-up to Schechter/Powell’s Ed Gein book.

[Cuchillo Lope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this duo and their work in graphic novel true crime. Their Ed Gein book is amazing and I was stoked to check this one out. While not as engaging as their previous work, it’s still really good.
It focuses on the life of Dr. Wertham. A man known for killing comic books. This focuses on his work as a mercurial psychiatrist and his interactions with notorious serial killer Albert Fish and his work helping the Black community. Two things I didn’t know he did.
I think it really captures the complexity of a man who strives to do good for society, and children, but is blinded by his own self perceived superiorities. He truly did help a community of people who were treated so poorly by this country and donated so much of his time, while almost destroying an entire art industry.
It was more informative with a lot of the story being huge blocks of text, especially in the last third. It also has some tonal whiplash as Wertham’s story in the beginning is contrasted with heinous monster Albert Fish.
Overall, it’s a good story and an informative read that captures the complexities of people.

[Kevin Duvall · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s bold concept for a comics work: Write a sympathetic portrayal of one of the most hated figures in American comics history because, overall, he was not a bad guy. I felt like the arc from Wertham’s study of serial killers and his civil rights work to how those experiences influenced his moral panic over comic books was really well thought out and presented. The book has a fair portrayal of Wertham’s positive actions (founding psychiatric clinics for underprivileged communities, giving court testimony that helped overturn segregation laws) and negative aspects (holding petty grudges against other psychiatrists, using faulty reasoning in his anti-comics arguments).

The one area where I felt like the book stumbled a bit is that too much of the first 60-70 pages is focused on the tangentially related serial killers. After my first sitting with this book, I felt like I learned more about the crimes of Albert Fish and Robert Irwin than about Wertham himself. The second two-third ls certainly made up for a slow start, though.

[Maura · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone with an interest in both comic books and moral panics, I was of course, familiar with Dr. Werthham as the jagoff who hamstrung the American comic book industry in the 50s.

But Schechter offers a far more nuanced picture, showing Werthman as someone whose heart was in the right place and who we would now judge to be on the right side of history about a lot of other things, but whose stuborn nature stunted his career and led him to develop a fixation on comic books. In fact, his story almost reads as a tragedy, about a good man who is destroyed by one flaw.

Be forwarned, the book also depicts some of the serial killers who were Wertham's patients (Schechter is a true crime author after all), and that part is rough, if you are not someone who consideres yourself to be a huge fan of true crime, but I think relevant to explaining how Wertham became interested in solving the problem of violance.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really well-balanced account of the life of Dr. Wertham, the man who nearly killed the comic book industry in the 50s with his vendetta against them, even testifying before congress on their evils. I think it's ironic that this is a comic book. But this is played straight. It shows the good he did like the fact that he was instrumental in ending segregation in schools. There are also some gruesome stories of insane people that he testified for, so be forewarned. He was a very complicated individual who thought he was never wrong and rarely got along with people.

Eric Powell adopted a bit of a different style for this comic. It's full black and white and he was trying to emulate the pop art style of the time. I think Powell can do no wrong with his pencils. They always look fantastic.

[Trey Ball · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book about one of the main villains in the real life world of comics book Fandom. But everything is not as it seems! Before he turned his focus into abolishing comic books, Fredrick Wertham had a pretty important and meaningful career in psychiatry. He was advocating for African American mental health, helping to desegregate public schools, and took a more gentle approach in attempting to understand notorious serial killers.

I recommend this book to all comic book readers who enjoy history, true crime, and a little behind-the-scenes about our favorite hobby. The pacing and artwork is really fantastic here. the story flows very well and doesn't get bogged down with too much text.
Schechter and Powell knocked it out of the park with this one!

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had heard about the campaign against comic books as being too violent, which led to a code that affected the industry for years. I enjoyed the irony that someone decided to tell this story from history using a comic book. Despite the format, this book was a rather dry narrative. (Lots of telling, not a lot of showing.) Also, because the man that it focuses on studied serial killers, there are some descriptions of violence that might not make this a book for everyone. All that being said, it’s an interesting bit of history and a look at how the more things change…

[Andrew Clem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Powell has don’t it again. The story of Dr Fredric Wertham the notable psychologist who condemned comics for there violence and graphic details in from of a congressional committee, had the nickname Dr Werthless. That was given to him from Wally West. The amount of baggage Dr Wertham created by his action alone contributed to his reputation and combative nature. I highly recommend this book.

[Willie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is excellent. A little wordy and disjointed at times, but overall excellent. If a 4.5 was possible I'd give it that. This graphic novel makes a very humanitarian attempt to teach people that the number one enemy of graphic novels in America wasn't a wholly evil human being, he was complicated, petty, and misguided, but not evil to his core. It was an interesting read if you've only heard of Wertham as the handwringing man who destroyed comics.

[RJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great stuff, especially if you liked Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done. This is a great book for fans of true crime as well as people interested in the comic industry. It's deeply ironic that the only thing that might paint Frederic Wertham in a sympathetic light to comic book readers is indeed a comic book, a medium he essentially tried to destroy.

[Billie Henry · Rating 1 out of 5]

So incredibly overwritten. It didn't need to be a comic. It's just dense history chronology with imagery, and it was such a slog to get through. I'm really not a fan of this new trend (that I often see these authors present in) where it's just a visual history book with tons of words and no finesse with storytelling to make it a page-turner.