I Read Comic Books discussion

We're kicking off the year (and the Reading Challenge!) with a pick from last year's Reading Challenge Finishers, Dr. Werthless: The Man Who Studied Murder And Nearly Killed the Comics Industry .

What did you think of this book? Did you learn anything new?

Tell us all about it!

I've started it. The title of "Werthless" gives a good hint of what the author's opinion of the subject is, unless it is a bit of misdirection.

In the beginning, he does seem like a disagreeable egotist.

There is some confusing alternation between a story about Wertham and some criminal called "the Werewolf", leading me to wonder whether they were the same person. They aren't. (Maybe they should have used a different color palette or something to distinguish the two characters.) The Werewolf is a really nasty serial rapist/killer, and the discussion of his crimes is not an easy read.

The guy is complicated. He almost killed comics and helped end segregation in schools.

I'm "finally" done reading it (I can't believe it took me 2 weeks) and... well... I had kind of a hard time with the walls of text in that weird font.

That being said, the topic was interesting (as a non american, I had never heard of him) and I loved the art. It's really just the sheer amount of hard to read text that made me not enjoy the experience that much.

Just started reading today.
A lot of the beginning is devoted to the Werewolf serial killer that diverts from the story of Wertham. Although, it seems to be necessary to understand what Wertham was encountering as a psychologist when he was eventually assigned to him.

Evilblacksheep wrote: "I had kind of a hard time with the walls of text in that weird font..."

I texted friends about this exact thing when I started reading it. Such an odd design choice! The art was so good, it was really unfortunate how much the giant weird font detracted from it imo

Chad wrote: "The guy is complicated. He almost killed comics and helped end segregation in schools."

yeah, his story reminded me of Dr. Heimlich in that way

I had mixed feelings about this one. Eric Powell's art is terrific, but the storytelling feels uneven at times, and the lettering choice kept pulling me out of the page. I also couldn’t stop side-eyeing Harold Schechter's critiques of people cashing in on lurid true-crime sensationalism. Coming from him, it lands with a real lack of self-awareness. Still, I’m glad I read it; it filled in a lot of comics-history context from that era that I didn’t have before.

Those critiques come after he and Powell teamed up to write a comic about Ed Gein before this one.

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. 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.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I finished on Sunday. Great, informative book and surprisingly mostly objective. Here's my review . . . .

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I do think Eric Powell and Howard Schechter's previous collaboration about Ed Gein is worth a read as well. There is some disturbing imagery though. Gein was one of America's first serial killers and they found things in his house like lampshades made of human skin (most of the crazy things in his house were from dug up bodies but still...)

Here's a link to my review.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I did actually like their Ed gein book better than this one.

Chad wrote: "I do think Eric Powell and Howard Schechter's previous collaboration about Ed Gein is worth a read as well. There is some disturbing imagery though. Gein was one of America's first serial killers a..."

Great review. I've had that on my Want To Read list for a while. Going to move it up more spaces, based on your review (and my favorable reading of Dr. Werthless).

I think the Eddie Gein book was better, too. Darkly disturbing, and scarier because it was based on facts, the story is not to be missed for true-crime aficionados!

I will begin this review with the disclaimer that I am not a fan of true crime and horror, especially in comics, and therefore was not having a good time for the first 100 pages, lol. But I did appreciate this look into Wertham's life and the complexity of his character.

Given that this was created by a true crime writer and horror artist, who could definitely be some of "Dr. Werthless'" biggest haters, it was interesting seeing the effort to take an empathetic and balanced approach to his story, even at times when the resentment was palpable. By the end of the book I saw Wertham as a whole human being.

This book could have benefitted from better choices in when to show, when to tell, and maybe whentoskimoversomeofthemoregraphicdetailsPLEASE. But that's just my opinion - I won't be going to court over it.

I liked it, and may say more later. But I have one question. Why the abstract art?

When Wertham was seen discovering the comics and reading them, we were shown pictures from some of the comics, but those were interspersed with pictures of abstract art, as if he were looking at those, too. Was Wertham implying that abstract art was also harming people? or that children should be protected from it?

Nnaazi's, among others, considered abstract art to be 'degenerate' and destroyed a lot of it and persecuted the makers of the art. But this book didn't make that link explicitly, so I'm unclear whether that was intended.

I read a website called "Galactic Journey" that every month reviews old SF magazines from 55 years before today's date. In the recent review of "Amazing" from March 1971 the letters section has some discussion of Wertham's book "Seduction of the Innocent".

An interesting coincidence. Also interesting was several things said in the letters. Apparently the book contained a few "disturbing" images from comic books. One of the images was of a man's shoulder. According to Wertham, if you looked at the image in the right way -- which children reading comics supposedly knew how to do -- it was actually a picture of a woman's crotch.

A person writing a letter to "Amazing" in the November 1970 issue had said he couldn't see the image because the copy of the book he had didn't have any images*. But a letter writer in the March 1971 issue said he found the image and that it would take a very active imagination to see a woman's crotch in that image of a man's shoulder.

And that is the problem with Wertham and those like him. He sees what he wants to see and then insists that it is real. So, even though he helped end school segregation, he did it based on some crazy psychological syndrome that he simply invented and then looked for evidence, rather than using evidence to lead to a conclusion. So while "Dr. Werthless" tries to be even-handed, I do not have any positive feelings for Wertham, and don't think he deserves such a gentle treatment. Still probably a 4-star read.

* As for why the image was missing in some copies of the book.... It turns out those were library copies, and apparently it wasn't uncommon for libraries back then to remove pages with offensive images. At least according to one of the letters. If you really want to read all this for yourself, go to galacticjouney dot org and search for March 1971 Amazing.

As for why an SF magazine was talking about him, well after studying comics he decided to study SF fan groups, which I'm sure he found equally depraved.