Sympathy for Frederic Wertham

I'm holding in my hand a recent comic book, published by a mainstream press, and available in any comic book shop. The content of story is so dark and gross, that it makes the beloved EC Comics of the 1950's look like comedy. For those of you who are familiar with the history of comic books, you're familiar with the book "Seduction of the Innocent" by Fredric Wertham, which made the case that comic books cause juvenile delinquency. Wertham, a psychiatrist, was roundly derided in comic book circles a "square" adult who just didn't "get" comics. So why do I feel that some of his claims are legit? People ARE influenced by the media that they consume. I'm thinking of, say, the cop who thinks he's or "Dirty Harry" or "Travis Bickle" (of "Taxi Driver"), or the investment tycoon who thinks he's "Gordon Gekko", or the bodybuilder who thinks he's "The Hulk"; it seems that we live in a world of media characters, and we model ourselves after those whom we admire-- or at least those who we see in comics and in the movies. In fact, we probably measure our own lives against those lives we see in the media.

Back to comics and human values, where this is all leading. I'm looking at a comic which I enjoy reading, but would wouldn't feel right if I recommended for kids. It's a dark story (both in content, and in the color palatte). The story logo contains the Nazi "SS" lettering. The imagery in the book includes an angry mouse having sex, a trashed out house with clothes and garbage everywhere, seedy looking characters who look like drug dealers, burned out slums, drug deals (depictions of the exchange of drugs for money), a fat kid with a gun being attacked by giant flying cockroaches, his dead body lying on a porch stoop, dank low-rent apartments, a Wall Street businessman in a sports car making a drug distribution deal with his grubby street partner, words like "fuck" and "bitch". The story ends with a swarm of giant cockroaches feasting on the body of the deceased drug dealer.
After having gotten this far in my description of this comic book, I see that I'm having a change of heart. Despite the fact that the setting and characters of this story are "pagan" and vile, the story does have a moral heart: the bad guys lose (not all of them, but this particular character). The heroes in the story, the moral agents, are actually the cockroaches. They're the ones who live amongst the evil and root it out. It looks disgusting, but I'm sure that it's just as foul as watching Aaron's sons get torched for entering the Temple with "unholy fire". The Bible is just as violent and "pagan" (in its punishments) as is my comic book.

I feel for Frederic Wertham. I'm sure that he worried about his kids, and how the artistic advances in culture (he might call them "degenerate") would affect kids. There are many examples of cases where kids do some heinous act because they read about it or saw it on TV. I'm sure that he felt that he as acting as Superman would, to put it ironically: fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But if you just focus on the gory details, such as the gruesome EC Horror Comics, or the gross cockroach story that I used to start this article, you'd conclude that comics are "pagan" or immoral. However, that's misguided. You've got to look at who the heroes are, and what the implied values in the story are. The cockroaches, as heroes, "save the day" to some extent, yet their work is not done, and may never be done. The thing that we've got to get used to as readers is to realize that "heroes", like God, could be found in the most unlikely of places. A gut test is this: do you feel brought down and depressed by the story? Or oddly uplifted? Today's edgy comics require more of the reader then those of the Golden Age of yesteryear.