“I’m looking for a man named Fredric Wertham.”
Action Comics #663
DC Comics (March, 1991)
“Time & Time Again” phase 2: “Lost In The ’40s Tonight”
WRITER: Roger Stern
ARTIST: Bob McLeod
COLORIST: Glenn Whitmore
LETTERER: Bill Oakley
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Dan Thorsland
EDITOR: Mike Carlin
At New York Comic-Con DC and the people behind Milestone Media (creators of the DC imprint Milestone Comics in the 1990s, where Static comes from) are creating a new Milestone universe. Because remaking universes is all DC knows. Granted, it’s been so long since DC has published a Milestone title they might as well, since they’ve been screwing the Milestone people out of being able to go on their own because the Static Shock TV show has been one of their big hits. Now if they would just remember the character’s name is Static and Static Shock is the name of the show…right, who am I kidding? They think we can’t remember Billy Batson is Captain Marvel because of the comic’s name thanks to Marvel comics!
Cover art for the 1987 U.S. (right) and U.K. (left) collected editions of Watchmen, published by DC Comics and Titan Books (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m not sure what DC for how they’re bringing the Watchmen into the DC Universe. I do know two things: that Alan Moore will continually be screwed out of his creation and all rights involved, and it won’t be as on the nose as Slay Monstrobot Of The Deep’s story. Personally I’d rather read Snell’s version than whatever DC has planned.
Of course this wouldn’t be a webcomic and probably wouldn’t exist in the first place.
I would be linking to my review of the tablet in question but the video is taking hours to upload to YouTube. Just keep an eye on The Clutter Reports. I’m hoping it will be up tonight. Meanwhile, yes, I have a new tool in my artistic arsenal. I’m still going to do other projects on paper, but Jake & Leon should be going digital in order to keep down the huge stack of Bristol I now have sitting around since the nature of this comic is kind of useless to collect or even redo. The gags are products of their time. The comic exists as extra commentary and art practice. It just does silly things when I have nothing extra to comment on.
Speaking of gagging, this is the FINAL week (not counting a wrap-up article) that I’ll have to slog through Seduction Of The Innocent! We’re on the last chapter of this book, and while I’m not sorry I went through this if only for my own assurance, and I learned things about this book most of you probably didn’t know (the heck with Batman, Wertham’s primary target is Superman and to a lesser extent Wonder Woman), it was still a huge chore I don’t plan to repeat anytime soon.
The next book will be more fun to read as we will return to fiction. Now I just have to wait for this video to upload for The Clutter Reports. Hopefully before I go to bed!
Dr. Wertham brought up the show Captain Video & His Video Rangers a couple of times in yesterday’s portion of Chapter 13 of Seduction Of The Innocent so I thought I’d introduce you to the show with the episode I checked out to prove how tame it was compared to Wertham’s ramblings. Or maybe I got the wrong episode? I doubt it would help. The first science fiction TV show, the serialized adventures of Captain Video and his friends first aired in 1949 and continued to air until 1955. The show was broadcast on the DuMont Television Network, and was sponsored by Post cereals, since at the time companies would sponsor a show like they did in the radio days rather than the multiple product commercial breaks we see today.
Set in the future unless it isn’t (long story), the main feature follows Captain Video’s attempts to bring peace and order to the outer space colonies. For some odd reason they padded out the show with a secondary serial made out of old cowboy movies DuMont had access to, hosted by one of Captain Video’s allies showing us some “special secret agents” on Earth…who were in the Old West for whatever reason. Sadly (unless you’re Dr. Wertham) only a few episodes still exist. Tonight we’re looking at episode 5, as the Video Rangers attempt to prove the validity of an intergalactic mail service to the colonies, which for reasons lost to the lost episodes a villain named Chauncey Everett is trying to take control over. It’s not a good quality video but it’s survived, which makes it better than most others.
“Who replaced my lucky coin with an arcade token?”
Batman: Gotham Adventures #2
DC Comics (July, 1998)
“Lucky Day!”
WRITER: Ty Templeton
PENCILER: Rick Burchett
INKER: Terry Beatty
COLORIST/SEPARATIONS: Lee Loughridge
LETTERER: Tim Harkins
EDITOR: Darren Vincenzo
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
Chapter By Chapter Special: Seduction Of The Innocent FINAL CHAPTER part 1
Normally, Chapter By Chapter is me reading a fictional book one chapter at a time to study each part of the story. In this special review series however we are looking at Seduction Of The Innocent, a non-fiction book as the writer, Dr. Fredric Wertham, tries to make the case that comics were a bad thing for kids in the 1950s. The book had a huge impact on the comic industry and fans. We will examine what he is saying not exclusively by today’s standards, but the time in which the book was made to see where Wertham was right, and where he was horribly wrong.
Here we at last! The final chapter of my least favorite read ever! And I’ve had to read through a number of books I didn’t like. Usually that was for school, but here it’s more of a different learning experience, to break down the problems one can have with new media. And some of these arguments still exist today. From the Wertham successor Jack Thompson and his war on “violent video games” to political commentator Bill Maher’s recent rant about the evils of superhero movies, the new kid in town will always be under assault by that group of yokels who don’t trust strange media in these here parts. Dr. Wertham passed away in 1981 but his spirit still remains.
We may be lucky on this one. The chapter is only five pages of the PDF file (I’m not sure how that translates to the original book), and not even full pages. We may pull this off in an article or two, maybe three if the stupidity is large enough. And then next week (unless I decide to do it this week and just get it over with) I’ll have my final thoughts on the book and why it was so important to do this review, as well as the impact it had on comic books. But for now let’s end this nightmare review series.
Chapter 14: The Triumph Of Doctor Payne
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 9, 2017 in Comic Spotlight, Seduction Of The Innocent and tagged book review, Chapter By Chapter, Comic book, commentary, Dr. Fredric Wertham, Seduction Of The Innocent.
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