Seduction of the Innocent, Love & Death, Parade of Pleasure and more!

[SOTIcollector]

I have put together some more goodies. Another copy of SOTI, the original articles from Saturday Review of Literature that brought Wertham to prominence, some of Wertham's earliest writings (not comics-related, though) and maybe some more goodies.

 

Now I just need to find time to photograph and post them. I'm hoping to do that this week. If I don't get it done this week, then it'll be a LONG time before I can post them. I start a new job in 2012: the dream job with a nightmare commute. So I'll have no time for posting or selling comics for a while.

 

 

Just wondering if this was still going to be up for sale?

Thanks for your interest.

I had every intention of posting this and a few other items last night. I uploaded all of my pics to PhotoBucket and for some oddball reason, many of my pics are now rotated. I had edited them so they were all right side up. Then I uploaded to photobucket, and some are sideways, some are upside down... it's really weird. So I'm uploading to one of my own websites. Unless something else goes horribly wrong, I'll post between 10pm and 12am Eastern time tonight, 12/22.

 

I did promise another boardie a shot at the SOTI. He will have first dibs, and then I'll open it up to everybody. If he does buy that one... never fear. I have yet another waiting in the wings and ready to post.

[esquirecomics]

[snitzer]

[esquirecomics]

5 minutes and counting. Way to wait until the last minute!!

 

I have money, I have money!!!

[esquirecomics]

[SOTIcollector]

AAAaaarrrggghhh!!!

"Unless something goes terribly wrong, I'll be posting them..." is what I wrote.

Yeah, something went terribly wrong.

What was it? I had a stroke of stipidity, that's what.

 

Two boardies, including EsquireComics, were particularly good customers last time I sold some SOTI stuff. I promised them a shot at the next round of stuff. So when I got things ready to post, I notified them. I had intended to tell them, and tell the world, that I'd be posting Friday night 12/23 EST. That would give everybody some sort of fair warning, since not everybody is checking their email constantly.

 

For a reason I can't fathom, I told EsquireComics, and two other boardies via PM that I'd post on Thursday night. I also posted in the thread that I'd be posting more on Thursday. I then posted to ONE boardie that I'd be posting on Friday. Please accept my humblest apologies. I didn't find out about my mistake until I got a polite reminder from EsquireComics when I woke up today (Friday).

 

REALLY, I'm typically not one of those high-drama people. But I screwed this one up bigtime, and I'm really sorry.

 

I have descriptions of these books ready to go in HTML. They just need to be cut and pasted into my posting. When I get back from tonight's Christmas party (Friday 12/23), between 10pm and 12am EST, I really will post them.

[snitzer]

(thumbs u

[esquirecomics]

We expect discounts. Given I watched for your posts on the boards desperately hitting refresh, refresh, refresh for about 30 minutes, that was $200 of my time wasted.

 

 

Looking forward to the new items!

[mrmitchgro]

We expect discounts. Given I watched for your posts on the boards desperately hitting refresh, refresh, refresh for about 30 minutes, that was $200 of my time wasted.

 

 

Looking forward to the new items!

 

That's lawyers for you, always trying to push up those billable hours...

[snitzer]

We expect discounts. Given I watched for your posts on the boards desperately hitting refresh, refresh, refresh for about 30 minutes, that was $200 of my time wasted.

 

 

Looking forward to the new items!

 

I'll second that.

[esquirecomics]

We expect discounts. Given I watched for your posts on the boards desperately hitting refresh, refresh, refresh for about 30 minutes, that was $200 of my time wasted.

 

 

Looking forward to the new items!

 

I'll second that.

 

Back off pally!

[SOTIcollector]

Okay, here we go.

 

Reader's Digest, August, 1948. This contains a condensed version of Wertham's "The Comics, Very Funny", which was printed in The Saturday Review of Literature. That article represents Dr. Werttham's opening salvo in his battle against comics. Well, prior to that article he held the symposium, "The Psychopathology of Comics", and he was quoted in the slightly-earlier Collier's article. But this was the first thing Wertham wrote for a national audience about the dangers of comic books.

$20

 

[SOTIcollector]

Love and Death, by Gershon Legman. This book predated SOTI by a full five years. Published in 1949, Legman criticizes comics in the chapter titled "Not For Children." Pencil on title page ("60-", presumably a prior seller's price). Softcover.

$85

 

[SOTIcollector]

Significance of the Physical Constitution in Mental Disease. Wertham's earliest published work, from way back in 1926. Back then he was just an associate in Psychiatry, and his last name was still Wertheimer. Wertham wrote this with Florence Hesketh, who would later become his wife.

$35. SOLD EsquireComics

[SOTIcollector]

The Brain as an Organ, by Fredric Wertham. This is the hard-to-find 1934 textbook Wertham wrote. Large amount of library tape on the cover, and with the typical library markings, but nearly impossible to find in any shape at all. Note that this one was given to the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania by Wertham himself, as indicated by the card pasted into the front cover.

$75. SOLD EsquireComics

[SOTIcollector]

SORRY... This one already sold to GoldDust40. I had promised him a shot next time I posted, and he bought this one via PM. Never fear... another copy of SOTI coming up tonight.

 

Seduction of the Innocent, Second Print (1954). No bibliography; with dust jacket. Small pencil marking on title page (presumably a prior seller's price), otherwise unmarked. NOT a former library copy. All 16 illustration pages present.

No bibliography. Clean end pages, nice spine. $99.

 

A second print can be distinguished by the "Second Printing" notation on the dust jacket front flap.

 

A second print does not have an R colophon on the publication page. A first print would have the R colophon.

 

I've always found the second print curious, and here's why.

We know that when the first print went to press, it had a bibliography on one leaf (pp. 399-400). After it was printed, the publisher ordered that the bibliography be removed. Wertham believed that this action was taken because the book's publisher (Rinehart) feared lawsuits by the comic book publishers listed in the bibliography.

So the bibliography leaf was removed from almost all first printings of SOTI. On a typical first print, you can open the book to where pp. 399-400 should be, and you can see a stub where the offending leaf was removed. Given this history, the stub in the first print makes sense to me.

However, at some point a second print of SOTI was created. When you check where pages 399-400 should be on the second print, you also find a stub indicating that the offending leaf has been removed. Why was the second print even printed with that page? Why didn't they simply replace the bibliography leaf with a blank leaf before printing? If you have any knowledge, or even workable theories, about why this stub exists in second prints, I'd love to hear about it.

[SOTIcollector]

Here's a doozy. It's two bound books containing every issue of The Saturday Review of Literature for 1948. Why is that a big deal? In eight magazines in these volumes, you'll find the anti-comics crusade starting to take off.

 

First off, early in 1948, there was a "Town Meeting of the Air" in which Saturday Review's John Mason Brown squared off against Lil' Abner's Al Capp, in a debate over the positive and negative aspects of comics. A transcript of Brown's arguments was presented in the March 20, 1948 Saturday Review of Literature, in an article titled "The Case Against the Comics". Capp's rebuttal was presented as "The Case for the Comics." Both Brown's and Capp's pieces were presented under a banner "American Comics Become a Battlefield". The same issue of SRL contains a review of Coulton Waugh's "The Comics" and a reproduction of a Krazy Kat cartoon.

 

The next item of note: when Wertham began attacking comics publicly, the first article he wrote for a large national audience was in the May 29, 1948 Saturday Review of Literature. "The Comics, Very Funny" presented Wertham's case that comics were detrimental to American youth. He quoted from comics like Classics Illustrated #44, and presented illustrations (taken from Jo-Jo #15 and True Crime V1#2) to make his case. This kicked off a long debate about comics in the pages of the magazine.

 

Subsequent to these articles, the "Letters to the Editor" in the Saturday Review contained both positive and negative responses to Wertham's assertions. Among the most intriguing responses was a letter from 14-year-old David Pace Wigransky, who intelligently and vigorously defended comics.

Wigransky's letter prompted additional responses from readers, and eventually even became part of the Congressional testimony during the 1954 Senate hearings.

 

In all, there are 8 different issues of the Saturday Review of Literature in 1948 related to the anti-comics sentiment that was starting to gain steam. In these two books, you get all 8 and more... the entire year of Saturday Review of Literature in two library-bound books.

 

$70, plus $10.95 Priority Mail Flat Rate shipping in the U.S.

SOLD EsquireComics

 

[esquirecomics]

PM sent

[SOTIcollector]

Seduction of the Innocent, 1st print, 2nd state (no bibliography... but I'll include a photocopy of the bibliography) with dust jacket. All 16 illustration pages present. Dust jacket shows wear, as evident in the photos. Spine broken at title page as evident in photos. Otherwise extremely clean and solid copy of the ultimate anti-comics book. $195 SOLD Capt Comics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The R colophon on the title page indicates genuine first print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SOTIcollector]

Last one for tonight, and for the foreseeable future.

 

Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham. 1st print with dust jacket, 1st state (with bibliography!). Yes, you read that right. With bibliography and dust jacket. As noted earlier in this thread, the publisher ordered the bibliography removed from this book. so very few survived with the bibliography.

 

Prior owner's library stamp pasted inside FC. Slight bleaching to inside FC and inside BC. All 16 illustration pages present. $395. SOLD DCMan

 

Go ahead and look around... see if you can find another one with dust jacket and bibliography for sale. And if you do, see if you can beat this price. Then come back and buy it... if somebody else doesn't beat you to it.