• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

UPDATED: My Nominee for the "First Great Comic Collector"
12 12

359 posts in this topic

Thanks for the kind words about the thread!  I'm taking my kid to go take the SAT, and after I drop him off I'll be moving on to Dave's amateur comic book and the stage of his life I think of as:

"Raising Hell" or "Wertham Was Right" or "It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn of Modern Comic Fandom"

Edited by sfcityduck
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two of the other factors I mentioned are:

  • Whether the person has created or published amateur comics;
  • Whether the person has attempted to or become a professional comic creator; 

Does Dave check these boxes?  

While I think Dave may well have attempted at some point to become a professional comic artist, I have ZERO evidenced of that.  He corresponded with publishers, creators, and art shops in the industry.  He had stated his intent in the Saturday Review to pursue a job as a comic artist.  And his mother's obituary states that Dave was a professional artist, but I have no evidence of who employed him (if anyone).  And I have no evidence that he ever applied for a job as a comic creator.  Thus, "Whether the person has attempted to or become a professional comic creator" is one box that definitely cannot be checked for Dave based on the information now known.  

BUT, Dave did create at least one comic book!  This comic was discovered by Prof. Carol Tilley, who has written a fair bit about Dave, in the archives of the National Cartoonist Society.  The comic likely dates to 1948, and it is called "The Uncanny Adventures of I Hate Dr. Wertham"!   You can read about Tilley's discovery of the comic here:

https://library.osu.edu/blogs/cartoons/2016/02/23/guest-post-found-in-the-collection-the-uncanny-adventures-of-i-hate-dr-wertham/

Prof. Tilley summarizes the comic, thusly:

 

Quote

 

Here’s the story the comic tells.

A police officer brings a juvenile delinquent to see Wertham, who agrees to psychoanalyze him. The first question Wertham asks the boy is whether or not he reads comics, and the boy responds, “Sure! Don’t everybody???” Wertham immediately seizes upon a connection between comics reading and juvenile delinquency, and the boy, realizing the possibilities in misleading the doctor, plays along. Wertham assiduously studies a funny animal comic the boy gives him, determined to prove the comics—delinquency connection. Ultimately Wertham pardons the boy, telling him that it is “the comic book publishers…and not you who should be punished!” Wertham gathers more comics for study and sets on his course to document the ill-effects of reading them.

During his study, Wertham listens to a radio forum about comics that features critic John Jason Frown, cartoonist Al Sapp, and others. During the question and answer period, Charles Biro is hauled out of the audience by “the little men in the white coats.” Feeling he’s found a kindred soul in Frown, Wertham takes his completed manuscript to him and Frown agrees to publish it in the Saturday Review of Illiteracy. Soon “the entire nation is reading Doc Wertham’s fulmination against the comics” and local municipalities enact ordinances against comics.

Cut to the studio of a couple of comics creators and their creations, which include a monster trio and a standard superhero, Major Muscle. The group hatches a plan to counter Wertham’s message, which has begun to reduce sales. In short order, the characters take a time travel device to Wertham’s house. There they are able to send him on a memory trip to his childhood in Germany, where he recalls that he may have done some naughty things even though he grew up in a comics-free environment.

Once awake and no longer under the effects of the time travel device, Wertham realizes the error of his anti-comics argument. He endeavors to retract it, but in doing so, he is professionally disgraced and left penniless. The comic ends with Wertham trading in the last of his worldly possessions for a revolver, which he uses to kills himself on a pier.

Throughout the comic, the unidentified cartoonist deftly incorporates references to key events, locations, and figures beyond those I noted in the summary. Wertham’s groundbreaking Lafargue Clinic in Harlem makes an appearance; in the comic, it’s motto is, “Behind every crook…..there’s a comic book!” The AMCP and its code are namechecked. There’s a shout-out to contemporary provocateur Alfred Kinsey. And then, on page 22 there’s a nameless, crew-cut teenager in a plaid shirt who owns 5,919 comic books, but there’s only one person it could be: David Pace Wigransky.

 

Twisted, but very intelligent and timely (for its time), story.  

Here's some examples of the art from the comic, but follow the link to the Tilley article for more.  I think its fair to say that Dave's 14 year old effort shows he has some talent.  At the time, his style was a cross between Crumb and Wolverton with a lot of teen-age aggression:

CloseUpTitlePage

CartoonistsAndCharacters

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave's amateur comic is notable for a lot of reasons.  But two leap out at me:

* He sent to the National Cartoonist Society and they thought enough of it to save it in their archives;

* It is a twisted twisted take on the Wertham controversy, essentially a revenge fantasy that ends with Wertham blowing out his brains;

Think about this for a moment.  Dave had literally authored the best rebuttal ever made to Wertham's anti-comics argument.  It was a rebuttal which was published initially in the Saturday Review, but was then re-broadcast in newspaper articles throughout the nation.  Here's an example from a November 1948 Ohio newspaper:

article.jpg.0220a5625cae8ebeb39a8e7cb108db94.jpg

Dave's rebuttal was so powerful, that it was re-published again 6 years after it first appeared, as part of the Senate Hearings on the Investigation of Juvenile Deliquence in the United States (the so-called "Kefauver Hearings") in 1954.  

YET, WERTHAM NEVER ONCE ATTEMPTED TO RESPOND TO DAVE'S REBUTTAL AND NEVER, NOT ONCE, MENTIONED DAVE'S NAME.  

Why?  Because Wertham had no good response.  Wertham was making his case based on a limited number of anecdotal case studies of juvenile delinquents who read comics.  Dave was rebutting that methodology by pointing out the vast number of healthy teens who read comics.  And Wertham could not rebut that fact.  Wertham was smart enough to know it.  So he ignored Dave's argument.

Now think of what Wertham would have done if he'd known about Dave's anti-Wertham comic?  He'd have portrayed Dave as a twisted juvenile delinquent who "proved his case."  

And maybe Wertham would have been right.  The 1950s were turbulent times for Dave.

Edited by sfcityduck
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave graduated from High School in 1951.  

Dave's father died in 1955.  Dave was 22 at that time.  

You have to dig very very deep to find information on Dave from that time period.  

And if you dig deep enough, and you know that by 1956 Dave was using the nom de plume "Dave Jay," eventually you learn that Dave spent a fair amount of time in the 1950s

image.jpeg.2aadb46558215a8faf110afb6326ee74.jpeg

 

 

Edited by sfcityduck
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

But, the article in the national publication is not the first time that the name "David Pace Wigransky" popped up in connection with the comic book world.  

The first such reference I can find to Dave is in Pep Comics no. 60 (March 1947), over a year earlier.  Dave had joined the "Shield G-Man Club" and entered a contest.

And he won!

Pep.thumb.png.27ba68418a52daa0012cec555f76ee10.png

There can be no doubt that Dave loved comics and their characters!

 

Excellent thread!  The PRIZE for the winners was a copy of PEP #62.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

image.jpeg.a35627b9959fcc7613c9b7bca4a324bd.jpeg

Pretty crazy book cover, eh?  Here's some back story that might make more sense of this thing.

You see, Marlon Brando's "The Wild One" came out in 1953.  

Image result for brando wild ones

It was the first "outlaw biker" movie.  And it had a galvanizing impact on teen-agers at the time.  The subsequent looks of James Dean and Elvis were highly influenced by the look of Brando's character.  And the film helped usher in a new rebellious attitude amongst teens.

The relation between the movie and the book cover is clearly seen in the central figure in the book cover - the guy with the belt buckle that says "Beer Dave."  

And here's the sleave of Dave's 1960 45 record:

Image result for Dave Jay 45

That's Dave Wigransky in his Brando inspired finest.  

And the "Beer Dave" that Dave illustrated on the cover of his "Raising Hell" book is a fantasy view of himself.  

"Raising Hell" purports to be "A contemporary novel of modern juvenile delinquency told from the standpoint of the delinquents themselves."

WAIT A MINUTE!  Is Dave admitting he became a juvenile delinquent?  Was Wertham right?

Edited by sfcityduck
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
12 12