While not explicit by today's standards, many Pre-Code era comics are legendary for their unabashed depictions of sex, violence, torture and death. Whether or not artists secretly "encoded" other offensive images in their panels is up for interpretation despite what Dr. Fredric Wertham claimed to have found during his relentless and rapacious scrutiny.
Likely a result of their propensity for outlandish covers, horror comics during this period are often cited as the most extreme of excesses. However, a closer look reveals that crime -- and surprisingly -- jungle comics contain an abundant amount of sexuality, cruelty, suffering and other transgressive content in their pages.
While at least a few publishers were shady characters themselves (and usually could care less what went into their comics as long as they sold), there is an additional, decidedly sadistic streak that runs through a substantial number of crime and jungle titles, ostensibly to emphasize the "thrill factor" aimed at their target audience: boys and young men. This assertion is -- in my opinion -- unequivocal as it is hard to ignore the proliferation of sexual imagery, libidinous activities and violent aggressiveness shown in the stories. Since the lion's share of scriptwriters for these titles remain unknown, it is hard to ascertain if the ideas originated with them or if the artist is responsible for the licentious liberties that were taken in illustrating the stories.
Before I go any further, I'd like to make it clear that I am not writing in judgment of this topic, neither am I sitting on the fence; like any other media-produced material, including films and literature, they are a product of their times. Many have debated this very subject for a very long time, but the impact as a result of this imagery and any substantially deleterious effect on young men (and women) has remained inconclusive.
It's also important to consider another hugely-popular comic book subject: romance comics. Not to be left out, they were roundly criticized for their depictions of teenage angst, deceit, immorality, jealousy and many more unscrupulous (all truthful) reflections of teenage life better left alone according to the moral crusaders. As usual, when it comes to inconvenient truths, they are difficult to accept when one recognizes they are faced with the uncomfortable reality that they themselves are at least partially to blame.
In the early 1970's, my best friend and I had the great fortune of living just a few miles away from the American Comic Book Company on Ventura Blvd. in Studio City, CA. It was in a dingy, upstairs space that I'm sure had the cheapest rent on the block. It didn't matter to us what it looked like, because when we walked over the threshold it was like the comic book version of OZ. The two people that we found running it most often were Terry Stroud and Carl Macek, a couple of characters that were as avid about comic collecting as anyone I've ever met and it wasn't hard to get caught up in their energetic enthusiasm. David Alexander was part owner, I believe and the great comics fan Scott Shaw! was a regular there as well. It was here that we learned about Dr. Wertham and his SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT, Pre-Code horror comics, good girl art and a topic they talked about incessantly: "esoteric" comics. These were the oddball books that had yet to be "discovered" by contemporary collector's as serious comic-collecting mania was just starting to take hold. Titles like NEGRO ROMANCE, MAJOR INAPAK, SPACE ACE (before a large cache was discovered in a warehouse some years later) and FATMAN, THE HUMAN FLYING SAUCER were all declared as "key" by the denizens of the shop. Anything out of the ordinary was fair game and this is where I first heard of artist Matt Baker, which led me to start collecting what I could find (and afford), along with other good girl comics, as well as the ones deemed esoteric. We'd walk out of there -- sometimes with a book or two -- laughing or asses off; these guys were f*cking nuts . . . but we loved it!
This, the first of an occasional series kicks off with some examples of crime comics that certainly fit the bill for violence and provocative sexual images. There is no shortage of shootings, strangulation, and bondage as you will see. Click on the images for a larger size.
BLUE BEETLE #55 (Fox, April 1948)
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| What a name -- Lushy Lemond! |
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| Lushy takes a shower. |
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| Blue Beetle as voyeur. |
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| Another dame "croaked". |
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| Bondage and torture. |
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| A one-pager about the female slave trade. |
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| Homicide Diary . . . in title only. |
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| "Give it to the rotten flatfoot!" |
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| Disposing of a dead cop. |
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| "I ain't gonna have you point me out in no lineup!" |
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| Crime doesn't pay . . . only until the end of the story. |
PHANTOM LADY #15 (Fox, December 1947) |
| Matt Baker cover art. |
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| Baker gives us an eyeful of Phantom Lady. |
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| Dames and danger. |
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| Stranglehold! |
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| Enough going on here to show the full pages. |
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| Focus on scantily-clad females! |
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| Classic "up-skirt" shot. |
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| Notorious "injury to the eye" motif. |
PUNCH COMICS (Harry "A" Chesler) crime covers from the 1940's -- lurid and gratuitous!
