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Wednesday, April 09, 2025 

New GN focuses on late doctor who led to 1950s censorship

Dread Central announced there's a new GN about Dr. Fredric Wertham himself, and appears to be published by Dark Horse:
Best-selling author Harold Schechter (Deviant) and artist Eric Powell are teaming up again for their latest graphic novel examining a real-life villain. Previously, Schechter and Powell created the graphic novel Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? Now, they’re tackling the infamous Dr. Fredric Wertham in their new collaboration, Dr. Werthless. Ahead of its release this July, we have an exclusive look at the first eight pages of the graphic novel!

But first, read the full synopsis of the new graphic novel below:
Dr. Werthless examines one of the most polarizing figures in pop culture: Dr. Fredric Wertham. Reviled by comic book fans as a witch-hunting zealot who stirred up panic among the parents of America for his own self-promoting purposes, he was also a renowned psychiatrist who, among other accomplishments, opened a clinic in Harlem for disadvantaged African-American patients and played an important role in the desegregation of the nation’s schools. Powell and Schechter take a truly unbiased look at the flawed and enormously complex man whose obsessive dream of freeing the world from violence nearly killed the comics industry (and led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority).
I notice they don't mention sex, even though he had railed against anything depicting women as sexy, no matter the angle, with the Golden Age Phantom Lady - who was also a notable member of Uncle Sam's Freedom Fighters - as one of his targets. If they don't make a case as to whether anything considered appealing to heterosexuality should not have been victim of censorship, then whatever point they're trying to make here becomes fishy, and besides, what about violence in the movies? To my knowledge, Wertham did also decry violence in cinema, so it's not like he was ever limited to just an easy target, and in the early 70s, he changed somewhat, and wrote a book in 1973 where he argued that comics could make a good educational tool after all.

I do find it interesting they cite Wertham's willingness to help Black Americans, because isn't that something modern leftists would like us to think they agree with, and consider a redeeming value, even though they do anything but that? Also, as I'd noted years ago, despite his supposedly "conservative" positions, he was a form of leftist, and also "progressive", exactly why one could assume today's leftists would be astounded if they thought he was actually a "conservative". And there was stuff he either omitted from his pseudo-research, or plagiarized from other psychologists. Does that sit well with them?

And considering censorship made a comeback in the past decade, what good will this GN project be if they don't acknowledge the present? And what if only the topic about mayhem and whether that's censored is what concerns them, but not sex? If they don't employ the GN as something to address all eras, they've accomplished nothing, revealed themselves as biased after all, and practically indicated they consider Werthem's sex-negative views valid. Pretty weird if that's how they think.

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  • I'm Avi Green
  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
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