For avid followers of comic book history, 1954 was the most epochal, unsettling, and transformative year for both publishers and readers.
That was the year that books, studies, magazines, and even official U.S. Senate hearings lambasted and laid square blame on comic books for (purportedly) seemingly every strain of juvenile misadventure, misdeed, and misbehavior.
Publishers could see the parent pitchforks out, so they created the Comics Code Authority, a self-censoring group that would put a literal “stamp of approval” on books deemed appropriate for young eyes. It put many companies out of business, slashed the number of titles and print runs, and neutered comic book content for almost two decades.
But a new book—lavishly illustrated in full color and well-annotated—shows the hows and the whys of the lead up to that year and its impact, still hotly discussed by aficionados of “four-color funny books.” And that’s David Hogan’s Comic Book Apocalypse!: The Death of Pre-Code Comics and Why It Happened, 1940-1955 (256 pp., $59.99, Schiffer Books).
Parents didn’t pay much attention to comic books when they first appeared on newsstands in the mid-1930s. Cheaply produced, the exploits of familiar newspaper strip faces, funny talking animals or the burgeoning “long underwear costumed crowd” (Superman, Batman etc.) went mostly under the radar as kid stuff.
Even as tens of millions of mostly kids and teenagers plunked down their dimes each month, as well as soldiers serving in World War II and the Korean War.
But it was a pretty profitable industry. And soon, competition for newsstand rackspace and the attention of all those young eyeballs meant your comic book had to stand out among all the competition (as the pulp magazines of earlier years proved).
What did that mean? Well, maybe all those damsels in distress had their ample chests thrust out a little bit extra (“headlight covers”), horror comics got a little gorier, and—especially during World War II—features of various ethnic and racial groups got way, way exaggerated. Comic Book Apocalypse shows hundreds of examples.
The big bomb came with the 1954 publication of Seduction of the Innocent. Child psychologist Dr. Fredric Wertham’s sometimes hysterical book-length treatise excoriated comics books for promoting “deviant” lifestyles (most memorably suggesting that Batman and Robin were in an age-inappropriate homosexual relationship and Wonder Woman a lesbian with a bondage fetish).
And reading them led to children’s emotional difficulties, juvenile delinquency, criminal activities, and rebellion against parents. Dr. Wertham based this largely on his study of actual delinquents, where he found that an abnormally large percentage of them regularly read comic books. Never mind that that a similar percentage of all young people read comic books.
Most in the crosshairs was EC Comics. Under publisher William Gaines, their output in titles like Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Crime SuspensStories, Weird Fantasy, and Frontline Combat had some of the most “egregious” examples of story and art. And…yeah, there was some truth to that. But their stable of ultra-talented artists, writers, and editors made their books more far more than a cut above the competition. Not to mention in later decades one of the most beloved and venerated lines ever among fans.
Gaines himself testified before the 1954 Senate subcommittee led by Senator Estes Kefauver but did himself or the plight of comics books no favors with a rumpled appearance, halting answers, and justifications.
In one famous exchange, he noted that the infamous cover of Crime SuspensStories #22 of showing a man with an axe in one hand and severed head of his wife with eyes rolled back was actually in good taste. Bad taste, he suggested, would have included bones, flesh, and dripping blood underneath the head.
In a short time, even Gaines’ entire revamped EC line would crater (because what kid wouldn’t want to read a comic book called Psychoanalysis?). Save for the one humor title he turned into a larger, black and white magazine and did pretty well with: MAD magazine.
Hogan also has a wry sense of humor and irony in those hundreds of those short cover caption commentary. And he admirably includes many examples minor comic book publishers and titles, many known only to hardcore comics historians.
He also generously includes mini-bio chapters on prolific artists like Alex Schomberg (who comics historian Ron Goulart called “the Hieronymus Bosch of comic book artists” during World War II), Russ Heath, Joe Doolin, Harvey Kurtzman, Matt Baker (a rare Black artist), Charles Biro, and Jack Cole.
And pioneering female artist Lily Renée. As physically beautiful as some of the women she drew, Renée faced constant sexual harassment from male co-workers and eventually quit her job. Decades later, she got her due and admiration.
Hogan also covers not just the usual controversial and suspect genres of superhero, horror, crime, war and sci-fi comics, but also romance, jungle and Western (with problematic depictions of Black Africans and Native Americans), teens, and even funny animals.
A more detailed and informative book about this story has already come out in David Hadju’s 2009 book The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America. But Comic Book Apocalypse is an absolute perfect and much more visual companion volume for the bookshelf space next door.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.