YOUTH CULTURE IN COMICS 719
During the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s comic books were ever-present in the lives of
many children and teenagers; this circumstance attracted the attention of many adults:
parents, teachers, librarians, and other culture gatekeepers. Comic books became a new
instance of the struggle between popular and highbrow art, especially when serving the
cultural needs and tastes of youngsters. Like pulp magazines before them, comic books
were accused of being mere entertainment, having no educational purpose, lowering the
literacy skills of youth, and even damaging their eyes with bright colours and low qual-
ity printing. Before the infamous attack of Fredric Wertham in his book Th e Seduction
of the Innocent (1954) and the trials that led to the establishment of the Comics Code ,
Sterling North declared comic books a “national disgrace” and listed the many format
and content weaknesses of the medium. However, in order to strengthen his argument,
North also recognized the ubiquity of the medium in society, noting that virtually every
child read these “color ‘comic’ magazines.” Wertham increased the virulence of the attack
on comics, highlighting two ideas: comic books were a product of a decadent capital-
istic industry lacking any cultural value and they also aff ected the innocent minds of
children and teenagers, transforming them into criminals.
Although every comic book was considered a menace, the ones published by EC were
judged as especially dangerous. William Gaines inherited this publishing company
from his father and decided to shift the content from funny animal stories to titles like
Weird Science or Th e Vault of Horror. EC represented a counter-cultural eff ort during
the conservative 1950s, the attraction of youth for these company’s titles is more than
understandable. In a historical moment characterized by a conservative and conformist
society, EC published comic books that had children and teenagers as protagonists and
challenged every idealized institution: parenthood, marriage, education, legal authori-
ties, and so forth. EC paid a high price for their rebellious line of publication, since it
almost disappeared after the Senate trials and the rise of the Comics Code.
Th e magazine Mad was one of their only regular publications after these events.
Originally Mad was published as a comic book, but soon it changed its format to
magazine to move outside the purview of the code. Created almost solely by Harvey
Kurtzman in 1952, its satiric take on popular culture would make it a cultural icon for
teenagers and young adults in the 1960s and 1970s. As well, many underground writ-
ers who succeeded in the late 1960s and 1970s, among them Robert Crumb and Art
Spiegelman , have acknowledged the infl uence of Mad in the birth and development of
underground comics.
After the establishment of the Comics Code, the only publisher that strengthened its
position was Dell due to its publishing line focused on innocuous and children-oriented
titles. Th e code eliminated the possibility of publishing edgy, violent, challenging, and
counter-establishment stories, and it also helped to reinforce two ideas about comics in
the mainstream society: comic books were something just for children and, from that
moment on, nothing more than cheap and clean entertainment. However, something
changed in the content of comic books in the 1960s. Parallel to the development of
underground comics, superhero comics also found the need to response to cultural and
