Faded, Jaded Mandarin ([info]nvonflue) wrote,
@ 2007-04-19 06:41:00
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From comets to comics.
So my daughter was looking up "Comets"  yesterday, and we got out the trusty ol' One volume Illustrated World Encyclopedia. Something like this one. Edited by one Roger Bobley, it seems.

While reading about Comets, my eyes fell over another entry on the same page. Namely, "Comics". This is an area I have some passing interest in so, let's read it, shall we?!



ZOINKS! wha?! Let's look at that last part again!



This entry indeed has uprooted my monocle! There's a veritable LOAD of crazy information I never knew about comics and their ill affects on our children's eyes and ears!

To continue:



Okay, at least they righted themselves, with some facts. I hope they keep it up...



Uh-oh, here comes the dream dust again! And hey, as an aside, 45,000,000 copies a month in 1961!?!  Maybe these guys oughta think about going back to being irresponsible!

Pick your own gem from this, but one of my favorites is "There is nothing real about the stories in such comic books, and for that reason, grownups are often against them and children love them" I mean that sounds like a throwaway line from the Narmia books! amazing!

I could go through this line by line, but one thing is for sure. I'm cross referencing my daughters "comet" answers. Thanks Mr. Bobley!

If you're so inclined, or are one of those people who demand "facts", I uploaded a regular scan of the page in it's entirety. So's you didn't think I made this up. That'd just be too "comic book-y" (Did I use that right?)


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[info]nabbit
2007-04-19 02:27 pm UTC (link)
That's hilarious, how old is the book?

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 02:32 pm UTC (link)
1966 is the last printing date, but it goes back to 1954. I'm fairly certain that the entry was never amended, and it reads as if Ol' Dr. Wertham was the one who originally wrote it for them!

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Amended in 1961 at the very least
(Anonymous)
2007-04-20 09:41 pm UTC (link)
Amended in 1961 at the very least

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[info]fabricari
2007-04-19 02:47 pm UTC (link)
I grew up with a 20 year old encyclopedia set in the house. It was great, writing reports with ANCIENT information. This is priceless, though. Thanks for sharing - suddenly Wiki doesn't seem so bad. Sadly, I still meet many people today who have this outdated veiw of comics.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 03:40 pm UTC (link)
suddenly Wiki doesn't seem so bad.

HA!

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[info]pvenables
2007-04-19 03:22 pm UTC (link)
Wow. How surreal. I like the contradiction inherent in the writeup wherein it begins by saying that the poor art and writing "do not help children learn to appreciate fine art and literature" and later that they "appeal to both the eye (the pictures) and the ear (the words)."

I guess they wouldn't see it as a contradiction, though, because it is through my modern perspective that I associate aesthetic enjoyment with quality.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 03:41 pm UTC (link)
ear (the words) is my new favorite phrase.

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[info]pvenables
2007-04-19 03:45 pm UTC (link)
I also love the general paranoia in the article that's reminiscent of the Wertham-era fear-mongering. As though reading about things that don't really exist are harmful or that somehow combining fiction with pictures makes it harder to tell truth from reality.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 03:50 pm UTC (link)
it's kinda like reading a midevil doctor espousing the facts and benefits of bloodletting.

Or drowning the little gnomes that live in your stomach and make you hurt.

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[info]pvenables
2007-04-19 04:03 pm UTC (link)
Or reading a turn of the century treatise on the benefits of smoking.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 04:10 pm UTC (link)
Well, smoking did look pretty good to some....

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[info]pvenables
2007-04-19 05:17 pm UTC (link)
I like the energy in the drawings of that comic. Kudos!

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 05:25 pm UTC (link)
Thanks!

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[info]williamgeorge
2007-04-19 03:35 pm UTC (link)
Man, that's a blog-able entry there.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 03:42 pm UTC (link)
Blog away! Make it poplar!

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Poplar? Fir sure!
[info]fnordius
2007-04-23 07:46 am UTC (link)
But I'll only link to it on a larch. I reserve the right to beech choosy about whether I willow not, though...

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[info]ericfmyers
2007-04-19 04:17 pm UTC (link)
Lesson: Comics should become evil again. Then they would sell more.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-19 04:39 pm UTC (link)
WORD.

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and...?
[info]tymmi
2007-04-19 07:58 pm UTC (link)
I don't know what the problem is. It all seems right to me.

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Re: and...?
[info]nvonflue
2007-04-20 04:03 am UTC (link)
I'll wait patiently until one of the sentences present in this show up as the tagline of your blog.

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Re: and...?
(Anonymous)
2007-04-20 08:21 pm UTC (link)
What, like...

"Mostly Banal: Sold 45,000,000 in 1961!"

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Pick your own gem from this
(Anonymous)
2007-04-20 12:49 am UTC (link)
This entry indeed has uprooted my monocle! There's a veritable LOAD of crazy information I never knew about comics and their ill affects on our children's eyes and ears!

Image

Jeff Knooren
Super Unit 5000

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Re: Pick your own gem from this
[info]nvonflue
2007-04-20 04:04 am UTC (link)
Tut-TUT!

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[info]seian
2007-04-20 02:08 am UTC (link)
Don't worry, I bet they got rid of the Flat Earth theory by that edition.

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-20 04:04 am UTC (link)
Believe it or not, it's still in there!

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[info]seian
2007-04-20 05:12 am UTC (link)
Oh boy...

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[info]yhancik
2007-04-20 07:01 pm UTC (link)
haha, nice find !

the fav quote completely reminds me of a friend's mother who forbid her to read comics in which things weren't "real"

where's the fun in that ? :p

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There's always Doonsbury
(Anonymous)
2007-04-20 07:17 pm UTC (link)
All the kids love reading Doonsbury. Or, those illustrations in the New Yorker. Comedy gold my friend.

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[info]arfies
2007-04-20 07:54 pm UTC (link)
Better ban fairy tales, then.... the seven dwarfs make children do wicked acts!

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[info]yhancik
2007-04-21 01:13 pm UTC (link)
not to mention that somnophile prince !

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Bwa!
(Anonymous)
2007-04-20 08:07 pm UTC (link)
Jeez... I guess nobody told the entry's author about D.H. Lawrence. Comics equal bad. Literature is greater than or equal to good. Death to all comics!

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Here's entry for "encyclopedia"
(Anonymous)
2007-04-20 08:48 pm UTC (link)
"It has been shown that encyclopedias can do a lot of harm. Many of them contain facts that do not exist, which is why adults love them because they can use them to justify taking their children's comic books away. They appeal to the mind (with their pseudo-intellectual word pictures) and to the heart (with their false sense of truth). In recent years, encyclopedias have been making their articles more believable, but there are many editors who are not so honest. Many schools and libraries has encyclopedias that are enjoyable to read but will give a lot of misinformation."

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[info]omokage
2007-04-20 08:49 pm UTC (link)
hey whaddya know, you got boinged :)

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[info]omokage
2007-04-20 08:51 pm UTC (link)
hmm. methinks this is good fodder for a Wikipedia edit on the Comics article

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[info]nvonflue
2007-04-21 04:28 pm UTC (link)
Thanks to bad mid-century editors and Dr. Wertham, I've been noticed!

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You sneak
[info]tymmi
2007-04-21 06:58 pm UTC (link)
You orchestrated this all to promote the billboard show, didn't you?

Brilliant!

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Re: You sneak
[info]nvonflue
2007-04-21 07:31 pm UTC (link)
Well, I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't hoping...

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Mythology, past and present
[info]celebritymedium
2007-04-21 12:00 am UTC (link)
When I read stuff from the past like this, which seems laughable to us, I always wonder what we commonly believe today which will seem ridiculous to people in fifty years.

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Re: Mythology, past and present
[info]lypanov
2007-04-21 10:46 pm UTC (link)
The gaming myths (e.g, the insane impulse to blame games for Virginia Tech by some people) no doubt...

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Comics are STILL evil.
(Anonymous)
2007-04-22 12:57 am UTC (link)
While perusing the Criminal Code of Canada, I found that comics can be considered so bad, they're banned by law.

Under Section 163, Corrupting Morals, part (b) states:

(1) Every one commits an offence who
(b) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation a crime comic.

A crime comic is defined as:

(7) In this section, "crime comic" means a magazine, periodical or book that exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially
(a) the commission of crimes, real or fictitious; or
(b) events connected with the commission of crimes, real or fictitious, whether occurring before or after the commission of the crime.

Holy cow! Comics so evil as to be banned by law. Obviously, the lawmakers read your fascinating article.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/C-46/bo-ga:l_IV::bo-ga:l_V//en?page=4&isPrinting=false#codese:163

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yes
(Anonymous)
2007-04-29 07:05 pm UTC (link)
Yes, comic books must have been evil. Look how terrible the world is today. These things would not have happened if we heeded the warning!

We should all go back to living like we did in the 1950s. You know, I was a child then, but *nothing bad* ever happened back then. They only had that little racial discrimination and class discrimination problem, and it was wonderful because all the women stayed home and took care of the kids. They did have that little problem in southeast Asia around then, but it wasn't a big problem.

Just think of how better we'd have all been if those evil comic books hadn't corrupted the minds of our youth! Yes, we'd all be happily living in our bomb shelters, eating our Wonder Bread, fighting communists and mindlessly watching Ed Sullivan on the TV!

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