The Citizens' Committee and Comic-Book Control: A Study of Extragovernmental Restraint

Abstract

No other medium of American popular culture has been subjected to such widespread, vehement, and continuing attack as the so-called comic-books. While controversies about the relationship between juvenile delinquency and crime themes in movies and radio have raged and subsided, the public outcry against crime and horror comic-books has persisted and now seems to have assumed the character of a permanent, grass-roots, citizens' crusade. Reflecting and perhaps reinforcing this unique development is the fact that these comic-books have, in recent years, been investigated by three congressional committees;' they have been made the subject of a provocative and widely publicized book;2 as a product of American culture, they have become notorious and have caused embarrassment abroad; 3 and lastly, their elimination has become the cause c6lebre of women's clubs,4 church groups,5 and community action organizations. It is with a study of the organization and dynamics of one of these last-mentioned groups, the Citizens' Committee for Better Juvenile Literature of Chicago, Illinois, that this paper is concerned. Requisite to a full understanding of the Committee is an appreciation of the history of the comic-book in American culture.6 The prototype of the modern comicbook was the six by sixteen inch booklet of Mutt and Jeff daily newspaper strips, issued by the Chicago American in 1911 as a premium to increase circulation. Evolution was slow, however, and the next step did not come until 1929, when a tabloidsized booklet called The Funnies was published, marking the first time that comics