Off the Shelf: Banned Books

There are a lot of dark images that come to mind when one thinks of WWII. Pain, Suffering, Death, Darkness, Fear. Rubble and Dust from buildings blown apart. Ash and Smoke pluming from the bonfires made up of books and art.

May 10, 1933. Nazi students gathered in 34 different towns and cities and burned approximately 25,000 books that had been declared “un-German”. In Berlin, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, addressed the crowd of 40,000 saying: “No to decadence and moral corruption!” and “Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Gläser, Erich Kästner.”

(https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning)

According to When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped us Win World War II by Manning, Molly Guptill, The ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), a Nazi organization whose purpose was to seize Jewish and other cultural items “...burned a staggering 375 archives, 402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries.”

Fast forward to October 1948 in West Virginia; 13-year-old David Mace, in front of 600 of his fellow students declared that they were “here today to take a step which we believe will benefit ourselves, our community and our country.” before laying claim that comic books “are mentally, physically, and morally injurious to boys and girls, [and] we propose to burn those in our possession.” 2,000 comics, which had been collected through the efforts of 250 children under the guidance of reading teacher Mabel Riddel, burned for over an hour, in flames that reached over 25 feet in height.

(https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/great-comic-book-conflagration)

People have a tendency to write comic books off as being just for kids despite the fact that during WW2 a majority of comic book sales in the United States went to the Army. The love for these comics, which were intended to act as diversions, gave way to the rise of comic legends: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Syd Shore, Alice Marble, Curt Swan, and Bob Kanigher. (This is Why WWII Troops Are to Thank for the Rise of Comics; THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF COMICS IN AMERICA DURING WWII)

Dr. Fredric Wertham worked in Harlem with kids who were labeled Juvenile Delinquents. Upon realizing that these kids liked comic books he opted to conclude that comic books are the root of their delinquency, (rather than root out things like nature vs. nurture, socio-economic struggles, racism, bias, and everything else that could possibly contribute to a child’s delinquent status…). In 1948, Wertham made his stance against comic books public. In 1954, at a U.S. Senate Subcommittee Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency, Wertham stated: “I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry” (1948: The Year Comics Met Their Match by Joe Sergi • June 8, 2012)

According to Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Howe, Sean, just a few months later, a rifle salesman, upon learning about Stan Lee’s job as an editor of Comic books, said to him: “That is absolutely criminal, reprehensible. You should go to jail for the crime your committing.” In the Summer of 1954, fifteen comic book publishers went out of business, and by September, most of those remaining came together under the Comics Magazine Association of America.

“...in September 1954 the comics industry formed the trade group known as the Comics Magazine Association of America, which created the self-regulating Comics Code Authority to enforce a newly strengthened Comics Code. Crime and horror comics vanished from the shelves; of the 650 comics of all genres on the stands as the Kefauver subcommittee began in 1954, only 250 would still be around by the close of 1955.” The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon

January 10, 2022, The Board of Education for McMinn County in Tennessee votes to ban the graphic novel “Maus” in the 8th-grade classes. One week later, the sales for Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Maus rose by 50%.

Comic books and graphic novels can be easy targets for people looking to promote censorship. A static image can be paraded about as an exemplar of all that is indecent more effectively than script. This has led to some books having their graphic novel versions challenged and not the print version.

In Medford Oregon,(as well as school districts in Kansas and Texas), the 2019 Graphic novel version of The Handmaid's Tale was challenged and removed from circulation in the district’s school libraries; the print version, however, remains. (Graphic novel removed from North Medford HS By Kevin Opsahl).

(http://cbldf.org/2015/09/banned-books-week-2015-free-posters-and-resources/)

Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman was released on Netflix on August 5th and in 3 days had over a billion viewing minutes. (‘The Sandman’ Opens Well on Streaming Chart) but The Sandman series has a history of controversy and wears a crown for being one of the top banned or challenged graphic novels since its publication in 1989. (Case Study: Sandman). The 2nd volume of the series Doll's House was found to be so upsetting that in 2015, a College student from Yucaipa, California said that the book should be "eradicated from the system" (along with Persepolis, Fun Home, and Y, The Last Man. Book One)

“In a report, the American Library Association reported that it tracked 729 challenges in libraries, schools, and universities in 2021, resulting in 1,597 individual book challenges or removals—many of which were by Black or LGBTQ authors and/or featuring BIPOC or LGBTQ characters. It was the highest number of attempted book bans since the ALA began compiling the list in 2002.” -In 2022, a New Urgency for Banned Books Week By Claire Kirch

The #1 most challenged book of 2021 is a Graphic Novel, Gender Queer, and restricted over LGBTQIA+ content and what some consider to be sexually explicit imagery. Between October 2021 and August 2022, 40 different comic titles have been challenged; with multiple challenges to Gender Queer, This One Summer, Drama, Flamer, The Breakaways, and Fun Home (HERE ARE THE MOST CHALLENGED COMICS AND MOST BANNED COMICS SINCE 2000 By Kelly Jensen)