TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM M. GAINES, PUBLISHER, ENTERTAINING

COMICS GROUP, NEW YORK, N.Y.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed in your own manner. . . .

Mr. GAINES. My name is William Gaines. My business address is 225 Lafayette Street, New York City. I am a publisher of the Entertaining Comics Group.

I am a graduate of the school of education of New York University. I have the qualifications to teach in secondary schools, high schools.

What then am I doing before this committee? I am a comic-book publisher. My group is known as EC, Entertaining Comics.

I am here as a voluntary witness. I asked for and was given this chance to be heard.

Two decades ago my late father was instrumental in starting the comic magazine industry. He edited the first few issues of the first modern comic magazine, Famous Funnies. My father was proud of the industry he helped found. He was bringing enjoyment to millions of people.

The heritage he left is the vast comic-book industry which employs thousands of writers, artists, engravers, and printers. . . .

He published Picture Stories from the Bible. . . .

Since 1942 we have sold more than 5 million copies of Picture Stories from the Bible, in the United States. It is widely used by churches and schools to make religion more real and vivid.

Picture Stories from the Bible is published throughout the world in dozens of translations. But it is nothing more nor nothing less than a comic magazine.

I publish comic magazines in addition to picture stories from the Bible. For example, I publish horror comics. I was the first publisher in these United States to publish horror comics. I am responsible, I started them.

Some may not like them. That is a matter of personal taste. It would be just as difficult to explain the harmless thrill of a horror story to a Dr. Wertham as it would be to explain the sublimity of love to a frigid old maid. . . .

What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of our own children? Do we forget that they are citizens, too, and entitled to select what to read or do? We think our children are so evil, simple minded, that it takes a story of murder to set them to murder, a story of robbery to set them to robbery? . . .

Anyone, any child, any adult, can find, much more extreme descriptions of violence in the daily newspaper. You can find plenty of examples in today’s newspaper. In today’s edition of the Daily News, which more people will have access to than they will to any comic magazine, there are headline stories like this:

Finds he has killed wife with gun.

Man in Texas woke up to find he had killed his wife with gun. She had bullet in head and he had a revolver in his hand.

The next one:

Cop pleads in cocktail poisoning.

Twenty-year-old youth helps poison the mother and father of a friend.

Court orders young hanging. Man who killed his wife will be hung in June for his almost-perfect murder. . . .

I am not saying it is wrong, but when you attack comics, when you talk about banning them as they do in some cities, you are only a step away from banning crimes in the newspapers.

Here is something interesting which I think most of us don’t know. Crime news is being made in some places. The United Nations UNESCO report, which I believe is the only place that it is printed, shows that crime news is not permitted to appear in newspapers in Russia or Communist China, or other Communist-held territories.

We print our crime news. We don't think that the crime news or any news should be banned because it is bad for children.

Once you start to censor you must censor everything. You must censor comic books, radio, television, and newspapers.

Then you must censor what people may say. Then you will have turned this country into Spain or Russia.

Mr. BEASER (chief counsel for the committee). Mr. Gaines, let me ask you one thing with reference to Dr. Wertham’s testimony.

You used the pages of your comic book to send across a message, in this case it was against racial prejudice; is that it?

Mr. GAINES. That is right.

Mr. BEASER. You think, therefore, you can get across a message to the kids through the medium of your magazine that would lessen racial prejudice; is that it?

Mr. GAINES. By specific effort and spelling it out very carefully so that the point won’t be missed by any of the readers, and I regret to admit that it still is missed by some readers, as well as Dr. Wertham─we have, I think, achieved some degree of success in combating anti-Semitism, anti-Negro feeling, and so forth.

Mr. BEASER. Yet why do you say you cannot at the same time and in the same manner use the pages of your magazine to get a message which would affect children adversely, that is, to have an effect upon their doing these deeds of violence or sadism, whatever is depicted?

Mr. GAINES. Because no message is being given to them. . . .

Senator HENNINGS (of Missouri). Is that one of your series, the pictures of the two in the electric chair, the little girl down in the corner?

Mr. GAINES. Yes.

Senator HENNINGS. As we understood from what we heard of that story, the little girl is not being put upon there, is she? She is triumphant apparently that is insofar as we heard the relation of the story this morning. . . .

Mr. GAINES. You will see that a child leads a miserable life in the 6 or 7 pages. It is only on the last page she emerges triumphant.

Senator HENNINGS. As a result of murder and perjury, she emerges as triumphant?

Mr. GAINES. That is right. . . .

Mr. BEASER. Let me get the limits as far as what you put into your magazine. Is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine whether it sells? Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?

Mr. GAINES. No, I wouldn't say that there is any limit for the reason you outlined. My only limits are bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste. . . .

Senator KEFAUVER (Tennessee). Here is your May 22 issue [of Crime SuspenStories]. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman’s head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?

Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir; I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.

Senator KEFAUVER. You have blood coming out of her mouth.

Mr. GAINES. A little.

Senator KEFAUVER. Here is blood on the ax. I think most adults are shocked by that. . . .

Anyway, you are the one who, after you took over your father's business in 1947, you started this sort of thing here. This is the May edition of Horror.

Mr. GAINES. I started what we call our new-trend magazines in 1950.

Senator KEFAUVER. How many of these things do you sell a month, Mr. Gaines?

Mr. GAINES. It varies. We have an advertising guaranty of 1,500,000 a month for our entire group. . . .

Senator KEFAUVER. The code (Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America) that you have here, none of your stories would come in that code. You could not print any of these if you compiled with the full code we read here this morning.

Mr. GAINES. I would have to study the story and study the code to answer that.

Senator KEFAUVER. How much is your monthly income from all your corporations with this thing, Mr. Gaines? . . .

Mr. GAINES. I would say about $80,000 a month gross. . . .

Mr. HANNOCH (Counsel of the Committee). What is this organization that you maintain called the Fan and Addict Club for 25 cents a member?

Mr. GAINES. Simply a comic fan club.

Mr. HANNOCH. You advertise the children should join the club?

Mr. GAINES. Yes.

Mr. HANNOCH. What do they do? Do they pay dues?

Mr. GAINES. No.

Mr. HANNOCH. What do they send 25 cents in for?

Mr. GAINES. They get an arm patch, an antique bronze pin, a 7 by 11 certificate and a pocket card, the cost of which to me is 26 cents without mailing. . . .

Mr. HANNOCH. Do you know anything about this sheet called “Are you a Red dupe?”

Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir I wrote it.

Mr. HANNOCH. How has it been distributed?

Mr. GAINES. It has not been distributed. It is going to be the inside front cover ad on five of my comic magazines which are forth-coming.

Mr. HANNOCH. And it is going to be an advertisement?

Mr. GAINES. Not an advertisement. It is an editorial. . . .

Mr. HANNOCH. You believe the things that you say in this ad that you wrote?

Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir.

Mr. HANNOCH. That anybody who is anxious to destroy comics are Communists?

Mr. GAINES. I don’t believe it says that.

Mr. HANNOCH. The group most anxious to destroy comics are the Communists?

Mr. GAINES. True, but not anybody, just the group most anxious. . . .

Mr. BEASER. No further questions, Mr. Chairman. . . .

Source: Hearings before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in the U.S., 83rd Cong., 2nd Sess., April 21, 1954.