Talk:Fredric Wertham

Untitled
Now I'm in over my head. I/You/We need to copy this article to a new to be titled, "Fredric Wertham", as this was the man's name. I/You/We will then need to redirect this article to the new copy. I will gladly do this myself, once I know how to do it. Please reply here. Two halves


 * Done- all you have to do is use the 'Move Page' command from the Wikipedia menu on the left hand side of the article- the redirecting, moving of talk page etc is all done automatically. quercus robur


 * Thank you Quercusrobur. I feel like I have been taught to fish :).

Lambiek article - copyvio
I was about to add a link to the Lambiek Comiclopedia article on Wertham when I noticed that it's virtually identical to a previous revision of our article. Though our article has a lengthy edit history, it looks to me like the bulk of the text was copied from Lambiek in this revision - which, not coincidentally, also removed a previously added link to the source. This is no good and the article needs a major rewrite, which I'll attempt. (Of course if Mr./Ms. 205.185.193.168 also contributed the text to Lambiek, that's another story, but I can't assume that.) --Hob 23:30, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)

New York Comic Art Convention invitation
I heard that the NYCAC invitation basically was a trick to let old fans get their revenge on Wertham, and Wertham was completely unprepared of these personal attacks for a book he wrote 20 years ago. I am not sure about this, but if that is the case, I think that was a rather weasely invitation.)


 * Wertham had commented on comics in his more recent book A Sign for Cain, so he had re-stated his views in a work not too many years before the Convention appearance. And he had been involved at that point for years in many social and political issues via involvement with public forums. He wasn't unused to controversy or defending his views. And it was a legitimate invitation because he asserted in Seduction that he had seen no sign of anyone who had read comics when younger harbored any affection for them once maturing; fandom's existence refuted that and it is fair for them to show him that his assumption was not fully valid. Dgabbard (talk) 18:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Uber fan Dwight Decker in an e-mail to me expressed doubt this incident ever happened. Or maybe it is mis-remembering the appearance at a 1966 New York comic con by the Comics Code Administrator Leonard Darvin who was heckled when he defended the Code in a debate with Don Thompson (the transcript is reprinted in Alter Ego #55 [December 2005], pp.47-52).Dgabbard (talk) 17:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds likely. Mark Evanier, on page 191 of his 2003 book "Wertham Was Right," said "It has been reported that in the mid-seventies, he [Wertham] accepted an invitation to a comic book convention, showed up and was so verbally abused that he fled in anger. As far as I know, this is an Urban Legend." WaxTadpole (talk) 18:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

G.Glorious Godfrey as a Wertham rip-off?
I'm almost tempted to put in the article something like that in the section "Wertham in fiction"

-- Something similar happened in the DC Comics ''Legends story-arc, in which Darkseid attempts to turn the Earth people against their heroes using his mind-controlling minion, Glorious Godfrey. Godfrey presented himself as truly concerned for the "bad role model" that heroes represented for children with their misuse of violence, and aided by his mind-controlling voice, convinced the people to banish all superheroic activity on the Earth, for the sake of the children. They were the children themselves, not touched by Glorious powers, to stick around their heroes, undercovering his plot. -- DrTofu83 11:14, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Parallel to Video Game Violence fears?
I'm certainly not going to put up any unverified arguments on this or anything, but have there been any comparisons between the panic about comic books with the panic about video games? I'm seeing a lot of parallels here, but I don't want to edit the page with my opinion or anything. If anyone finds anything on it (might not be appropriate to this article even, I'm not sure) they should put it up. Magicflyinlemur 09:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Sexuality
aren't there humors that he was gay or something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.241.255.250 (talk) 16:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

No.Dgabbard (talk) 18:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe. He He :) (JoeLoeb (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2009 (UTC))

According to the infobox, he married at age 7. I guess they meant that hsi spose was 7 years younger han he was, but it's still confusing, particularly considering if those are her birth and death dates, they died the same year (entirely possible).--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 16:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Wertham's wife, Florence Hesketh, died in 1987, not in 1981 as the infobox originally stated. It appears that his death date was erroneously listed as her death date. Her death date is available in the book "The Fredric Wertham Collection", which documents the artworks that Wertham donated to Harvard. PopeElvis (talk) 03:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

attitude toward remedy
It may be true "Wertham always denied that he favored censorship or had anything against comic books in principle" but his own comments at the time don't fully support that. Beyond the content he also targeted the form itself as being harmful. He also at times while not outright calling for a ban spoke of comics being so harmful that he seemed to be making a public health argument for them needing to be removed from the diet of reading, much like unsanitary conditions in food preparation. It is easy to cherrypick his comments to support a point of view on where he stood, since he was inconsistent Dgabbard (talk) 18:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

access to papers
I removed the reference to his papers at the Library of Congress being available for use by researchers. Michael Barrier informs me "the Wertham papers at the Library of Congress are no longer open to researchers, except with the executor's approval." Dgabbard (talk) 22:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I updated the reference to the papers to note they'll become available for use in 2010, per communications Barrier had with the Library of Congress. Dgabbard (talk) 16:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Comics B-Class Assesment required
This article needs the B-Class checklist filled in to remain a B-Class article for the Comics WikiProject. If the checklist is not filled in by 7th August this article will be re-assessed as C-Class. The checklist should be filled out referencing the guidance given at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria. For further details please contact the Comics WikiProject. Comics-awb (talk) 16:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Wertham Mentioned in Zippy
Get a load of this: In the Zippy comic strip for November 28, 1995, Zippy and Griffy look at disturbing images of superheroes in comic books at a comic book store, and Griffy says, "Oh, God... am I turning into a latter-day Dr. Fredric Wertham?" The comic calls Wertham a "crackpot author of Seduction of the Innocent, a 1950s call for comic book censorship." Here's the info. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:59, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

C-Class rated for Comics Project
As this B-Class article has yet to receive a review, it has been rated as C-Class. If you disagree and would like to request an assesment, please visit WikiProject_Comics/Assessment and list the article. Hiding T 14:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Seduction of the Innocent -- OR
This section is plagued with OR. I mean, the alleged irony that is the subject of paragraph 3 is entirely original. As with what is usually overlooked by commentators (the subject of paragraph 4). Paragraph 5 draws conclusions about inevitability, and also gives an opinion on what superheroes were like in the 50s ('sanitised'). At the very least, if this stuff is true, source it. 203.45.146.36 (talk) 09:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

this guy knew people like Ralph Ellison
See: John A. Lent: Pulp Demons (google books). An interseting book on Wertham - the familiy was originally called Wertheimer; soviet propagandist Ella Winter was his cousin.--Radh (talk) 14:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Racial segregation
This article mentions that he wrote about racial segregation. Was he for or against it? Stonemason89 (talk) 04:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Very much against it, which should be fleshed out if someone has a good citation. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 16:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Correct place of birth & biographical documents
Fredric Wertham was born as Friedrich Ignatz Wertheimer on March 20, 1895 in Nuremberg (Germany) to the salesman Sigmund and his wife Mathilde, née Lust (source: Nuremberg City Archives, holding C 27/IV municipal public records office, birth registry #521, entry #1302)

Since 2012 Wertham’s personal papers are accessible at the Library of Congress by a finding aid: http://memory.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2010/ms010146.pdf --193.22.166.88 (talk) 09:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Carol Tilley
Carol Tilley's "Seducing the Innocent" (2012) is mentioned as further reading but so far not drawn on. I gather that she makes a solid case that a lot of Wertham's data on comic books was essentially bogus and does not match his own notes, which she has examined. I have this second-hand -- see [http://news.illinois.edu/news/13/0211comics_CarolTilley.html BAM! WAP! KA-POW! Library prof bops doc who K.O.'d comic book industry] -- but it should probably be followed up by someone working on this article. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 16:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have access to a copy of Tilley's paper and I plan to add it under the section about Seduction of the Innocent in the next week or so. She details, using primary sources drawn from Wertham's research, how he systematically falsified and misinterpreted evidence. It's a groundbreaking work in terms of retrospective evaluation of Wertham's arguments and should absolutely be drawn upon in the article as well as referenced at the bottom. Phette23 (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

If Time and NYTimes say he was born in Munich but Library of Congress says Nuremberg, who gets to win?
Especially if the city of Nuremberg also says he was born there. Apparently no one editing this article so far has noticed, or acknowledged, the Correct place of birth & biographical documents section above, posted last year. Sorry, I don't have the interest or energy to get involved in this article, but someone might want to pay attention. And including his birth name and parents somewhere might be useful. Milkunderwood (talk) 10:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Fredric Wertham. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071025233315/http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2003_07_18.html to http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2003_07_18.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 12:08, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Change “falsified” header to fabricated?
Just kinda bugs me when people say “falsified data” cause it makes it harder to help people understand the need to falsify research, which means simply to make research fair by allowing an opposing view. I know this sounds like semantics, but I refer to Karl Popper’s theory.

The word “fabricated” is more clear. JonesyPHD (talk) 01:28, 18 November 2021 (UTC)