Beschreibung:

SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES No. 4 Author: Place: Publisher: Date: Description: EC (Indicia: "Tiny Tot Comics, Inc."). August-September, 1952. VG+ (4.5). Tiny chip to bottom right cover of front cover, even tinier chip to top corner (1mm or so). A few short, creased nicks to top edge of front cover, and a minor sun shadow to top edge of back cover. The main flaw precluding higher grade is a rusty top staple, with rust migration to back cover and centerfold. Intoxicating newsprint odor, plummy with hints of cedar. Off-white pages. Wally Wood cover. Plots and scripts by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein Art by Kamen, Wood, Orlando, Davis. Used in Seduction of the Innocent. "In another comic book the criminal is a police lieutenant. He kills his wife by deliberately running her over with his car. At the end he is undetected and completely unsuspected, and presumably lives happily ever after. Six pictures on one page show the policeman-murderer lighting and smoking a cigar, walking triumphantly, with the full knowledge that crime does pay. He goes free because at the police station an innocent man is tortured into making a confession. The child reader is spared no details. The man is punched in the stomach, hit in the face, his arm twisted behind his back.... The very last panel in this child's story shows the real murderer, the police lieutenant, smoking his cigar and 'cleaning his wife's blood from his car.' Stories like this are so typical that I could go on and on." —Dr. Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent. In his liner notes for the Complete Shock SuspenStories boxed set, Bhob Stewart challenges Wertham's selective presentation of the material in Shock #4: "Wertham indulged in subtle distortions to bolster his thesis... skimpy précis of EC stories are mixed in with non-EC stories—thus blurring the distinctions of individual writers, artists, editors and publishers.... [An] account of the violence in 'Confession' is prefaced with the line, 'The child reader is spared no details.' He follows with the comment, 'Stories like this are now so typical that I could go on and on.' Stories about police brutality, however, were not 'typical' of Fifties comics, and had Wertham decided to write an honest appraisal of 'Confession' he might have noted that here EC did spare the details—by having the most extreme violence in the story, the beating with the lead pipe, happen behind a closed door." Gaines, Feldstein and Wood's anti-police brutality story "The Confession" generated a flurry of indignation in the letter column of Shock SuspenStories #6. Gaines and Feldstein defended the verisimilitude of their tale with a list of third degree practices gleaned by their "research staff" at the New York Public Library: "Kicking, rubber hoses, rolled-up telephone books, lead pipes, blackjacks, knocking out teeth, breaking wrists and legs, twisting arms out of sockets... with the following results: abrasions, burns, black-and-blue marks, broken bones, dislocations, ruptures, hemorrhages, and in some cases, death." A limited edition of 100 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues are available. Over 200 pages, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcovers $40, dust-jacketed hardcover with limitation plate $200. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com or visit: https://www.pbagalleries.com/content/comics/. R. Crumb says, "I found [PBA's catalogue] so interesting that I am saving it for the texts that accompany the comics which were put up for auction. This is some of the best commentary I’ve yet seen on the quality of the content of comic books. I especially enjoyed the reviews of the post-war horror comics. Great. Priceless." Consignments welcome for PBA's Spring 2021 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com. Lot Amendments Condition: Item number: 324096