Free Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins

said) considered certain comic books potentially worthy of “stronger criticism,” while others found them essentially harmless.
    The second witness was a representative of a comic-book association of publishers, printers and distributors that had attempted, without any particular success, to provide the comics business with a self-monitoring group like Hollywood’s Breen Office. This testimony was long-winded and flip-flopped between pandering to the panel, and defending comics as “a great medium.”
    But it managed to go on long enough that Bob Price— scheduled for the morning—got bumped to the afternoon. I hauled him off to a deli for lunch, and he had a sandwich and a Coke, just like me. But I passed on dessert—Price’s choice, more Dexies and NoDoz, killed what was left of my appetite.
    “You should lay off that stuff,” I said.
    “If I do, I’ll fall asleep up there.”
    “How long has it been, Bob, since you had a decent night’s sleep?”
    “...What day is it?”
    The sky was almost black as we walked back. Price didn’t seem to notice. He was smiling. He had bounce in his step.
    “I can’t wait to get up there,” he said, raising victory fists to his paunch.
    “Just stay cool,” I said.
    “You bet, boy. You bet.”
    But his eyes were as wild as a zombie’s on an EF cover.
    After lunch, however, Price was not (as we both had expected) the first witness up.
    Dr. Werner Frederick was.
    With his background as a forensic psychiatrist for the city, the doc was an old hand at testifying—he knew it was theater, and had dressed for the occasion: a white jacket over a white shirt with a simple black necktie. As if he’d just arrived from the lab, where he’d found a cure for cancer or, better yet, comic books.
    He even turned his chair to the right, a little, so he could face the committee.
    Initially he was asked to describe his new book Ravage the Lambs, a softball question if ever there was one. He replied by detailing the work with troubled children and adolescents that had gone into this “sober, painstaking, laborious clinical study.”
    The S.O.B. was writing his own cover blurbs!
    Despite that thick German accent, his tone was clear and piercing, his voice ringing in the room, and he’d have made a great B-movie scientist, particularly a mad one.
    When he really wanted to make a point, he slowed things way down, phrasing for effect.
    “It is my opinion,” he said, “without any reasonable doubt ...and without any reservation...that comic books...are an important... contributing ...factor...in many cases...of juvenile delinquency.”
    “I’ve never seen this guy in person before,” Price whispered to me. His right leg was shaking. “Look at him! He’s so goddamn smug... and sarcastic .”
    “Don’t you be,” I advised.
    The committee let Frederick rail on and on. When asked what kind of child was most likely to be affected by crime comic books, he claimed, “Primarily the normal child. The most morbid children are less affected by comic books because they are wrapped up in their own fantasies.”
    He was good, he was eloquent, but he was also German, and while the U.S. government loved German scientists, the American public didn’t. That much Price had going for him.
    Ironically, prejudice of another sort was what Frederick got into next. He spoke of an EF story that used the word “Spick” and promoted (Frederick claimed) bigotry.
    “I think Hitler is a beginner compared to the comic-book industry,” Frederick said. “They get the children much younger, teach them race hatred at the age of four, before they could read.”
    From the spectator seats behind us, a voice cried out, “You’re a liar! You are a goddamn menace!”
    Will Allison again.
    I hadn’t seen him come in, yet there he was, not in J.D. drag this time, rather a suit and tie, like a kid heading to prom. But his eyes, his hair, his expression, were those of a wild man.
    Hendrickson rapped his gavel.