Free Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins Page B

violence, in this case against Mexican Catholics. Previous stories have dealt with anti-Semitism, anti-Negro feelings, as well as the evils of dope addiction and the development of juvenile delinquents. And I am very proud of that.”
    A good off-the-cuff response, I thought, but it soon degenerated into a back-and-forth between Price and the committee’s junior counsel over the inconsistency of the publisher claiming comics were merely entertainment that made no impact upon young readers, when these social-comment tales were obviously designed to make just such an impact.
    This seemed to rattle Price, who—caught in a defensible inconsistency—just couldn’t handle himself under questioning. He might have, and probably could have, if he hadn’t been fading.
    But fading he was.
    That Dexie high of his was descending into its inevitable limp-rag aftermath. He just sat there getting pummeled, like a punch-drunk boxer, head down, sweat drops flying, just taking it. At least his leg wasn’t shaking anymore.
    Then star performer Kefauver got into the act. The senator was a lanky road company Lincoln with sharp eyes behind tortoise-shell glasses. He was not wearing his famous coonskin hat, if you’re wondering.
    “Mr. Price, let me get the limits as far as what you will put in one of your magazines.” He had a cornpone drawl that you mistook for easygoing at your own peril.
    “Certainly,” Price said.
    “Do you think a child can be hurt by something he reads or sees?”
    “I don’t believe so, no.”
    “Is the sole test of what you publish, then, based on whether or not it sells? Is there any limit to your, ah, entertainment?”
    Price’s chin was up, but his eyes looked tired. “My only limits are the bounds of good taste. What I consider good taste.”
    “Your own good taste, then, and the sales potential of your product?”
    “Yes.”
    Kefauver held up a copy of a Suspense Crime Stories comic book whose cover depicted a terrified woman in midair, having fallen from a window where the silhouetted hands of her assailant could still be seen in push mode. The woman was screaming, staring wide-eyed at us as she looked through us at the oncoming (off-camera) pavement. Terror-struck, screaming or not, she was very attractive, in a skimpy nightgown, that showed off her shapely legs and, of course, her...headlights.
    “Do you think this is in good taste, Mr. Price?”
    “Yes, sir, I do, for the cover of a crime comic.”
    “What might constitute bad taste here?”
    “Well, we could have depicted her after she’d fallen.”
    “You mean her body on the pavement?”
    “Yes.”
    “And that would be worse?”
    “Yes. Showing her twisted corpse, blood everywhere, bones sticking out of her shattered limbs, that would be a cover in bad taste.”
    Kefauver’s drawl was so folksy, it was like Tennessee Ernie Ford giving you the third degree. “And you decided against that. In a display of eminent good taste, your artist depicted a scantily clad female screaming in terror as she falls from a great height, with her life about to end?”
    “Yes.”
    Bob Price saw nothing wrong. And the reporters and the cameras saw him seeing that.
    Me, I just sat there watching the spectacle of a guy falling from a great height without even screaming. Without even a shove.
    He was a shambling wreck when, an hour later, they had finally finished wringing out every ounce of humiliation from him (“So this decapitated head held by a man also holding a bloody axe, that would be in bad taste if you showed more blood?”), and sent him along on what they clearly considered to be his vile business. His loose-fitting suit was soaked with sweat now, the flesh on his face hanging like a balloon that had lost maybe a third of its air. He had done everything wrong, stopping short only of rolling ball bearings in his fingers like Captain Queeg.
    The reporters were on us like kids swarming Martin and Lewis, only this bunch didn’t want a signed