Horror comics in the United States, 1947–1954
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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American horror comics published between 1947 and 1954 are characterized by their gruesomely scripted and illustrated tales of ghosts and ghouls, zombies and vampires, haunted houses and graveyards, sexual perversion and sadism, torture, cannibalism, lycanthropy, dementia and other outrè horror fiction elements. Horror comics briefly flourished in the United States before being curbed in their content and availability on newsstands after Senate subcommittee hearings in 1954.
Precursors to horror comics include the detective and crime comics that incorporated horror motifs such as spiders and eyeballs into their graphics, and occasionally featured stories adapted from the literary horror tales of Edgar Allan Poe or other writers, or stories from the pulps and radio programs. The first true, full blown, stand alone horror comic book is open to debate with one-shots Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1943) by Classic Comics and Eerie Comics (1947) by Avon Periodicals being chief contenders for the honor. Adventures Into the Unknown claims the distinction of being the first horror comic book to see regularly scheduled publication, hitting newsstands in 1948.
In the early 1950s, horror comics publishers were perceived as having crossed the boundaries of good taste by the public and others concerned about the dangers comic books posed. Public outcry brought matters to a head in 1954 with Congressional hearings that targeted horror and other violent comic books as contributors to the juvenile delinquency crisis then sweeping America. In the aftermath of the hearings, the comic book industry formed the self-regulating body, Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA). Under its Comics Code Authority (CCA), many horror comic books publishers revamped their titles or, in some cases, simply ceased publication. For many, the heyday of horror comics was over.
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