Thanks to Sinous on the Comics Journal message board, the biggest omission to the Wertham Library has been found. He points us to two different locations on the web that you can read Dr. Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent… here and here.

Go here to view The Dr. Fredric Wertham Memorial Funnybook Collection: The Comics Featured in Seduction of the Innocent

HR Pufnstuf image courtesy of the Life Magazine image archive on Google.

This is not a review of the Where the Wild Things Are movie. I haven’t seen it. I’m not going to. So, if you are inclined to see it, you may very well want to ignore this rant.

I love Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are… but I have no interest in seeing it turned into any full-length movie, regardless of whatever quality said movie may or may not have. Two hours of rampaging fursuits could never be as charming to me as Sendak’s sparse 48-page masterpiece.

While the filmmakers sound considerably more well-intentioned than the evil shits who have made “adaptations” of Seuss in recent years (the adaptation is written by Dave Eggers, the instigator of the wonderful McSweeney’s), the concept of turning Wild Things into a full-length, live action movie just doesn’t work for me.

The trailer, which I regret morbid curiosity beckoned me to watch, made me kind of queasy to look at (the atrociously inappropriate music didn’t help). Maybe if it was animated and 15 minutes long, it would be more appealing. And unmarketable, of course.

There is always the argument (a good one) that however awful an adaptation, the book is still on the shelf… which is true enough. Certainly, some works are enhanced by different interpretations… Alice in Wonderland, for example, has been reinterpreted hundreds of times and is much richer for it.

Wild Things is too personal of a vision to be improved on by this sort of reinterpretation, in my view. It seems sad to me that some kids will grow up with memories of this movie instead of the brilliant book.

Fallcon, The Twin Cities biggest and best comic convention is this weekend! Come and join me in the “Cartoonist Conspiracy Lounge” to doodle and shoot the breeze.

FALLCON
October 10 & 11, 2009 – 10AM to 5PM Both Days
Minnesota State Fairgrounds
IN THE GRANDSTAND

Guest List

Hope to see you all there!

This week was Banned Books Week. I decided to celebrate by seeing how many of the comics featured in Fredric Wertham’s notorious book Seduction of the Innocent I could find floating out on the internet to share with the world in one convenient location.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO TO THE DOWNLOAD PAGE.

Wertham’s writings on comic books were very influential in the senatorial investigation into juvenile delinquency in 1953, and Seduction of the Innocent went on to become a best-seller, outraging parents across the nation.

GO HERE TO READ MORE, AND TO DOWNLOAD THE COMICS.