A priest who would ban Bunty, an accusation of whitewash, and accounts of a fascinating woman described by the The New York Times as "Wonder Woman's real Mom" all emerged from a recent column I wrote about the censorship of comics in the US in the 1940s and 1950s on grounds that they caused delinquency.
The charge was led by psychiatrist Dr Frederic Wertham, who also saw homosexual inclinations in the Batman and Wonder Woman comics.
Ireland had its own would-be Wertham, a reader tells me. She writes: "I am 66 and I loved my comics. Bookshops did not exist in our bogs. We got book gifts from our Christian Brother relatives at Christmas, and that was it. We lived for the weekly trip to town for the music lesson when we picked up our Bunty or Judy, School Friend, Princess and Girls' Crystal. The boys liked the Dandy, Beano, Buster and Topper.
“On one occasion I remember the curate on one of his house visits railing at my mother about the dangers of comics. Mother, normally well-mannered to the point of timidity, rose to the occasion. ‘I consider them educational, Father,’ she said. “Go and get your comics and show them to Father,’ she said to me.
"I fetched my Princess and showed him the articles about tennis players, ballet dancers and showjumpers. He had not another word to say. My mother and her siblings had loved the American comics sent by New York cousins in the 1920s. The Katzenjammer kids made them hoot.
“Not long afterwards I remember Mother coming home from Mass and saying, ‘The pomposity of that man, and he reared in a shebeen.’ ”
Civil rights
Reader Robert O’Connor is unhappy that I ended my description of Wertham’s allegations with an acknowledgement of his work in the area of civil rights and of mental health for the poor people of Harlem.
O’Connor writes: “The problem I have with this column is not that you have plucked out the oft-recited ramblings of a hack, but rather that you sign off said article with a glowing character profile of supposed civil activist Wertham and then posit that ‘next time you see a caped crusader or a woman in blue hot pants heading your way, duck down the nearest alley’.
“What point are you trying to make here exactly? Are you suggesting that his noble work on behalf of the community somehow suggests any sort of validity in his other nonsense?
“As an active member of the comic-book fan community, and a firm believer in the positive life lessons young children can learn from fictional characters who dedicate their lives to helping others and promoting a message of peace, justice and equality, I find this suggestion to be utterly retrograde and offensive.”
I mentioned Wertham’s involvement in civil rights and mental health because it displays a different dimension to his character, and I find that interesting.
The part about the caped crusader and the woman in blue hot pants was a jokey reference to the silliness of his ideas about comics.
Just as well Wertham didn't know about the home life of William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman.
He got the idea for a female superhero from his wife, Elizabeth, and based aspects of Wonder Woman on her and on Olive Byrne, with whom he and Elizabeth lived in an intimate and loving relationship that lasted until their respective deaths.
And what would Wertham have made of Elizabeth’s feminist credentials? She put herself through college against her father’s wishes and was one of three women to graduate from the law school of Boston University in 1918. Harvard employed her but would not allow her to do a PhD because she was a woman.
She continued to work when she became a mother, which was unusual at the time. She was the main breadwinner in the household and educated her children, and Olive’s. She lived to be 100. A true wonder woman, I think we could say.
Read the original article on iti.ms/ZG6mIv Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness on the Go. His mindfulness newsletter is free by email. pomorain@yahoo.com