Number 2305: A Seduction tale: Hands off!

This story, from Tom Mix Western #9, is what is called a Seduction of the Innocent (or SOTI) story. The complaint about  “Hands Off!” is told in Chapter 12 of Fredric Wertham, M.D.’s infamous anti-comics book. If you go to the link below you will find a blogsite with the chapter, which will explain more. Why Wertham and Tom Mix Western publisher Fawcett got into the threat of a lawsuit for libel and other back-and-forth between them is fascinating, with its example of how a publisher could become defensive about their product when it was singled out by Wertham.

As for my opinion of the story, I think it is thin; Tom has a dummy of himself, made by Indians. Why? No reason given. It figures into the story’s end, though. In one of his rebuttals to Fawcett’s argument Wertham says there are three pictures of “hacked-off hands” in a box found by two little boys. No hands are shown in the pictures, so that’s misleading. Cutting off hands does seem to be the talent of the tale’s villain, besides being a sharpshooter who has escaped from an “insane asylum.” Wertham doesn’t mention the two pages of panels where Tom Mix is hanging by his wrists from a tree limb. Bondage and torture were big in comic books, but if the victim and villain are both male, maybe it didn’t count with Wertham.

Comedy relief was supplied by a panel of Tom Mix standing on his head and shooting his gun while riding his galloping horse. As a kid I saw acrobatic cowboy action in many of the old B-movie Westerns I watched, but that one was new to me!

Tom Mix Western #9 was published in 1948; Grand Comics Database has no artist or writer listed.

Fredric Wertham, M.D., spoke of this Tom Mix story in his book, Seduction of the Innocent. You can read the relevant information on this website: Altruistic World Online Library.

Number 182


Sex and Skeletons Part 5


Ah, the things I do for you guys, looking through all of these skeleton covers so I can give you a few moments of pleasure. Well, it's a chore I enjoy. ::he said, giving his Crypt Keeper cackle:: I've explained how publishers used images of sex and death — like that's a big surprise — to sell their products, and comic books of the '50s were no different.

Eerie was published by Avon, and Eerie Adventures by Ziff-Davis. More than one cover of Eerie used the same girl in the same stance, looking at some horrific sight, like an approaching skeleton. It might have been some sort of inside joke. Why repeat the motif? Another mystery from the horror comics of the 1950s.

Secret Diary Of Eerie would have been one of those one-shot rebound editions of three unsold copies of regular issues squarebound in a new cover. A way of recycling that produced some interesting giant comics.

The cover to Eerie Adventures is painted by illustrator Allen Anderson. The beautiful girl in the foreground, giving much the same pose as the girl on the Eerie covers, is actress Jean Dawyot, who Anderson used for multiple covers, including pulps like Planet Stories. An article on Anderson in the excellent magazine, Illustrator #18, has several of Anderson's covers reproduced, including his Ziff-Davis covers; Dawyot is in most of them. 

Eerie and Eerie Adventures were mentioned in the infamous Seduction Of The Innocent by Fredric Wertham, M.D. It was about Avon suing Ziff-Davis for using the word "Eerie" on their covers. Wertham thought the judge should've throw in his opinions on the contents, but the fact that the judgment was solely on unfair competition and infringement didn't occur to the good doctor. What the judge ruled was that Eerie Adventures had to make the word "Eerie" smaller. I guess Wertham thought the judge should have torn them to pieces or burned the books in front of the court.