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| Type of comic that caused outcry |
Have a read of the following spiel from BBC RADIO SCOTLAND's ad for their programme on The GORBALS VAMPIRE, broadcast on Sunday, 31st October 2010:
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"Glasgow's Southern Necropolis is an eerie place at the best of times, but when two local policemen answered a call there in September 1954 they encountered a bizarre sight. Hundreds of local children, ranging in ages from 4 to 14, were crammed inside, roaming between the crypts. They were armed with sharpened sticks, knives stolen from home and stakes. They said they were hunting down "A Vampire with Iron Teeth" that had kidnapped and eaten two local boys.
The policemen dispersed the crowd, but they came back at sundown the next night and the next. The local press got hold of the story and it soon went national. There were no missing boys in Glasgow at that time, and press and politicians cast around for an explanation. They soon found one in the wave of American Horror comics with names like "Astounding stories" and "Tales from the Crypt" which had recently flooded into the West of Scotland. Academics pointed out that none of the comics featured a vampire with iron teeth, though there was a monster with iron teeth in the Bible (Daniel 7.7) and in a poem taught in local schools. Their voices were drowned out in a full-blown moral panic about the effect that terrifying comics were having on children. Soon the case of the "Gorbals Vampire" was international news.
The British Press raged against the "terrifying, corrupt," comics and after a heated debate in the House of Commons where the case of the Gorbals Vampire was cited, Britain passed the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 which, for the first time, specifically banned the sale of magazines and comics portraying "incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature" to minors.
Writer Louise Welsh explores how the Gorbals Vampire helped bring the censorship of comic books onto the statute books."
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| Southern Necropolis gatehouse, Glasgow |
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Note that it says none of the examined comics featured any vampires with iron teeth. Proof, say people who react angrily to any suggestion that certain comics could have an undesirable influence on children's impressionable minds, that such is not the case. And it may be so. (But, then again, may not.)
However, it amazes me that those folk (who are perfectly entitled to their view) don't seem to find anything to be concerned about on the matter of hundreds of children armed with sticks, knives and stakes, roaming a graveyard in the early hours of the morning over a period of three days, looking for a vampire (or reasonable facsimile) to impale. Had they come across someone even vaguely strange looking, the results could have been catastrophic.
So what does this historic episode prove, if anything? That comics can corrupt? No, though the subject is surely deserving of further investigation. What it most certainly does seem to prove, however, whatever the source of the "hysteria" on those October and November nights all those years ago, is just how impressionable and susceptible to suggestion children can be. That being the case, surely there's something to be said for exercising a little caution in what we allow them to be exposed to? Something that all those smug, pompous, self-satisfied types with a vested interest in producing (or purchasing) anything they want under the excuse of "artistic expression and creative freedom" should bear in mind.
I thought I read somewhere that the real source of the panic may have been that the local fleapit was showing "Mother Riley Meets The Vampire" (1951)starring Hattie Jacques!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a monologue for Jenny with the Airn Teeth in the early 90s.
Tell me more, Dougie, tell me more...
ReplyDeleteHere is a bit from the US Congressional hearings when they discussed the cover you show with William Gaines,
ReplyDeleteSenator KEFAUVER. Here is your May 22 issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman’s head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?
Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir; I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.
Senator KEFAUVER. You have blood coming out of her mouth.
Mr. GAINES. A little.
Senator KEFAUVER. Here is blood on the ax. I think most adults are shocked by that.
The CHAIRMAN. Here is another one I want to show him.
Senator KEFAUVER. This is the July one. It seems to be a man with a woman in a boat and he is choking her to death here with a crowbar. Is that in good taste?
Mr. GAINES. I think so.
Mr. HANNOCH. How could it be worse?
Obviously they doubted that the very existence of such comics was in good taste. I suppose it's all down to what kind of society people aspire to, eh? Freedom of speech or expression shouldn't mean licence to do as we please regardless of how it may impact on other people.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, the case of the Gorbals Vampire proves, if nothing else, just how easily kids can be influenced, although the original source of that influence is unknown. Therefore, in the context of the times, I can see how such images were viewed with concern by many parents.