The only two I can make out are below. The headline on the newspaper on the sofa reads: “Big Russian Attack; Hungary Asks for Help”—referring to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Archive for the 'Kids Reading Comics' Category
Boy Reading Comic Books, 1956
Published August 7, 2015 Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics Leave a Comment
Beautiful found photo, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the book is on top of the pile. A Walt Disney title? Anyone?
UPDATE: I think it’s Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse #40.
UPDATE: Thanks to Dave Stephens’ impeccable detective work, we now know it’s Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse #27. See his proof below. Thanks again, Dave!
Kid Reading Comic Books, 1945
Published May 21, 2015 Comic Books , DC Had Its Moments , Kids Reading Comics Leave a Comment
Pic courtesy of Matthew Mann (the kid on the far right holding Micronauts #1) at Comics and Other Imaginary Tales.
Girl Reading Comic Book, 1943
Published February 6, 2015 Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics Leave a Comment
The poignancy of the photo multiplies when you consider that the young lady may have been in an American internment camp when it was taken. Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from the Pacific coast to inland locations directly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Robinson Crusoe, you’ll recall, is a story about a British castaway who tries to survive and civilize (i.e. Anglicize) an “Island of Despair.”
The original Classics Illustrated series was published continuously—by three different publishers—from 1941 to 1971.
Kid Reading Comic Book, Circa 1952
Published January 8, 2015 Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics Leave a Comment
Really beautiful found photo that sold at auction. Where is she here? Is she alive now? If so, she’d be about the same age as my mom, who I nearly lost last year.
Kid Reading Mad Magazine and Drinking Pepsi, Circa 1966
Published January 8, 2015 '60s Decor/Design/Fashion , Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics , Mad Magazine , Magazines/Zines Leave a Comment
Girls Reading Comic Books, 1957
Published April 30, 2014 Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics , Moral Panic 1 Comment
September 25, 1957. (Photo: Miami Herald)
The Decent Literature Council, established in 1956, was active well into the 1960s. Its mission was “to protect youth from obscenity and pornography.” Here’s one of the directors, from a 1961 Miami News story:
We have found from resource reading… that pornographic literature becomes like a drug. As a child reads, he requires stronger doses, and it finally becomes destructive.
And here’s Charles Keating, Chairman of Citizens for Decent Literature (est. 1958), speaking to the Decent Literature Council in 1964:
The material constitutes a detailed course of instruction in perversion…
These sex-mad magazines are creating criminals faster than we can build jails to house them.
The publications provide youngsters with an entry to the world of lesbians, homosexuals, sadists, and other deviates whose names and actions are unknown to most decent people of this country.
If Keating’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was at the center of the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980s. He was convicted of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy, and went to jail. (Luckily, we still had one to house him.)
Kid Reading Comic Book, 1948
Published February 28, 2014 Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics 1 Comment
Kids Reading Comic Books, 1946
Published September 4, 2013 Comic Book Stores , Comic Books , Kids Reading Comics 4 Comments
My daughter and her friends will know the exhilaration of spending summer days sifting through stacks of books and comics. If I have to open my own store and lose money steadily over several years to make it happen, so be it.
Easton Avenue in Wellston, Missouri, once a thriving business district, is now an “urban ghost town.” More on the decline of Wellston here.
(All images via Comic Pix Jones)
2 Warps to Neptune 