Hmmm… Jeet Heer’s got me reading my old Batman Comics – like “Prisoners of Three Worlds,” from 1963’s Batman #153 – a little more closely. Batman really doesn’t seem to be into that kiss as much as Batwoman is, does he?  And Robin doesn’t seem to be enjoying his kiss with Bat-Girl as much as she is either.

I love reading Jeet Heer’s stuff, particularly his pieces on comics for the mainstream press. His latest piece, “The Caped Crusader: Frederic Wertham and the campaign against comic books”, for Slate takes a carefully considered look back at the moral panic over comics in the late 1950’s.

The publication of comics certainly declined rapidly at that time, never really picking back up until the surge in interest in graphic novels in recent years. Whether the decline was solely the result of a moral panic and the doing of people like Frederic Wertham is certainly debatable. Other economic, social and political factors were certainly at play.

Students today might like to think about how the current debate over regulation of video games resembles that of comics in the fifties.

After reading the article they could have a go at a few questions like these ..

1.  In what ways was Frederic Wertham possibly misguided and/or careless in his opposition to comics?

2.  In what ways could his concerns be seen as legitimate and/or reasonable?

3.  In what ways were ‘Comics Publishers’ misguided and/or careless in their response to the kerfuffle over their publications?

4.  It is a tricky business to argue for and against the regulation of texts, one of the reasons for this is that their “exact meaning” is perhaps uncertain. How could Batman and Robin be read negatively? How could it be read positively?

5.  In what ways does Jeet Heer see the comics of the 1950’s as representing the social values of their time and place of production?

6.  Heer makes the good point that media influence is a very complex business and that media regulation is a very difficult balancing act. How has this article made you re-think your position on the influence and regulation of video games, if at all?

7.  Are there many “negative” representations and storylines in some of the  video games that you play? Should we be concerned about that? How concerned? What sort of regulation should be put in place in response?