Beschreibung:

CRIME SUSPENSTORIES No. 22 Author: Place: Publisher: Date: Description: EC (Indicia: "L.L. Publishing Co., Inc."). April-May, 1954. Apparent grade: Good/VG (3.0). ½x¾" black color touch to dark area of man's shirt above the hand holding the head; 2" sealed tear near lady's legs and a few smaller sealed tears to right edge of front cover; spine reinforced with small bits of conservator's paper at top and bottom spine. Moderate spine stress, ¾" split at mid-spine, tiny chip to bottom right corner of front cover, some creasing to bottom cover, mild edgewear, ¼" creased tear to open edge of back cover. A few slight color irregularities to color field in logo box. Off-white pages. Despite flaws, a striking cover with excellent eye appeal. Johnny Craig cover. Plots and scripts by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein Art by Reed Crandall, Bernie Krigstein, Jack Kamen Joe Orlando. Used in the 1954 Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. The Affair of the Severed Head Bill Gaines appeared before the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency as a voluntary witness, having been prompted to do so by his business manager, Lyle Stuart ("Bill, there'll be a lot of people testifying against the comics. Somebody should testify for them. I think it should be you.") Gaines was dieting at the time. His regimen included dexedrine, an amphetamine. Gaines took a dose the morning of the proceedings, and when he began his testimony, he was zesty and sharp. But as the session wore on, the drug wore off, and that's when things got rough. "At the beginning, I felt that I was really going to fix those bastards, but as time went on I could feel myself fading away," Gaines relates in Frank Jacobs' The Mad World of William M. Gaines. "I was like a punch-drunk fighter. They were pelting me with questions and I couldn't locate the answers." Dexedrine crash or not, there was little Gaines could do to avoid the truckload of odium about to be dumped on his doorstep. It was an election year, the Senate Subcommittee's persecutor Sen. Estes Kefauver had presidential aspirations, and it was important for the senators to look tough before the TV cameras. In an Bizarro version of a scene familiar to readers of EC's Picture Stories from the Bible ("Life of Christ" Edition), in which Pharisees try to ensnare a wary Jesus in a web of his own words, a dexedrine-depleted Gaines faces his accusers. "The encounter has become famed among horror buffs," Frank Jacob writes, "as The Affair of the Severed Head," and it's widely considered the single most prominent nail in the coffin of pre-Code horror: SENATOR KAFAUVER: Here is your May 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's in good taste? 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 blood could be seen dripping from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody. According to Jacobs, Gaines' remarks were met with murmurs and stirrings among the spectators. "Gaines left the courthouse in a state of shock. He took to his bed for two days with a painfully knotted stomach, most likely psychosomatic. He was especially bothered by a column written by Max Lerner, a journalist whom Gaines had long admired. Wrote Lerner: 'When Gaines defended as 'good taste' a particularly gory comic book cover, showing the severed head of a woman held aloft by a man with an ax, he was saying that every publisher of comic books is a moral as well as esthetic law unto himself. This means society is a jungle—a proposition we cannot accept.'" The public mood was clear. The ax was about to swing once more—only this time, it would be Gaines's head on the chopping block. A limited edition of 100 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues are available. Over 200 pages, fully illustrated. Fun referen