CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #22 * Apparent Grade: 4.5 * The Ax

Heading: The Affair of the Severed Head
Author:
Title: CRIME SUSPENSTORIES No. 22
Place Published:
Publisher:EC [Indicia: L.L. Publishing Co., Inc.]
Date Published: April-May, 1954
Description:

Apparent Grade: VG+ (4.5). Actual Grade: 2.0 (Restored). Top, bottom and right edges slightly TRIMMED. Cover adhered to contents at inner spine with GLUE in at least two spots, near each staple. Covers clean and bright with mild surface wear, a faint crease to the front cover which is barely noticeable except for a slight color break affecting the "P" in "SUSPENSTORIES," short splits to spine ends. Off-white pages with slightly cream edges. No color touches, tape, missing pages, clipped coupons, tears. This mag displays beautifully; if not for the trimmed edges and glue touches, it would grade VG+ at a bare minimum.

Cover: Johnny Craig. Plots/scripts by Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein. Art: Reed Crandall, Bernie Krigstein, Jack Kamen, Joe Orlando. Used in the 1954 Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Sale stats: PBA sold an unslabbed restored CSS 22 (Apparent grade: 3.0; color touch, sealed tear, spine reinforced) for $1560 in December 2020. The most recent GPAnalysis result for a CGC-certified Purple Label (3.0 Restored: C-2) copy is $1200 (February 2021).

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, essentially an amphetamine. Gaines took a dose on the morning of the proceedings, and when he began his testimony, he was lucid and energetic. But as the session wore on, the drug wore off, and Gaines found himself struggling. "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."
"The encounter has become famed among horror buffs," Jacob writes, "as The Affair of the Severed Head," and it's widely considered the single most damaging incident of the anti-horror comics campaign:

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.'"

Louis Menand, writing in the March 31, 2008 issue of The New Yorker, re-examined the question of "good taste" as it relates to The Affair of the Severed Head: "As Gaines must have realized too late, it was absurd to defend comic-book art by a standard of good taste. Disrespect for good taste was one of the chief attractions comic books had for pre-adolescents. Grossness is a hot commodity in the ten-to-fourteen demographic. Gaines, Feldstein, and Kurtzman were justifiably proud of their ability to reach that market with a superior gross-out product. That's what Gaines, in his post-amphetamine fog, meant by 'good taste.' It's not what most people mean."

A limited edition of 150 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues is available. 400 lots, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcover $30, deluxe hardcover with dust jacket and limitation plate $200. Ten of the 15 hardcovers are pre-ordered and the rest will go quickly, so reserve yours now. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com.

Consignments welcome for PBA's December 2021 Comic Book sale. Top prices for Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age, Silver Age, original art and ephemera. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.