CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #22 * CGC 5.0 * Notorious Severed Head Cover

Author:
Title: CRIME SUSPENSTORIES No. 22
Place Published:
Publisher:EC [Indicia: L. L. Publishing Co. Inc.]
Date Published: April-May, 1954
Description: CGC certified: VG/Fine (5.0). White pages. Grader notes: Readers crease front cover; creasing to cover; finger bends on cover; spine stress lines to cover; staining to cover.

CGC Census: 438 graded copies (393 Universal, 2 Qualified, 1 Signature, 42 Restored).

GPAnalysis: A 5.0 sold for $7000 in 2/24.

Credits: Cover: Johnny Craig. Scripts: Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. Art: Reed Crandall, Bernie Krigstein,Jack Kamen, Joe Orlando. Overstreet: "Used in the 1954 SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. Classic ax decapitation cover."Publisher Loses Face Over 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 reckless 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 with side effects including rapid heartbeat, delirium, panic, and psychosis. Let's face it, homeboy was gakked up on speed. Gaines popped a dexy on the morning of the proceedings, and when he began his testimony, his mood was lively and his wits were keen. But as the session dragged on and the drug wore off, Gaines was crashing and his trip was becoming a serious bummer. "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 says 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 ten hardcover catalogues is available, in addition to a few dozen softcovers. Fun reference, great keepsake, fully illustrated, chockablock with obscure facts, gags, bon mots. Softcovers are $40, deluxe hardcovers with dust jackets and limitation plates are $200. These books always go fast so don't delay. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com.

Consignments welcome for PBA's Summer 2024 Comic Book sale. Top prices for Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age, Silver Age, original art and ephemera. Find out why PBA is the new fan-fave of funnybook fiends. "This is some of the best commentary I've yet seen on the quality of the content of comic books... Priceless." – R. Crumb. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.

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