Dr. Wertham and the Comic Code

An exhibition in the Study Area at the Jewish Museum Munich

Fredric Wertham (1895–1981) was born as Friedrich Ignatz Wertheimer into a Jewish merchant family in Nuremberg, and worked as a psychiatrist in the early 1920s in Munich. This exhibition on Wertham in the Study Area at the Jewish Museum Munich coincides with the Comicfestival München 2013.

After emigrating to the USA in 1922, he became one of the most influential opponents of comics, in which he believed he could recognize a danger to young readers. The puritanical atmosphere of the McCarthy era was the ideal breeding ground for such opinions. On his initiative, the “Comic Code” was introduced in 1954. This seal of approval for comics, a voluntary means of self-control for large comic publishers, lead to the emergence of underground comics, which were not allowed to be sold to children or youths. Fredric Wertham became the stereotypical enemy of the avant-garde comic scene, which dedicated a number of comics to him, such as “Freddie Wertham Goes to Hell” or “Dr. Wirtham’s.”