Friday 27 February 2009

Teen-Aged Dope Slaves And Reform School Girls


Teen-Aged Dope Slaves And Reform School Girls was published in 1989 by the rather excellent (but now defunct) independent comics company Eclipse. The collection reprinted several stories from the 1940s and 1950s that blurred the distinction between exploitation and educational. The comics which lent their names to the title, Reform School Girl! (1951) and Teen-Age Dope Slaves (AKA Harvey Comics Library #1, 1952), were both condemned by Dr Fredric Wertham in his infamous Seduction of the Innocent, the book which led to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority (and decades of American comic publisher timidity).

A notable inclusion was Harvey Kurtzman's Lucky Fights It Through, originally released by EC in 1949, and apparently Kurtzman's first work for the legendary publisher.

Also reprinted were Trapped! (a Columbia College giveaway from 1951); two Simon & Kirby strips, The Bobby Sox Bandit Queen (from Headline Comics #27, 1947) and I Worked For The Fence (from Headline Comics #28, 1948); and two other stories, Gun Happy and The Deadly Needle, by authors and artists unknown.



Above, syphilitic cowboy Lucky inspects his infected weenie.


1 comment:

  1. Slinky man, thanks so much! But the link seems to be down. Is it possible for you to upload this again? It's got some of my favourite artists in this lurid sounding book too, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman...it sounds mad! Anyway, thanks for trying to upload it, I hope some people got to enjoy it. I love all the old EC and Mad Magazine artists. Cheers mate -Carl.

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