Comic Book Stand, New York

The first American comic books were produced in the 1930s; by the 1940s they had become a big business. Morris Engel's tightly composed image of a young boy engrossed in, and surrounded by, comic books at a newsstand emphasizes both the popularity of the genre and its ability to fully absorb the attention of its young reader.

After WWII, television came to dominate domestic leisure and entertainment. The commensurate downturn in comic book sales incited more lurid and violent content, which in turn raised anxieties about the genre's potential for corrupting young minds. In his shrill book Seduction of the Innocent (1954), one such critic, Dr. Frederic Wertham, wrote: "Badly drawn, badly written, and badly printed…the effects of these pulp-paper nightmares is that of a violent stimulant."