followed by others in the following years.
Most companies licensed American
When WWII broke out in September
1939, the relatively new medium of the comic
book was starting to explode with the youth
of North America. So when a little over a year
later in December 1940, the government of
Canada passed an act restricting the import
of nonessential goods such as comic books, a
huge vacuum was created. Before this ban,
many talented Canadian artists and writers
had to travel to New York or Chicago to find
success in comics. This ban would give
Canada a unique opportunity to harness its
native talent and produce material for an
audience hungry for content. To create its
own comic industry overnight. Four
magazine publishers immediately rushed to
take advantage of this unique opportunity,
characters to capitalize on name recognition,
often having Canadian artists redraw
American comics from scripts sent over from
the publishers whose works they were
permitted from selling north of the border.
Many Canadian publishers in this period
ended up resorting to black and white comics
due to cost, speed, and print quality (you
didn’t need to worry about bad color
separation if you removed the color from the
equation,) this is why they have since been
lovingly coined “Canadian Whites”.
The five biggest Canadian comic
companies of the 1940s were Anglo
American, Bell Features, Hillborough Studios,
Maple Leaf Publishing, and later Superior
Publications. When the import ban was lifted
in 1946, the deluge of American color comics
put some companies out of business or saw
them absorbed into other companies. A few
companies were able to weather the storm of
American books flooding the stands by
switching to color, and some even began to
distribute in America. It was a rocky start but
Canada was starting to forge a comic identity.
This promising beginning would be known as
Canada’s Golden Age of Comics1, and that’s
where it would end.
Since the creation of the comic, it has
had enemies and detractors. A mere two
years after Superman's 1938 debut, a future
children's book author named Sterling North
wrote and published an Alex Jones-esque
anti-comic tirade in the May 8th, 1940 edition
of the Chicago Daily News titled A National
Disgrace - And a Challenge to American
1
Yes, Canada Actually Does Have a Golden Age of
Comics. The Joe Shuster Awards.
joeshusterawards.com
Parents. North opens by referring to comics When Sterling North wrote A National
as “a poisonous mushroom growth” and he Disgrace he was in the minority in his moral
warned that comic books, which he referred outrage, but alarmist articles like his started
to as “sex-horror serials,” graphic insanity,” to reach the attention of parents and
sadistic drivel,” etc, were very different from teachers, some of whom feared their children
the comics found in newspapers. North would themselves become delinquents. In a
quoted an arbitrary statistic about how an bizarre early example of zine culture, this
examination of 108 periodicals found 70% of fear-based atmosphere led Parent and
them not respectable enough to be accepted Teacher Associations to create pamphlets
by a respectable newspaper. North went on quoting or reprinting articles that aligned
to say that other than a few “gag” comics with their agendas, usually accompanied by
“The bulk of these lurid publications bible verses. The pamphlets in turn would be
depend… upon mayhem, murder, torture, and distributed throughout their neighborhoods,
abduction – often with a child as the victim, on street corners, and outside schools. The
Superman heroics, voluptuous females in more impassioned PTA members would find
scanty attire, blazing machine guns, hooded
“justice” and cheap political propaganda
were to be found on every page… badly
drawn, badly written and badly printed… a
strain on young eyes and young nervous
systems.”
North’s argument went into conspiratorial
territory and argued that the combination of
“crude blacks and reds” spoiled “the child's
natural sense of color” and the “hypodermic
injection of sex and murder” would create an
“impatient” generation “more ferocious than
the present one.” North rebuked parents and
teachers for letting comics become popular
despite the existence of books, and
proclaimed comic book publishers “guilty of
a cultural slaughter of the innocents.” North
ended the article with a warning, stating
“the antidote to the “comic” magazine poison
can be found in any library or good
bookstore. The parent (and the teacher) who
does not acquire that antidote for his child is
guilty of criminal negligence.”2

2
A National Disgrace – And a
Challenge to American Parents, Sterling
North, Chicago Daily News, May 8, 1940
 politicians sympathetic to their cause, and
try to use them to argue their cause in the
House of Commons. This was the nature of
the relationship between Eleanor Gray and
Edmund Davie Fulton, and unlike most moral
panics in recent history, the one championed
by Gray and Fulton would succeed in its
mission.
Davie Fulton, as he was known to
many, was descended from Canadian
politicians. His father was an MP and his
grandfather was a former B.C. Premier. The
youngest of four, Fulton was a model student
and a Rhodes Scholar. On January 5th, 1940
he passed the bar exam at age 24 and joined
his father's law firm. Davie's legal aspirations
would have to wait, however, as only six
months after starting his law career, he went
overseas to fight in the Second World War.
Davie fought for five years and left the
Canadian Military as a Major when the war
ended in 1945. Post-War optimism for young
men returning from the war and going into
politics was high, and before Fulton arrived
home he was nominated to represent
Kamloops as MP for the Progressive
Conservative Party. The nomination would
see Fulton leave one war for another as he
was elected a seat in the House of Commons.3
A highly ambitious and headstrong politician,
Fulton was fiercely nationalistic, as
evidenced when he objected to a proposed
bill allowing US Troops on Canadian soil
where he warned against being “bedfellows”
with the U.S.4 The headstrong Fulton was not
afraid to speak his mind about what he
wanted, and this drive caught the attention of
Eleanor Gray.
3
The Vancouver Sun, 15 Aug 1944, Tue
4 6
The Montreal Star, 06 Jun 1947, Fri
Mrs. Eleanor Gray was a woman of
high society who prided herself on her house
on the prestigious Rockland Avenue only a
few hundred meters from the historic BC
Government House. She prided herself on
being the wife of a respected Doctor and
mother to five children and threw herself
into committees such as the Victoria and
District Parent-Teacher Council.5 The
growing fervor over so-called crime comics
began to occupy Mrs. Gray's attention, and
she began to quote Sterling North's article
and others like it frequently. In January 1945
she released “Survey of Undesirable News
Stand Literature in Victoria British
Columbia,” in which with the aid of others
she listed magazines bought from
newsstands, and after examination, their
placement into categories she determined to
be problematic. The categories were: The
Detective and Mystery, Confessions, White
Slavery, Love Leaflets, and Health (because of
Nudism). After Davie Fulton's appointment as
MP for Kamloops Eleanor began sending him
a series of letters in an attempt to recruit him
to her anti-comic cause. Fulton was
lukewarm at first, but Mrs. Gray persisted by
sending Fulton a series of examples culled
from crime comics (usually cut out and out of
context) paired with newspaper articles on
their links to delinquency, each letter she
sent was worse than the last and her
determination outlasted Fulton’s
constitution. 6
On May 20th, 1948, less than two
months after Frederick Wertham’s first
5
“The Child’s Education to Violence” by Alastair
Glegg, Education Matters Vol. 4 No. 1, 2016
The Province, 29 October 1949
anti-comic article was published7, Davie appreciate it if the minister would let me
Fulton would wage Eleanor's war in the know what he feels about the subject.”
Commons. After several more letters and Ilsey was reportedly eager to wrap up the
later meetings with Eleanor and her group, proceedings. He replied
Davie was more determined than ever and “The hon. gentleman asks me to indicate
would seize any chance he could to bring what I feel about that subject. It is the most
comics to the agenda. When the topic was difficult thing to say what is fit for publication
brought up regarding confessions and and what is not. We receive a continual
records regarding spousal name changes, stream of resolutions asking us to ban
Fulton inserted himself into the issue salacious magazines and other publications,
and there is the same complaint about these
“I should like to say a few words about the
comics, which it is alleged to lead children to
question of crime comics. What I have to say
crime… It is not possible to define with any
will not take so very long, but I want to ask
exactitude decency or a publication that
the minister a number of questions. if he
leads to crime. What about an adventure
prefers to leave this item until tomorrow it
story or a story in which there is any crime at
will be acceptable to me.”
all? it is such an intangible thing. If my hon.
The Right Honourable James Lorimer Ilsley
friend feels that the publication of certain
The Minister of Justice, wanting to get it over
crime comics contributes to juvenile
with, replied “if the questions are relevant to
the item I think the hon. member had better
ask them.”
Seeing his opening Fulton dove in head-on.
Producing a copy of Crime Does Not Pay, his
favorite example of comics at their most
morally corrupt. Fulton proceeded to flip
through the comic, describing it as
portraying “crimes of sexual and other
violence in picture form.”

Perhaps sensing Ilsley's impatience,

Fulton acknowledged that what he was
talking about wasn't relevant to the topic, but
that he just wanted to say
“It is difficult to deal with these publications
under any form of censorship, although
something might be done… Perhaps
proceedings could be had under the criminal
code to put a stop to this tendency. It is doing
an act producing or contributing to a child's
becoming a juvenile delinquent. … I would

7
“The Psychopathology of Comic Books” presented
on March 19th, 1948 at a symposium of the New
York Academy of Medicine .
delinquency I should think he could have a
charge laid and see whether he could get a
conviction. I do not think any further
definition of the law would be practicable.
We certainly could not make a list of the
publications that lead to crime. I think the
law is sufficient already.”
The Deputy Chairman William Henry Golding
interrupted
“I hope that hon. members will not continue
this discussion. As the hon. member for
Kamloops himself said it is not relevant to the
clause before us.”
“I said, not strictly relevant,” Fulton added.
The session continued, and near the
end of the day, Fulton saw another way in
when It was decided one of the topics on the
agenda would be tabled for a later session.
“I should like to say a few words about the
question of crime comics. What I have to say
will not take so very long, but I want to ask
the minister a number of questions. If he
prefers to leave this item until tomorrow it
will be acceptable to me.”
Knowing the game the brash young politician
was trying to play, Ilsley responded as before
that if the motion was relevant he had better
say it. The item in question wasn’t relevant.
The topic was penitentiaries.
Fulton pressed onward.
“Recently I have had brought to my attention
a number of so-called crime comics which
are widely circulated throughout Canada.
This fact, coupled with the evidence of
increasing juvenile delinquency, seems to me
to demand that this House of Commons
should request the minister to take certain
steps to… combat the causes. This is one of
the active causes of juvenile delinquency.”
Fulton admitted he did not have solid
numbers or specific evidence, but he tried to
make up for it by appealing to a fear of the
youth, continuing
“The minister will remember that quite a
number of shocking crimes have been
committed by juveniles in recent months.
One of the most shocking was in Montreal
recently, where a boy twelve years of age beat
his mother to death with a baseball bat. He
simply found her sleeping, lying there
defenseless, picked up a bat, and beat in her
head for no apparent reason, except that
when being tried, he said he had seen that
sort of thing in the comics.”
Fulton referenced his correspondence with
Eleanor’s women’s group, and imparted their
concern over the issue, saying
“they appeal to juveniles by their colors as
they lie on the magazine racks. As if that were
not bad enough, I have studied three of these
maga­zines recently. I have one in my hand,
"Green Hornet Fights Crime". Others I have
seen, under a general title, go on to say,
"Crime Does Not Pay". That is the sort of
cynical approach they make on the front
cover. They are printed in Canada. The one I
have in my hand is published bi-monthly in
Toronto”
Fulton went on to read the comic’s indicia,
and then the comic itself as he went on to
describe a story about arson, showing the
pages to the Commons, and how a child
seeing said story was likely to strike a match
for the first time. This was laughed at by
Ilsley, who replied,
“Oh, he would strike it before that.”
Irritated by Ilsley’s response Fulton
countered
“The minister says, "Oh". Is he shaking his
head in disagreement? As I say, it is difficult
to prove that these magazines do actually
increase juvenile delinquency, but one can
say at least that two coincidences go
together, that there is an increase in juvenile
delinquency and an increase in the
circulation of this type of magazine in
Canada.”
The fact was though, that juvenile
delinquency rates had been steadily
declining since the end of the war. The rise in
delinquency was in perception only because
the stories were being more widely reported.
Fulton pressed that the only two options
were direct censorship or an outright ban.
Stating “Questions of the freedom of the
press do not, I think, enter, because freedom
has never yet meant license, and this type of
thing is not freedom. But license. It is abusing
liberty to make a profit practically out of the
advocacy of crime.”
The impassioned argument was met with a
move to end the proceedings, and as if he
had said nothing at all, the meeting was
commenced.8 Little did he know that before
the end of the year a series of events
including a national tragedy would arrive to
him like a miracle.
On November 12, 1948, two boys aged
11 and 13 were walking along Second Avenue
in downtown Dawson Creek. It’s not known if
they set out to cause trouble, or if it found
them as they stumbled onto a rifle in an
unlocked car. An opportunity too good to
pass up the boys took the rifle, complete with
boxes of ammunition, and made their way to
the local rail yard. On their way, they found
another truck, smashed its window, and
claimed its bounty. This time a flashlight and
some cigarettes. Excited by their new life as
bandits, the boys donned bandanas and
found a hiding spot along the nearby Alaska
Highway, hoping to continue the so far
successful crime spree.
It was cold, and 62-year-old James
Watson had just seen a movie in one of the
local movie theatres with some friends and
8
House of Commons Debates, 20th Parliament, 4th
Session : Vol. 5
family. James got into the back seat of the
family truck with his daughter, the
conversation likely dominated by the movie
they had just seen, and his son Fred took the
driver's seat. The Watson family began their
drive home to Kilkerren in the dark just
before 10 pm, when after a few minutes Fred
Watson saw two figures in the distance. One
of them was waving their arms, and as the
Watsons got closer they noticed the figures
were wearing bandanas. Before they had time
to think a shot rang through the air and the
inside of the car was filled with screams as
Fred made a desperate turn back toward
Dawson Creek.9 The bandit aimed the 30-30
rifle at the back of the fleeing truck and fired.
Inside the truck, the screams were
interrupted as the bullet pierced through the
back seat and into James's back.10
After the shooting, the boys panicked
and quickly hid the gun and ammunition. It’s
unknown whether it was guilt or bravado
that brought back one of the boys the
following day with a friend to show off the
rifle. The boy and friend moved the rifle and
buried it in another location where it was
found by police, ultimately leading to the
apprehension of both youths.
James Watson would live only four
days after he was shot, and he died in St.
Joseph's hospital in Dawson Creek. A few
days later the boys were apprehended.
Throughout an hours-long questioning by
police, the boys claimed to read 30-50 crime
comics a week and claimed the crime they
committed was a reenactment of one they
had seen in one of said comics. After the boys
9
The Vancouver Sun, Nov 23 ,1948
10
BREAKING THE PEACE: Fictions of the
Law-Abiding Peace River Country, 19J0-50. Jon
Swainger. BC STUDIES, no. 119, Autumn 1998
were found guilty of Murder, the 13-year-old
was committed to the Boys' Industrial School,
and the 11-year-old was placed in the care of
the superintendent of Child Welfare.11 Judge
C.S. Kitchen, who presided over the case said
“I am satisfied that a concerted effort should
be made to see that this worse-than-rubbish
is abolished in some way.”12
The Dawson Creek murder sparked debate
immediately, with some arguing the tragedy
should be met with stricter gun laws and
better resources for low-income families. This
sentiment was rejected in favor of the view
that comics had poisoned these young boys'
minds. It was easier to blame comics than to
face the real underlying issues the
community was facing.
The Alaska Highway was constructed
largely by U.S. Soldiers during the war as a
road connecting Alaska to Canada. Due to the
large presence of U.S. Soldiers in Dawson
Creek during the road's construction, their
books, comics, and ephemera circulated
among the community, making access to
American Crime and Horror comics much
easier than in other parts of Canada. The
gruesome nature of the crime comics cited
and connected to this Canadian case, and the
fact it had happened in his own province not
only emboldened Davie Fulton and his
conservative crusade against crime comics
but would fuel his fear of American media as
well. The case was no doubt fresh in his mind
when on November 18, 1948, he
enthusiastically supported a ban on
American imports, which were being
discussed due to an unstable economy and
trade imbalances. The ban was successful and
11
Nanaimo Daily News November 29, 1948
12
Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered
the Comic Book Universe by John Bell p. 94
American Comics were again barred from
being imported into Canada.
After the tragedy in Dawson Creek,
Canada's conservative parent-teacher groups
were reaching a fever pitch in their
anti-crime-comic stance. One thing that is
apparent in the language surrounding the
anti-crime comic debate was that a large
number of those opposed seemed to be
unaware that not all comics contained lurid
crime. As with many moral panics, the official
narrative against crime comics was more
inflammatory than fact. The unease was
something that benefitted Davie Fulton, who
began to regularly give speeches at PTA
meetings and young conservative boy’s clubs.
To the conservatives in Kamloops, Davie
Fulton represented someone who cared
about their children, and cared about
protecting their “national identity”. On
January 11th, 1949, he was unanimously
named as the official Progressive
Conservative candidate for Kamloops in the
upcoming federal election, where he would
win a seat by a large margin. One of the
platforms he ran on was unsurprisingly
banning crime comic books.
The combination of Fulton's campaign
for MP, the close-to-home murder of a
middle-aged farmer by two youths, and the
mounting pressure from PTA and Women's
groups across the country began to have a
cumulative effect on the public
consciousness. Comic books were losing the
war and losing ground quickly. On December
5th, 1948 the Farmer's Union of Alberta called
for a Canada-wide ban on comics containing
murder and other crimes.13 On December 21st,
1948, The Women's Institute held a meeting
13
The Province, 29 Nov 1948, Mon
in which they supported the movement to “this bill is designed to amend the Criminal
ban crime comics”14 On January 6th, 1949, The Code to cover magazines and periodicals
Edmonton Home and School Council commonly called crime comics, the
decided to battle “crime type” comics and publication of which is at the present time
formed a committee to legal, but which, it is widely felt, tend to the
“find ways of eliminating lurid comic lowering of morals and to inducing the
magazines and undesirable literature.” commission of crimes by juveniles. Section
207 of the Criminal Code provides, upon
Alex Ross, President of the Edmonton Home
indictment, a penalty of two years for anyone
and School Council wanted to take it further,
who portrays obscene literature, obscene
advocating that something should also be
objects, or drugs. The purpose is to amend
done to censor “moving pictures and radio
the act by adding a fourth category that
thrillers”, and “most best-sellers”. This was would cover crime comics. Then if anyone
followed by the Parent Education Association distributes or sells such magazines, within
of Winnipeg on January 12, which also passed
a resolution that they would try to ban books
deemed “unscrupulous.” Members of the
association were eager to share their
pamphlet-informed opinions on comic
books, which were referred to as
“propaganda,” “filth,” ”lurid,” and
“not funny.”15

Armed with recent headlines about a

Canadian tragedy, and having made strides in
his campaign to wipe out crime comics across
Canada, Davie Fulton was more emboldened
in his crusade than ever before. Fulton went
on the attack again on February 1st, 1949 when
he proposed the bill that would bear his
namesake. The main obstacle in the House of
Commons for Davie Fulton thus far was
seemingly The Right Honourable James
Lorimer Ilsley, but since the last Federal
Election Ilsley retired from the position of
Minister of Justice and was replaced with
Stuart Garson fresh off his Premiership of
Manitoba, Fulton found one of the primary
forces of opposition that he faced was gone
suddenly gone,15 and confidently proposed
his Bill.

14
The Calgary Albertan, 05 Dec 1949
15
Ottawa Journal, 12, May 1949.
the definition of the act, he will have
committed an offense and will be subject to
the penalty set out for the three categories I
have mentioned.”
Support for the Bill was positive, but there
wasn’t enough time for it to get to a second
reading.
Fulton would bring it to the table again on
September 28th, 1949, where this time it
would get to a second reading. The
anti-comic sentiment in Canada was on the
rise, but Fulton wanted to make it clear that
he was not attacking all comics, only crime
comics, saying
“While I have a bill here which deals with
crime comics I should say that one or two
remarks have been made indicating a view to
this effect: Well, after all, is there much sense
in going after comics in the daily papers and
depriving the children of their ordinary
reading? May I make it clear, Mr. Speaker, at
the very outset that the type I have in mind is
not the ordinary comic strip in the paper, but
it is what is called the crime comic”
Fulton had been working on his argument,
and have even found a way to use the former
Minister of Justice, who had been one of his
detractors, to support his argument, saying
“At this stage, I do not want to use my own
words, I want to use the words of a very
respected member of the government which
is in office at the present time, a man of most
temperate character, a man little given to
exaggerated or violent words. In 1948, I sent
the then minister of justice, Mr. Ilsey, now
Mr. Justice Ilsley, a copy of the type of
magazine which I had in mind. It was entitled
“Crime Does Not Pay.” A little later… the
house the minister referred to the particular
magazine that I had sent him and he used the
words “The hon. Member for Kamloops sent
me a shocking instance of abuse of freedom
of the press. I agree with him that it is just
that.”
Fulton also came armed with findings from
respected psychologist Dr. Frederic
Wertham, quoting from an anti-comics
symposium held in New York City.
“I hold in my hand a book entitled “The
Psychology of Comic Books”, an extract of the
symposium held by the association for the
advancement of psychotherapy held in New
York City and written by Frederic Wertham.
The first paper was read by Mr. Gerson
Legman. I shall read from page 473 of the
proceedings of the association.”
Fulton read
“The comic books concentrate on
aggressions which are impossible under
civilized restraints - with fists, guns torture,
killing, and blood. The internalized
censorship of both artist and child makes this
attack respectable by directing it against
some scapegoat criminal or wild animal, or
even against some natural law like gravity,
rather than against the parents, teachers, and
policemen who are the real sources of the
child’s frustration and therefore the real
objects of his aggression. At the same
unconscious level that the child identifies
himself with the heroic avenger, he may also
identify whoever has been frustrating him
with the corpse. Violence displaced in this
way from its intended object invariably
appears in larger and larger doses, more and
more often repeated… The price tag being
only a few cents apiece and the distribution
national, every city child can, and does, read
from ten to a dozen of these pamphlets
monthly, an unknown number of times, and
then trades them for others. If there is only
one violent picture per page - and there are
usually more - every city child who was six
years old in 1938 has by now absorbed an
absolute minimum of eighteen thousand
pictorial beatings, shootings, stranglings,
blood-puddles, and torturings-to-death, from
comic books alone.” 16
Fulton continued to read from reports, his
introduction to the bill reading like a lawyer
for the prosecution.
After quoting from a number of
papers, Fulton went in for the kill.
“Those are the words of people who have
made an intensive study of the problem. Thus
far however it must be admitted that my
remarks have been in the realm of theory. I
should now like to relate them to the realm of
actuality by pointing out to the house a
number of cases in this country and in the
United States where the commission of crime
by juveniles has been directly attributed to
crime comics.”
After warming up with some stories
regarding children who carried out a
kidnapping by supposedly following steps
laid out in an issue of Crime Does Not Pay,
Fulton talked about the tragedy at Dawson
Creek.
“The second piece of evidence I should like
to lay before the house concerns the trial of
two boys aged 11 and 13 for murdering James
Watson of Dawson Creek, in Canada, in the
fall of 1948. During the trial positive evidence
was produced to show that the boy’s minds
were saturated with what they read in crime
comics. One boy admitted to the judge that
he read as many as fifty crime comics a week
while the other admitted having read thirty.
After the case was concluded, the presiding
judge delivered a most direct and scathing
criticism of crime comics, laying the blame
for this murder almost directly upon their
influence.”
Now that he had presented a recent case
from close to home, Fulton leaned fully into
shock value.
“Many other cases can be cited. In Montreal,
16
"The Psychopathology of Comic Books." American
Journal of Psychotherapy, 50(4), p. 473
a boy aged 12 years beat his mother to death
with a bat while she was sleeping and at the
trial said he had seen that sort of thing in the
comics. In Philadelphia Symon Levin, aged 16
years, killed a 12-year-old boy with a pair of
scissors. His room was found to be littered
with crime comics. In Los Angeles, a
14-year-old boy poisoned a 50-year-old
woman. He said he had got the idea from a
comic book as well as the recipe for the
poison. In the same city, a 13-year-old boy
was found hanged in a garage with a crime
comic illustrating that type of thing at his
feet.”
Fulton then went into the resolutions passed
across Canada from PTA groups asking for
crime comics to be banned before
concluding with the ending to the quote he
had read earlier from his letter by the former
Minister of Justice
“I agree with him, that it is just that. I am
afraid, however, it is nevertheless legal; it is
not an offense to publish the kind of material
which was published and which is being
distributed in various parts of Canada”
Crime comics weren’t illegal, but Fulton was
arguing they should be, and the bill on the
table was the way to seeing it happen. To
account for criticism that the definition in
the bill was too broad, Fulton suggested the
bill be used to get charges laid, with the jury
to decide whether the comics were obscene
or not. To conclude his opening statement,
Fulton summarized
“No harm can result from the bill. It will not
bring in any form of censorship or banning of
publications, but it will put publishers and
news vendors on their guard to see that they
do not publish or sell any magazine within
the category defined… Some may say that
there has been an exaggeration of the evils of
crime comics. I would refer them again to the
factual evidence which I have placed before
the house. I suggest to anyone who thinks
that crime comics really are not harmful that,
if he will look into the question, if he will go
to the newsstands, he will pick up one of
these things and see what they portray and
the examples they law before the youth of
the country, he will not deny that there is a
real menace in them… If the enactment of the
bill only prevented one murder, one crime of
violence being committed by a juvenile, I
would say that the act, if passed, would have
served its purpose, that the bill would have
been worthwhile.”
Fulton’s opening statement was received
enthusiastically by both parties, but the
reaction was so positive and garnered so
much response from other Commons
members that there wasn’t time for it to get
past the second reading, so it was tabled for
the following session.17
On October 4th, 1949, Crime Comics
were again brought to the table. Where
several members of Commons voiced their
support, though some, like Lincoln MP Harry
Cavers while agreeing that crime comics were
“detrimental to youth and have a bad
influence upon the moral standards of our
young people,” argued the fact that youths
had formed self circulating libraries of comics
in order to read as many comics as possible
was a failing of the schooling system for not
providing them with literature engaging
enough that they resorted to filth. Cavers felt
the bill “may not be the proper way to deal
with this matter.”
Vancouver East MP Angus MacInnis worried
if passed, the bill would be largely ignored
like similar bills passed against gambling
which did not prevent people from playing
bingo. He urged
“I do not believe we can overcome the effects
of crime comics merely by negative action. If
17
House of Commons Debates, 20th Parliament, 5th
Session: Vol. 1
the lives of our young people are to be
improved, it will have to be by positive
action… I think perhaps we can say too much
about the harmfulness of crime comics.
Perhaps we may just be advertising them…
The other night when (some clergymen)
were talking, I felt that (they) should not talk
about these things because they build such
an alluring halo around them that it makes
people think that resisting temptation is not
worthwhile.”
Another MP, Pierre Gauthier of Portneuf, who
was previously in support of a proposed bill
banning children in Quebec under the age of
16 from seeing movies, supported the bill,
implying that an age ban on crime comics
might be more effective.
During another MP’s voice of support, this
exchange occurred:
“Mr. T.H Goode: “In (Crime and Punishment
and Crime of Women) are depicted women of
ill repute standing in rather suggestive
attitudes. That is a fine model for our young
people to look at! There are Women Outlaws
and True Mystery. This latter is the most
filthy book that I have ever seen on a
magazine stand.”
An hon. Member: “What is in it?”
Mr. Goode: “The hon. Member can read it
after I am through with it.”
Another MP, Rodney Adamson of York West,
argued that a greater problem than crime
comics, is the news coverage of juvenile
crimes, saying
“When some strange and violent incidents of
anti-social behavior took place in Toronto, it
was found that the daily press of Toronto
played them up - I do not intend to mention
the incidents, but they have occurred from
week to week - with the names, descriptions,
the location and all the rest of it. That
practice made heroes of these young
delinquents who committed these peculiar
manifestations of anti-social behavior.
I would rather call them that than crimes,
although they are crimes.”
Adamson continued to argue that the news
coverage also incentivized youths in gangs to
commit worse crimes for recognition,
concluding
“It is a matter of example, and if the daily
press will display restraint in emphasizing the
bad examples I am sure that a great deal of
good can be done.”
MP Roy Knight of Saskatoon also voiced
some concern over the proposed bill, saying
“This particular bill does not call for
censorship as such. As I understand it, it asks
that the circulation of a certain type of book
be made illegal, and then it will be left to
someone to originate court action. If that
court action were handed out to the people
who sell these magazines, it is presumed that
it would be a deterrent to people of a like
class. I understand that that is the purpose of
the bill. Personally, I have not made up my
mind whether I am in favor of it or not…
Whether you are thinking of censorship or
not, you are making the judge and jury
censors. The question is whether a judge and
jury of twelve honest men and true are
competent to carry out the censorship. I do
not know.”
He concluded
“There should be cultivation of a taste for
good literature while people are still young.
Let us give young people better literature,
but if they have to read any of these salacious
books let them be read under the guidance of
their parents or people who can give proper
advice on the matter.”
Following this, several other members spoke
in support of the bill, pushing a recess until
October 7. After several members expressed
support, with some dissenters offering other
alternative solutions, Fulton couldn’t wait
any longer and did not want this bill to fail to
get a second reading again. He jumped in to
express his gratitude for the support, and
that due to the late hour the bill move
forward. The motion was agreed to, the bill
was read a second time.18
December 6, 1949, would be the day
Fulton’s bill was passed. In between the
second and third reading, certain wordage
was amended so that if someone is accused
of making, printing, distributing, or
possessing crime comics they could not claim
innocence by ignorance. This caused some
concern among some members of the
Commons. Amendments were suggested, but
none stuck. Davie Fulton’s bill passed as is.
18
House of Commons Debates, 21st Parliament, 1st
Session : Vol. 1
It was now illegal in Canada to “print, publish,
distribute, or sell ‘any magazine, periodical or
book which exclusively or substantially
comprises matter depicting pictorially the
commission of crimes, real or fictitious."19
This would remain in the Canadian Criminal
Code until 2018. After the bill was passed,
Davie Fulton’s anti-comic lectures were in
high demand. As a result of his legislation
crime comics did indeed disappear from
Canada almost overnight, and due to the
wording of the bill, true crime and detective
magazines would also suddenly cease to be
printed.
In the course of his crusade, Fulton
had begun a correspondence with Frederick
Wertham, who based an entire chapter on
Fulton in his book Seduction of the
Innocent20, and in 1954 with the American
Senate Subcommittee Hearings looming,
Davie Fulton was asked by Frederick
Wertham to testify.21 At this point all but
Superior had shuttered their doors. Though
wounded, Superior stuck around until an
anti-horror comic bill passed in 1955, and less
than a year later the last of the original
Canadian Comic Companies closed,
effectively ending Canadian publishing of
English comic books for decades. After
Fulton’s bill passed, some Canadians who
made comics would go to America, others
would turn to illustration or sign painting.
Most never worked in the arts again.22
19
Senate Debates, 21st Parliament, 1st Session :
Vol. 1
20
Seduction of the Innocent. Frederick Wertham.
P. 273 “Murder in Dawson Creek”
21
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, “Comic
Books and Juvenile Delinquency”, Hearings, 1954
(Washington, D.C. United States Government
Printing Office, 1954)
22
Comics in English Canada, John Bell. The
Canadian Encyclopedia
Canadian Media Philosopher Marshall
McLuhan reflected on this period in his
seminal book Understanding Media: The
Extensions of Man saying:
“The first comic books appeared in 1935. Not
having anything connected or literary about
them, and being as difficult to decipher as the
Book of Kells, they caught on with the young.
The elders of the tribe, who had never
noticed that the ordinary newspaper was as
frantic as a surrealist art exhibition, could
hardly be expected to notice that the comic
books were as exotic as eighth-century
illuminations. So, having noticed nothing
about the form, they could discern nothing of
the contents, either. The mayhem and
violence were all they noted. Therefore, with
naive literary logic, they waited for violence
to flood the world. Or, alternatively, they
attributed existing crime to the comics. The
dimmest-witted convict learned to moan, "It
wuz comic books done this to me."23
Had Canada’s Golden Age of Comics
been allowed to become a Silver Age, a
Bronze Age, and so on, how different would
the comic book landscape look today? It is a
question whose answer we will never know.
For an excellent account of the American
side of this story read BLOODY MASSACRE
by Warren Bernard, printed in The Comics
Journal #302.
For an excellent broad (but thorough!) look
at Canada’s comic history, look for Invaders
from the North: How Canada Conquered the
Comic Book Universe by John Bell
23
Understanding Media: The extensions of man p.
188. Marshall McLuhan.