Some Idle Thoughts about "Dr. Werthless" by Harold Schechter & Eric Powell

Doctor Fredric Wertham was a German-American psychiatrist with a focus on extreme violent crime. He came to America to practice psychiatry in the 1920s and slowly gained prominence due to his involvement with several very notable early cases of serial killings and similar extreme violent crimes. From there, he began to fixate on what he perceived as the negative effects that violent media had on America's youth and how that led to what he believed to be a severe predilection of violence in certain individuals. Ultimately, he chose to target comic books and became one of the industry's greatest enemies as a result. The creative team behind the true crime comic masterpiece Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? have recently put out what is arguably a spiritual successor in their new book "Dr. Werthless" and having just read it, I have quite a few thoughts.

The book spends extensive time recapping some of the rather salacious crimes performed by two individuals which Wertham worked with and who contributed to his notoriety. I don't necessarily think the level of detail included in the book was particularly necessary to the story, but it does exist as an interesting direct counter to Wertham's focus on crime and horror comics as the depiction was intentionally rather similar to said comics. 

Furthermore, I deeply appreciated the book's focus on Wertham's accomplishments and career before the infamous war against comics. I think that not enough people are familiar with his advocacy for treating mentally ill criminals as human beings, his kind handling of queer folks at a time when it was seen as a criminalized mental illness, and especially his significant contributions to the Civil Rights Movements (most notably being one of the most significant voices leading to the repealing of the "Separate but Equal" court decision). 

Wertham was a complicated person, full of contradictions. On one hand, he was focused on a nuanced and balanced view of mental illness and criminal psychology, on the other hand he frequently compared Superman to Nazi ideals and refused to listen to any counterpoints to that statement. 

If I had any strong criticism of the book, it would be that Wertham's career after his damage to the comics industry gets rather glossed over in about a dozen pages or so which is a shame because I am sure there is some rather interesting things that happened then. Regardless, the book is a stellar piece of comic history writing and I highly recommend it.