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This is a collage series deep dive I made exploring the long history of moral panics against Batman. Long before the '80s Dungeons & Dragons Satanic panic to the Barbie (2023) movie moral panic, there was moral panics over Batman in comics, that extended to Batman on TV and Batman movies.

The first Batman moral panic was from the Chicago Daily News [May 8th 1940] article called "A National Disgrace And a Challenge to American Parents" by Sterling North complaining "Virtually every child in America is reading 'comic' magazines-- (Batman) hooded 'justice' [see Sterling North trying to link Batman's cowl to a Ku Klux Klan hood with the "hooded 'justice'" line], blazing machine guns [Batman used the Batplane machine gun to kill villains in Batman #1 (1940)], sadistic murder, torture, abduction--often with a child [Robin] as the victim. Unless we want a coming generation even more ferocious than the present, parents and teachers through America must band together to break the violent 'comic' magazine nightmare."
Sterling North's full "A National Disgrace" article is read in full here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv4nWv…

Sterling North's moral panic basically backfired. The National Council of Teachers of English [March 1947] article called "Children and the Comics" by May Hill Arbuthnot explained, "Sterling North tried to rouse parents and teachers to 'band together to break the 'comic' magazine.' May 8, 1940, in a stirring broadside in the Chicago Daily News entitled 'A National Disgrace,' he made the statement that ten million copies of these magazines are sold monthly--lurid, 'sex-horror serials,' depending for their appeal 'upon mayhem, murder, torture, abduction--often with a child as the victim.' Since this blazing invective, which was widely quoted in schools and churches throughout the country, the sale of comic magazines has doubled. Twenty million copies sold monthly is the latest figure."

www.jstor.org/stable/41383437

Sterling North also tried to compete with comic books by writing children's books Midnight and Jeremiah (1943) and Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era (1963) that are long out of print and long forgotten. The 1939 Batman comics are never out of print, having been reprinted many times since Batman Archives volume 1 (1990) to Batman Chronicles volume 1 (2005) to the current Batman: The Golden Age volume 1 (2016). Sterling North died in 1974, the same year Batman co-creator Bill Finger died.

Description

This is a collage series deep dive I made exploring the long history of moral panics against Batman. Long before the '80s Dungeons & Dragons Satanic panic to the Barbie (2023) movie moral panic, there was moral panics over Batman in comics, that extended to Batman on TV and Batman movies.

The first Batman moral panic was from the Chicago Daily News [May 8th 1940] article called "A National Disgrace And a Challenge to American Parents" by Sterling North complaining "Virtually every child in America is reading 'comic' magazines-- (Batman) hooded 'justice' [see Sterling North trying to link Batman's cowl to a Ku Klux Klan hood with the "hooded 'justice'" line], blazing machine guns [Batman used the Batplane machine gun to kill villains in Batman #1 (1940)], sadistic murder, torture, abduction--often with a child [Robin] as the victim. Unless we want a coming generation even more ferocious than the present, parents and teachers through America must band together to break the violent 'comic' magazine nightmare."
Sterling North's full "A National Disgrace" article is read in full here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv4nWv…

Sterling North's moral panic basically backfired. The National Council of Teachers of English [March 1947] article called "Children and the Comics" by May Hill Arbuthnot explained, "Sterling North tried to rouse parents and teachers to 'band together to break the 'comic' magazine.' May 8, 1940, in a stirring broadside in the Chicago Daily News entitled 'A National Disgrace,' he made the statement that ten million copies of these magazines are sold monthly--lurid, 'sex-horror serials,' depending for their appeal 'upon mayhem, murder, torture, abduction--often with a child as the victim.' Since this blazing invective, which was widely quoted in schools and churches throughout the country, the sale of comic magazines has doubled. Twenty million copies sold monthly is the latest figure."

www.jstor.org/stable/41383437

Sterling North also tried to compete with comic books by writing children's books Midnight and Jeremiah (1943) and Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era (1963) that are long out of print and long forgotten. The 1939 Batman comics are never out of print, having been reprinted many times since Batman Archives volume 1 (1990) to Batman Chronicles volume 1 (2005) to the current Batman: The Golden Age volume 1 (2016). Sterling North died in 1974, the same year Batman co-creator Bill Finger died.