Dr. Werthless

Dr. Frederick Wertham is infamous among comics fans for his lifelong crusade against the evils of comic books.  The doctor was convinced that the violent and lurid tales from crime and horror comics directly contributed to delinquency in children and wanted to see them stamped out.  This led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority, a self-imposed, self-censoring organization established by the comics industry to appease the doctor and the public’s wrath that set back the development of the medium in America for decades.

But who was Dr. Wertham before he started his crusade?  As told by writer Harold Schechter and artist Eric Powell, he was a serious, driven, and cantankerous individual who was determined to do work that was worthy of his abilities.  This led him to the treatment of several notorious murderers which he did so with a surprising amount of empathy.  It also had him helping to establish the first psychiatric clinic for African Americans in Harlem.  There’s much more to Dr. Wertham’s life than the hackwork seen in his signature anti-comics book, “Seduction of the Innocent,” even if that ensured it’s what he’d be remembered for in the decades after his death.

As a history of Dr. Wertham that seeks to let the reader know all about the good and the bad that the doctor did in his life, “Dr. Werthless” succeeds in that regard.  Schechter and Powell deliver a very well-rounded accounting of the man’s achievements, even as they make it clear that he was pretty insufferable to work with.  Where this graphic novel fails is in wrangling an actual narrative out of the whole endeavor.  Schechter and Powell did this much better in their previous collaboration, “Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?”  and this comes off more like a straightforward recitation of historical facts.  What’s worse is that Powell doesn’t get a chance to show off his skills beyond delivering a whole lot of (admittedly well-rendered and full of character) talking heads.  It’s something that succeeds more as a historical text than a proper story, even if it feels like it’s what they were trying to do in a wrongheaded way.