TheComicBooks.Com has the complete transcription of EC Comics publisher William Gaines’ 1954 testimony to a Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency.
I especially love this exchange between Gaines and the subcommittee’s chief counsel, Herbert Beaser:
Mr. BEASER. You said that you had a circulation of 5 million Bible storybooks.
Mr. GAINES. Yes.
Mr. BEASER. How many years is this?
Mr. GAINES. Twelve years, since 1942.
Mr. BEASER. In other words, in little over 3½ months you sell more of your crime and horror than, you sell of the Bible stories?
Mr. GAINES. Quite a bit more.
Of course Gaines never published anything quite as horrific as some of the more graphic scenes in the Bible. Perhaps if he had turned his artists toward an illustrated version of Deuteronomy 20:16-17 . . .