Edmund Davie Fulton, Tory member of Canada’s Parliament from Kamloops, B.C., had never read a crime comic until some of his worried constituents sent him a batch two years ago. Shocked by the gory yarns, 33-year-old Tory Fulton, onetime Rhodes scholar and wartime infantry officer in Italy, began a crusade. He thundered for Parliament to outlaw such comics, most of which are published in Toronto from mats shipped in by U.S. publishers.
Fulton presented evidence from psychologists, juvenile judges and educators that the gory comics (Canadian circulation 5,000,000 a year v. an estimated 145 million in the U.S.) have a bad effect on children, rolled up an impressive backing of parent-teacher associations and clubwomen. The publishers unwittingly did their bit. To prove to Parliament that their books were really good clean fun, they distributed them to M.P.s Many were so aghast at them that they hustled to support Fulton.
Last week, Parliament outlawed crime comics. The broad new law provides up to two years’ imprisonment for anyone who “makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells” or possesses “for any such purposes” a comic which “exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially the commission of crimes, real or fictitious.”
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