THE MACABRE MYSTERY OF THE GORBALS VAMPIRE...

Example of the type of comic which caused outcry

Have a read of the following spiel from BBC RADIO SCOTLAND's ad for their programme about THE GORBALS VAMPIRE, broadcast on Sunday, 31st October, 2010:

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"Glasgow's Southern Necropolis is an eerie place at the best of times but when two local policemen answered a call there in September 1954 they encountered a bizarre sight. Hundreds of local children, ranging in ages from 4 to 14, were crammed inside, roaming between the crypts. They were armed with sharpened sticks, knives stolen from home and stakes. They said they were hunting down "A Vampire with Iron Teeth" that had kidnapped and eaten two local boys.

The policemen dispersed the crowd, but they came back at sundown the next night and the next. The local press got hold of the story and it soon went national. There were no missing boys in Glasgow at that time, and press and politicians cast around for an explanation. They soon found one in the wave of American Horror comics with names like "Astounding Stories" and "Tales from the Crypt" which had recently flooded into the West of Scotland. Academics pointed out that none of the comics featured a vampire with iron teeth, though there was a monster with iron teeth in the bible (Daniel 7.7) and in a poem taught in local schools. Their voices were drowned out in a full-blown moral panic about the effect that terrifying comics were having on children. Soon the case of the "Gorbals Vampire" was international news.

Southern Necropolis gatehouse, Glasgow

The British Press raged against the "terrifying, corrupt," comics and after a heated debate in the House of Commons where the case of Gorbals Vampire was cited, Britain passed the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 which, for the first time, specifically banned the sale of magazines and comics portraying "incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature" to minors.

Writer Louise Welsh explores how the Gorbals Vampire helped bring the censorship of comic books onto the statute books."

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Note what it says about none of the examined comics having any vampires with iron teeth. Proof, say people who react angrily to any suggestion that certain types of comics may have a less than desirable influence on children's impressionable minds, that such is not the case. And it may well be so. (But, then again, may not.)

However, what amazes me is that those people (who are perfectly entitled to their view) don't seem to find anything to be concerned about on the matter of HUNDREDS of children armed with sticks, KNIVES and stakes, roaming a graveyard in the early hours of the morning over a period of three days, looking for a vampire (or reasonable facsimile) to impale. Had they come across someone even vaguely strange looking, the results could have been tragic.

So what does the episode prove, if anything? That comics can corrupt? No, although the subject is deserving of further investigation. What it most certainly DOES seem to prove, however, whatever the source of the "hysteria" on those October and November nights all those years ago, is just how impressionable and susceptible to suggestion children can be. That being the case, surely there's something to be said for exercising a little caution in what we allow them to be exposed to? Something that those smug, pompous, self-satisfied types with a vested interest in producing (or purchasing) anything they want under the excuse of "artistic expression and creative freedom" should bear in mind.