“He Studied Murder… And Nearly Killed the Comics Industry” — DR. WERTHLESS Q&A with Harold Schechter and Eric Powell

Harold Schechter and Eric Powell follow up their excellent collaboration on Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? with Dr. Werthless, an examination on Dr. Fredric Wertham, who many long-time comic book readers know for his witch hunt against the comic book creators that led to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority and extreme censorship of the industry. Taking an "unbiased look at this flawed and enormously and complex man," Dr. Werthless not only covers his role in comic book history, but his work in psychiatry, his support of disadvantaged African-American patients, and many little-known facts about the life of the infamous Wertham. In our latest Q&A, I caught up with Schechter and Powell to discuss their research, creative process, and more:

Following the success of Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?, what led to Dr. Fredric Wertham becoming the subject of your latest collaboration in Dr. Werthless?

Harold: As a long-time comic book fan (and one-time serious collector), I always knew about Wertham and thought of him in the stereotypical way as a Puritanical prig who single-handedly killed off the amazing line of EC horror comics. It wasn’t until years later, when I was working on my book about Albert Fish, Deranged, that I became aware that there was much more to the man than his notorious anti-comics crusade. That realization was reinforced when I was writing my book The Mad Sculptor in which Wertham figures prominently.  Around that time, I gave serious thought to doing a bio of Wertham but put the idea aside while I pursued other projects. After our wonderful collaboration on Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?, Eric and I were discussing various possibilities for a follow-up and I mentioned my Wertham idea. Eric instantly expressed enthusiasm and off we went.

Eric: Yes, as soon as Harold mention Wertham as a possible follow-up to the Gein book, bells started going off. The idea of doing a book that not only delved into true crime but also comics history and civil rights… well, I think we both knew immediately that would be the next project.

Dr. Fredric Wertham is a name that's familiar to folks who are aware of the banning of horror comics and the establishing of the Comics Code Authority, but I'm sure very few are aware of his work in psychiatry outside of comic books. Harold, when dealing with a historical story such as this, how much time did you spend on researching, and what was the process like for acquiring materials you needed for Dr. Werthless?

Harold: As mentioned above, Wertham played an important role in the cases of Albert Fish and Robert Irwin (the subject of The Mad Sculptor), so I did a good deal of research into his life and career while working on those books, including visiting the Library of Congress, where his papers are located. At the time, however, I wasn’t able to see everything in the archive, since complete access was restricted until twenty-five years after his death. When Eric and I began working on Dr. Werthless, that time had passed, so were able to make a trip to the D.C. and immerse ourselves in that material, which proved invaluable to our book.

Can you two share interesting or surprising facts you uncovered while researching Dr. Fredric Wertham and creating this graphic novel?

Harold: For me, the most notable and generally unknown fact about Wertham had to do with his passionate commitment to the cause of civil rights, as well as his work with both Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison in establishing the La Fargue Clinic, the first psychiatric facility offering mental health treatment to the residents of Harlem.

Eric: For me, it was the details we couldn’t find. Discovering how private he was and that he was estranged from his family. He was very guarded. As for the illustration, it was finding a drawing of Wertham as a young man in 1917. The drawing by an unknown artist was among his papers at the Library of Congress and it really humanized him for me. He wasn’t just the comics boogeyman I had grown up hearing about. He was a person who had lived a life. He had been a young man who someone felt compelled to sketch.

Eric, in the book, you dedicated it to the creators of EC Comics, and I saw the picture of you with Al Feldstein. What impact has EC Comics had on you and your work over the years, and why was it important for you to tell this story?

Eric: It’s impossible to overstate. Not only is there a direct influence, but virtually every later artist who inspired me to become a cartoonist has stated that EC comics inspired them. There was a strong EC influence with horror comics legend Bernie Wrightson. He was my favorite artist as a kid. It was when I went to a comic shop signing to meet Bernie Wrightson that I also met writer Tom Sniegoski. Tom is who helped me break into the business. So, without EC there may have been no Bernie, and without Bernie, I may be hanging drywall somewhere right now.

Also, among the stable of EC artist, Jack Davis’s influence on my work is huge. His masterful rendering techniques and cartooning make his work the high watermark in comics as far as I’m concerned.

Eric, can you talk about the approach to the artwork in Dr. Werthless? I really love the subtle and less subtle changes throughout the book, with the EC Comic-style panels, courtroom panels, and really inventive page / panel layouts.

Eric: I’ve always played around with style as a way to amplify the storytelling in my work. It’s a technique I use a lot in my series The Goon. If I want the reader to feel a shift in environment or emotion, I’ll switch up the art style or the medium I’m using. I did it several times in this book. Mostly to convey Wertham’s double standards when it came to how he viewed his own work and how he viewed comics. For the overall style of the book, I was trying to go for something that might feel appropriate if it appeared as an illustration in a 1950s magazine. But I rendered a few segments in more traditional comic book styles to give the juxtaposition more bite. Like the segment depicting Wertham’s book Dark Legend. I drew that segment like it might be a crime comic because the content Wertham wrote was just as violent and exploitive as the violent entertainment he railed against.

The most difficult thing about this book when it came to the art was that so much of it was exposition and conversations. It’s really difficult to make five pages of someone testifying in court visually interesting. I tried to do interesting things with panel arrangement and dramatic angles to make it more compelling. I think one of the things that really helped was that Wertham had a face very suited to caricature. Once I got a shorthand down, he was actually pretty fun to draw.

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"From the creative team behind the award-winning Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? comes an examination of one of the most polarizing figures in pop culture, Dr. Fredric Wertham. Reviled by comic book fans as a witch-hunting zealot who stirred up a panic among the parents of America for his own self-promoting purposes, he was also a renowned psychiatrists who, among other accomplishments, opened a clinic in Harlem for disadvantaged African-American patients and played an important role in the desegregation of the nation's schools. Believing that murder could be abolished through a proper understanding of the mental and social roots of criminal violence, he took a genuinely humane approach to some of the most notorious homicidal maniacs of his time, while simultaneously exploiting their stories for his own commercial ends.

Acclaimed true crime author, Harold Schechter, and multiple Eisner award winning cartoonist, Eric Powell, present a graphic novel that takes an unbiased look at this flawed and enormously and complex man--whose obsessive dream of freeing the world from violence nearly murdered the comics industry."

Release Dates:

• Comic shop release date: 7/1/25
• Bookstore release date: 6/30/25

Creators

• Writer: Harold Schechter, Eric Powell
• Artist, Cover Artist: Eric Powell