Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/239

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
227

Mr. Chamberlain. That is correct, sir.

Senator Henxines. Thank you.

The Chairman. The good is taken for granted.

Mr. Chamberlain. Or comdemned by insinuations that all comics are bad.

The Chairman. Counsel, you may proceed.

Mr. Beaser. But actually, Mr. Chamberlain, the crime and horror comics would not have been published had there not been a market?

Mr. Chamberlain. That is correct,

Mr. Beaser. In other words, you would not throw 300,000 copies of a magazine out just on the chance that some remarks would be made that would indicate——

Mr. Chamberlain. You are absolutely correct in that, sir.

Mr. Beaser. Also, is it net true that the type of material which has appeared in Adventures into the Unknown is quite different from that which vou would permit in your House of Mystery?

Mr. Chamberlain. That is right, sir.

Mr. Beaser. Despite the fact that you distribute both?

Mr. Chamberlain. That is right.

Mr. Beaser. Despite the fact you have an advisory committee for one and not the other?

Mr. Chamberlain. Yes.

Mr. Beaser. Incidentally, will the same advisory committee work with the American Comic group?

Mr. Chamberlain. No, sir; net to my knowledge.

Mr. Beaser. Do you know whether other disiributors are doing the gaine thing with the publishers of crime and horror magazines?

Mr. Chamberlain. No, sir; I cannot speak for the other distribu- tors.

Mr. Beaser. Is not that one way of getting the odium off the good and onto the bad?

Mr. Chamberlain. It certainly is, very definitely is. We feel we do not want to be subject to any criticism by this committee, or any other committee, for that matter, in the comic magazines that we dis- tribute. ‘The Superman comics, or National Comie as we call them, are one of the biggest groups in the country. We have a lot at stake in this business and we want to do the best thing possible for the comie industry.

That is why we have taken this step with our outside publishers.

Mr. Beaser. Now, Independent News Distributors own no comics?

Mr. Chamberlain. No, sir.

Mr. Beaser. Other types of magazines?

Mr. Chamberlain. Yes, sir.

Mr. Beaser. If I am a wholesaler in New York City and yon are supplying me through the Independent News Co. with magazines, what do you do—do you send me a list of magazines that will be pub- lished and ask me how many I want?

Mr. Chamberlain. No, sir, The basic fundamental rules of dis- tribution in the magazine industry is that the national distributer, ihe Independent News Co., gets together with its publisher and de- cides npon a national print order, which is a national distribution.

We then lay out, based on sales figures which we maintain in our office, a distribution to all of the various wholesalers avound the