What has gone wrong within the industry and can it be fixed? The rape and pillage, in the eyes of some, may have left the comic book industry gasping for life support. It seems that for an industry that has seen so much success, the history of comic books, has apparently been confounded by seemingly dumb mistakes.

The first could have very well been the coining of the name "comic books". The earliest versions of the so-called half-tab (for half tabloid) reprints of the Sunday funnies (the comics) became known as "comic books". This led to the thinking in general, that comic books contained comic or funny material, which we all know, is a far stretch from reality. Comic books can be very somber, dark or adventurous magazines. It has often been suggested that there should be another term coined to better describe this literary package we all know as comic books. To date, no other user-friend term has been suggested for use in the comic book industry.

A second misdirection came when magazine prices started to rise. Instead of increasing comic book prices, like other successful magazines did, the comic book industry decided to cut pages to keep the then current price tag of 10 cents. This brought on the impression that comic books were "cheap" by definition, and neglected the fact that a dime was a lot of money at one time (steak & eggs cost 35 cents). This presented the image that comic books were just for kids. It also made the product increasingly less viable for retail merchants to stock. Why take up the same shelf space, when a higher priced magazine would do more nicely. Again the perceived value of the comic book was loosing credibility.

Then as the 1950s rolled around, an individual by the name of Dr. Frederick Wertham, published a book entitled "Seduction of the Innocents". Through the use of unscientific research and assumptions, he stated that all the nation's ills were directly related to kids reading comic books (ah hmm, what?). Central to his thesis, was the misassumption that comic books were strictly for kids. The more adult material, it was irrationally assumed, was aimed at our sweet, na