Irvin Kershner directed an anti-comics doc before EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Irvin Kershner directed an anti-comics documentary before helming The Empire Strikes Back. Before making it big in Hollywood, Kershner worked at KTTV, an L.A. TV station, as a staff TV director. He was given an assignment with L.A. Times reporter Paul Coates for a 1955 expose of crime and horror comics. According to research of the time done by Senator Estes Kefauver who said they are "very upsetting, it has a bad moral effect and that it is directly responsible for a substantial amount of juvenile delinquency and child crime."

Comic book artist Ellis Eringer makes the claim that the trend toward darker comics "first started as a science fiction kind of a weird thriller," but since there's also a sequence that shows kids reading comics and then rising up to torture one of their friends, we don't feel much like trusting what anyone has to say here. But we think you'll still find it entertaining in a weird, retro "what were they thinking?" kind of way.

I always find these type of docs humorous. This one is especially funny seeing as how Kershner gained success from Empire. Watch the full documentary below: