The
Association of Comics Magazine Publishers (
ACMP) was an
American industry trade group formed in May 1947 and publicly announced on July 1, 1948, to regulate the content of
comic books in the face of public criticism during this time. Founding members included publishers Phil Keenan of
Hillman Periodicals, Leverett Gleason of
Lev Gleason Publications,
Bill Gaines of
EC Comics, Harold Moore (publisher of
Famous Funnies) and
Rae Herman of
Orbit Publications, as well as distributors Frank Armer and Irving Manheimer.
George T. Delacorte, Jr., founder of
Dell Publishing, which included
Dell Comics, served as president, and
Manhattan attorney Henry E. Schultz, president of the board of
Queens College and a member of the
New York City Board of Higher Education, as executive director. The ACMP was formed after "accusations from several fronts charged comic books with contributing to the rising rates of
juvenile delinquency", and city and county ordinances had banned some publications though these were effectively overturned with a March 29, 1948,
United States Supreme Court ruling that a 64-year-old
New York State law outlawing publications with "pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime" was unconstitutional. Regardless, the uproar increased upon the publication of two articles "Horror in the Nursery", by
Judith Crist, in the March 25, 1948, issue
Collier's Weekly, based upon the symposium "Psychopathology of Comic Books" held a week earlier by
psychiatrist Fredric Wertham; and Wertham's own features "The Comics ... Very Funny!" in the May 29, 1948, issue of
The Saturday Review of Literature. and “The Psychopathology of Comic Books” in the
American Journal of Psychotherapy, which stated that comic books were "abnormally sexually aggressive" and led to crime. Tiny
Spencer,
West Virginia held a
comic-book burning on October 26, 1948; after the
Associated Press reported on this, copycat comic-book burnings followed around the country, particularity in
Catholic parishes.