page_title: Association of Comics Magazine Publishers
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Association of Comics Magazine Publishers / History
caption_attribution_description: Photo of comic book burning, ca. 1950
context_page_description: The Association of Comics Magazine Publishers was an American industry trade group formed in the late 1940s to regulate the content of comic books in the face of public criticism during that time. It was a precursor to the Comics Magazine Association of America, and the ACMP Publishers Code served as the template for a more detailed set of rules enforced by the CMAA's Comics Code Authority.
context_section_description: The ACMP was formed in May 1947 and publicly announced on July 1, 1948. Founding members included:
  Phil Keenan, publisher of Hillman Periodicals
  Leverett Gleason, publisher of Lev Gleason Publications
  Bill Gaines, publisher of EC Comics
  Harold Moore, publisher of Famous Funnies
  Rae Herman, publisher of Orbit Publications
  Frank Armer, distributor
  Irving Manheimer, distributor
  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 of Collier's Weekly, based upon the symposium "Psychopathology of Comic Books" held a week earlier by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham
  "The Comics ... Very Funny!", by Frederic Wertham, in the May 29, 1948, issue of The Saturday Review of Literature
  Spencer, West Virginia held a comic-book burning on October 26, 1948. After the Associated Press reported on it, copycat comic-book burnings followed around the country, particularity in Catholic parishes.
caption: Comic book burning, c. 1950
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