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Stumbled across this rather fascinating Radio 4 documentary about an incident that occurred in Glasgow in 1954: hundreds of children aged 4 to 14 swarmed one of Glasgow's cemeteries, armed with stakes and knives, hunting a vampire that they claimed had eaten two local boys. (No local boys were in fact missing.) American horror comics were blamed, and Britain instituted new censorship laws.
And here I thought that flash mobs and fast-spreading false memes were a product of the internet era.
I did get a chuckle out of the fact that the blurb on the iPlayer site lists Astounding Stories (better known to modern readers as Analog) as an "American Horror comic". I'm fully willing to believe that Astounding was more lurid back in 1954, but I don't think it ever printed "horror", nor was it a comic.
And here I thought that flash mobs and fast-spreading false memes were a product of the internet era.
I did get a chuckle out of the fact that the blurb on the iPlayer site lists Astounding Stories (better known to modern readers as Analog) as an "American Horror comic". I'm fully willing to believe that Astounding was more lurid back in 1954, but I don't think it ever printed "horror", nor was it a comic.
