John L. Goldwater

John Leonard Goldwater February 14, 1916 – February 26, 1999) co-founded (with Maurice Coyne and Louis Silberkleit) MLJ Comics (later known as Archie Comics), and served as editor and co-publisher for many years. In the mid-1950s he was a key proponent and custodian of the comic book censorship guidelines known as the Comics Code Authority.

Biography

Early life and career Goldwater was born in East Harlem, New York on February 14, 1916, to Jewish parents. "His mother died giving birth to him... and his father succumbed to grief, abandoning his baby and dying soon afterward," leaving the orphaned John to be raised by a foster mother, Rose Ettinger. leaving "New York, hopping freight trains and bumming rides to the Midwest, where he worked for a time in Hiawatha, Kansas as a news reporter. Assigned to school sports, he hung around with football teams, meeting the players and the girls they attracted, who would later supply him with ample comic material."

A few years later, "he continued west to the Grand Canyon, where he worked at a lodge," from which he was dismissed for "socializing with the female help." His employers paid for him to travel to San Francisco, where he saved enough money (again working as a reporter) to travel by ship back to New York. Finding success in his venture, Goldwater was soon joined by Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne to form their own publishing venture MLJ Comics (named after the first initial of each of the three individuals).

Success The success of the Archie line of comics, thought Goldwater, was because "[Archie is] basically a square, but in my opinion the squares are the backbone of America... [and] strong families."

The Comics Code

In 1954, with a public outcry against comics building on Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent and the Estes Kefauver-led United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings, Goldwater helped found the "Comics Magazine Association of America, whose Comics Code Authority persuaded magazines to voluntarily weed out offensive copy as well as ads for guns, knives and war weapons."

Other roles Goldwater also found time to serve as president of the New York Society for the Deaf, and was actively involved as a national commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, for "more than 50 years." Donations in his honor to the Anti-Defamation League were invited.