One other thing comes to mind here. It’s the 1950’s comic book panic. As one author noted “Countless religious and patriotic organizations organized book burnings to set comics aflame, and leading politicians held congressional hearings where William Gaines, the owner of EC Comics, publisher of the gory Tales From the Crypt and the satiric Mad comic book (later retooled as a magazine),was grilled as if he were a mobster.”
While one can argue definite differences there is a certain c’est plus ca change thing going on here.