From: [s--er--n] at [aludra.usc.edu] (Aaron Michael Severson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Isn't the CCA censorship?
Date: 8 Aug 1993 13:12:38 -0700

Silly me, I thought the history of the 50s censorship movement, Frederic
Wertham, the Senate Hearings, Bill Gaines, and the rise of the Comics
Code Authority was to comics fans as the stories of Moses and Jonah
are to Christians...

Side note:  anybody know whatever happened to planned reprintings of
SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT?  I'd heard a while ago that Eclipse was planning
a new edition, but nothing's come of it.

The basic outline:  in the early fifties, pop psychology began to latch
onto comic books as a cause of juvenile delinquency and youthful rebellion.
The trend culminated in psychiatrist Frederic Wertham's sensationalistic
1954 book, SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT.

Wertham's book pointed to the violence and lurid immorality of comic books
as a primary cause of delinquency.  His primary target was the EC horror
comics line, published by Bill Gaines, who had inherited EC from his father,
pioneer M.C. Gaines, with its graphic violence and horror (Seduction of
the Innocent includes a plethora of excerpts).  

(Side note:  immediately after publication, Wertham declared that he was
not singling out EC exclusively.  To confuse the issue, his publisher
sent agents out to bookstores to remove the book's bibliography with
razor blades.  Untampered-with versions are valuable items today).

Aside from violence and sex, Wertham attacked what he saw as homoeroticism
in superhero comics.  His primary targets were Batman and Robin, and
Wonder Woman.  He claimed that the relationship between Bruce Wayne and
Dick Grayson represented a homosexual wish dream, and that Wonder Woman
was "a morbid ideal" who would lead little girls down the bitter road to
lesbianism.  (Incidentally, the early years of Wonder Woman are indeed
notable for a rather high degree of bondage and general kinkiness).  He
was hard on female characters in comics, particularly, claiming that 
they encouraged little girls to defy their necessary roles as wives-
and mothers- to be.  

Wertham did not create this craze, but like Tipper Gore in the 80s with
her rock censorship movement, became the most notable spokesman for
the issue.  This ultimately led in 54-55 to actual Senate hearings, not
unlike the McCarthyist HUAC hearings.  I don't have the materials handy
for a detailed account, but to make a long story short, most of the
leading publishers formed the Comics Code Authority to forestall actual
government intervention.  For those who pay attention, this is not
at all dissimilar to the recent run-ins between the television industry
and the FCC, or the creation of the MPAA (which rates movies) in the 30s --
the industry agreeing to censor itself rather than face outside censorship.

The only one to defy the CCA in the 50s was Bill Gaines, after a notorious
incident over a story Gaines published in one of his science fiction magazines.
The story wasabout an Earth astronaut who investigates a planet of robots
for possible admission to the Alliance of Planets (or something to that
effect) and rejects them because the orange robots discriminate against
the blue robots.  At the story's conclusion, the astronaut removes his
helmet, revealing him to be a black man.  The CCA demanded that Gaines
change the ending to make the astronaut white; he refused.  Gaines, facing
imminent blacklisting for his rebellion, cancelled his entire line,
except for MAD, which became a magazine, and thus immune to the censors.

I don't have a detailed list of the provisions of the Comics Code.  In
addition to prohibitions against the depictions of violence and sex,
it also forbade any display of drug use or abuse, profanity, certain
types of violence and weapons (no more decapitations), anti-authoritarian
sentiments (policemen being bribed and so forth), and to a certain degree,
"anti-family" sentiment -- divorce, adultery, incest, and the like.

Understand:  the Comics Code Authority is not a legal entity.  As I understand
it, it does not have and never did have the power to impose fines or 
jail sentences on those who defied it.  However, to defy the CCA in the 50s
and 60s was to earn the wrath of distributors and retailers.  In an
era before the rise of the direct market, where most comics were sold
through dime stores, grocery stores, and newstands, this was the kiss of
death.

In 1969, Marvel Comics defied the code again, with a story in Spiderman
(I believe it was 98-100, but my memory fails...) that depicted the use
of hallucinegens.  The CCA refused to approve the story unless the
drug use was removed.  Stan Lee published the issues without Code
approval, counting on the popularity of Marvel and of Spiderman to
carry it through.  Since then, the code's standards have relaxed
considerably, although the CCA does still exist.  I see here the ugly
little stamp on the cover of the latest DAREDEVIL...  However, publishers
now frequently publish without code approval, to no apparent ill effect.