Breaking The Comics Code: What Went Wrong?

“For The Children.”

These three words have ruined industries, restricted advancements, and until recently restricted entertainment. Although that last one is debatable. I’ll get to that. Over the past few installments I looked at the individual tenants of the Comic Code and which rules were rather silly and which kind of worked…had the Code been about kid-friendly comics. But it wasn’t.

There should be multiple kinds of comics for every genre taste and age group, just like every other media type. While comics were forced to adopt standards that were good for kids comics, other forces pressured distributors to not sell comics without the Code. Thus comics for older readers, people who would buy horror or romance comics, were left behind. It’s this insistence that comics were only for kids that older readers of yesterday, who have become creators today, have fought back, so that titles that used to be kid-friendly aren’t today.

I didn’t start this article series to condone or condemn the Comics Code. There is something in between overly restrictive and protecting the children. In the previous installments I have gone over the Code itself, going over things that make sense from their point of view…that comics are for kids only and nothing there should be bad for kids because adults only read novels and magazines. It’s like they thought comics were a form of illustrated storybook. This may explain what went wrong with the Authority and with the Code itself.

“Hey, when Nixon asks you to OD your character, he shoots up!” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’ve already discussed one of the major screw-ups by the Authority, where they were too strict. In 1971 the Department Of Health, Education, And Welfare went to Marvel and requested an anti-drug story. Not a PSA comic but a regular story to show kids the dangers of drug use. In a three-part story, Harry turns to drug use after being rejected by Mary Jane (who thanks to her daddy issues wasn’t able to settle down and I am about to go into a rant about the Spider-Marriage so I’m moving on) and I’m assuming his long-standing distant relationship with his father. He overdoses and nearly dies. This should have been a good comic to promote anti-drug use.

But the Comics Code Authority rejected it because it depicted drug use. Maybe it was revised by the version I’ve been using (I haven’t been able to find both versions of the Code) but it shouldn’t have led to the storyline’s rejection. Nothing in the version I have discusses drug use, although you can’t advertise alcohol and tobacco. Maybe it was an earlier version because in an interview in 1998. Lee discussed the issue. From Wikipedia:

I could understand them; they were like lawyers, people who take things literally and technically. The Code mentioned that you mustn’t mention drugs and, according to their rules, they were right. So I didn’t even get mad at them then. I said, ‘Screw it’ and just took the Code seal off for those three issues. Then we went back to the Code again. I never thought about the Code when I was writing a story, because basically I never wanted to do anything that was to my mind too violent or too sexy. I was aware that young people were reading these books, and had there not been a Code, I don’t think that I would have done the stories any differently.^[3]

This event led to the Code not being as strict and DC followed suit…by turning Speedy into a drug addict, which feels more like they were trying to compete and up the ante against Marvel than actually join the anti-drug campaign. Harry already had major issues. Was Speedy screwed up before Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85? According to Wikipedia Dennis O’Neil had wanted to do this story before Stan Lee was approached for what became Harry’s downfall and chose Speedy for maximum emotional effect but I’m still not into it, in part because of what they did to Speedy later because of it. Then again, O’Neil had wanted a better ending and Neil Adams (if I’m reading this right) went over his head with an ending that wasn’t as satisfactory, probably ruining Oliver and Roy’s relationship in the long run.

It kind of resembles a bullseye.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another example of the Code being too strict was when EC Comics tried to reprint an old anti-racism story from the pre-code 1953 story “Judgement Day”. SFDebris reviewed the comic and it’s impact during a review of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Far Beyond The Stars” (it’s the second video). In it a man is being shown a robotic society looking to get into the Galactic Republic. However, some robots are built in a different color and looked down upon. The man decides they shouldn’t be part of the Republic just yet, but they have potential just as Earth once did. And he should know because he’s black.

When they tried to reprint the story three years later, Judge Charles Murphy wouldn’t approve it because of a black lead. The Code said that people of color should not be shown negatively…despite all the racially insensitive depictions of black people in comics even around that time. And here was a positive depiction of a society where skin color no longer mattered years before Star Trek. A lawsuit that would have exposed the reason for the denial was threatened by EC and Murphy relented. From Wikipedia:

Murphy demanded, without any authority in the Code, that the black astronaut had to be removed. As Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives:

This really made ’em go bananas in the Code czar’s office. ‘Judge Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us’, recalls [EC editor] Feldstein. ‘I went in there with this story and Murphy says, “It can’t be a Black man”. But … but that’s the whole point of the story!’ Feldstein sputtered. When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line. ‘Listen’, he told Murphy, ‘you’ve been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business’. [Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he bellowed. ‘I’m going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I’ll sue you’. Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession. ‘All right. Just take off the beads of sweat’. At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic. ‘$%#% you!’ they shouted into the telephone in unison. Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.^[18]

Feldstein, interviewed for the book Tales of Terror: The EC Companion, reiterated his recollection of Murphy making the request:

So he said it can’t be a Black [person]. So I said, ‘For God’s sakes, Judge Murphy, that’s the whole point of the G–damn story!’ So he said, ‘No, it can’t be a Black’. Bill [Gaines] just called him up [later] and raised the roof, and finally they said, ‘Well, you gotta take the perspiration off’. I had the stars glistening in the perspiration on his Black skin. Bill said, ‘$%#% you’, and he hung up.^[19]

The censor actually said it was okay if the door blocks the body.

So the Code got a bit lenient after the anti-drug story. Maybe too much so. By the 90s we have the other famous one. I’ve brought it up so many times (including the Green Lantern review on Monday) that I’m not sure I should bother bringing it up here except to note that enforcement of the code was all over the place. They once rejected a comic because of the use of “wolfman” in the credits. In a comic written by Marv Wolfman, a line about a story having been told by a wolfman being a bit of meta humor. The Code also underwent minor revisions as society changed, such as no depiction of homosexuality altered to not depict homosexuals badly. You know, like every other media where all gay men were “fabulous” and lesbians didn’t seem to exist at all. This started to whittle away their power. Violence started to be more and more accepted but a masturbation reference in a comic with decapitation (which happened in an Elvira comic) was not Code-friendly.

Another source of their eventual end could be from the “underground” comics. Before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started the “independent comics boom” underground comics were making their way to more unconventional locations, giving older readers comics to read again but at least from what I know about them they also tended to be more pornographic and pro-recreational drug use, and being graphically violent only to be graphically violent. Obviously not for kids but if you’re not into those views you might not enjoy those comics. The rise of indie comics in the late 80s offered a better alternative, as the story was more important than being subversive but still offered older readers who wanted more mature themes a chance to have something to read.

But mostly it was that comics were getting tired of the CCA’s garbage. Marvel was the first to drop the code in favor of their own ratings system. DC would follow suit after smaller publishers followed, Archie comics being the last to drop the Code label. But are we better off without the code? Maybe. While I don’t buy that the Code restricted creativity (in fact it may have forced creative ways to get around it) it did restrict the kinds of stories that could be told and thanks to outside pressure you couldn’t sell your comic without the seal because distributors were afraid to sell it until the rise of comic stores and bookstores willing to sell collected editions of comics. However, it really comes down to attempts to shut down EC and a narrow view that comics were only for children. Had the system been “please don’t sell comics to kids without the seal” it would have been fine. Parents would know this comic is safe for their kids while older readers could still enjoy it. Personally I wish all media would adopt the MPAA rating system, but music just has the one label for explicit music while TV has a ratings system I still can’t understand and video games has one only gamers understand. The MPAA’s system is one everybody knows and the best one to go with in my opinion.

I had thought this would be the last installment of this series, but as I was going back through the previous installment I decided to make one last article as a bit of fun. How would I have reworked the Comics Code? Next month I will answer that question.