I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are a number of states, states that are supposed to be united, that are banning books right now-comics and graphic novels included. If you HAVE noticed, hopefully it’s got your cankles wrankled. The idea that the government can put its hands over your eyes, ears, or mouth is pretty anathema if you actually read the constitution. This current crop of governmental vegetables keeping you safe from Maus or Jason Aaron’s Avengers?! keep flashing back to the glory days of the 1950’s. They’d have loved the chance to go after publishers like William Gaines at EC Comics. They’d be too late of course, because those hearings already happened. Yes, surprise! Congress went after comics, successfully.
“I’m ready for to take on Congress.”
In the 1950s, the United States Congress held a series of hearings on the perceived negative influence of comic books on young people. These hearings were held by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency and were prompted by concerns about the increasing popularity of horror and crime comic books, which were seen as promoting violence and immorality. That’s where both the E and the C come in.
EC Comics was a major publisher of comic books in the United States during the 1950s. The company was known for producing a wide range of titles, including horror, crime, and science fiction comics. EC Comics was founded by William Gaines and was headquartered in New York City.
“William Gaines, twenty minutes after Congressional questioning starts”
EC Comics was a controversial publisher, and its titles were often at the center of debates about the potential negative influence of comic books on young people. In 1954, the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency held a series of hearings on the perceived negative influence of comic books on young people. Many of the experts who testified at the hearings focused on EC Comics and its titles as examples of the types of content that were causing concern. It doesn’t take much to think that a title like Tales From The Crypt would be an easy target to point at if your child is “out of line”, a much easier target than that face staring back at some parent in their bathroom every morning.
The hearings featured testimony from a variety of experts, including psychologists, educators, and law enforcement officials, as well as from comic book publishers and industry representatives. The subcommittee also heard from young people who had read comic books, as well as from parents and other concerned members of the public. “Why yes representative, it was comics what done made me the delinquent I am today, what with all my roughhousing and such. Fellers my age never did scrap nor tussle ‘til there was a man what could fly.”
The hearings were widely covered by the media and generated a significant amount of public attention. Many people were concerned about the potential negative impact of comic books on children and were eager to find a solution to the problem, whether a problem existed or didn’t. One of the main points of contention at the hearings was the question of whether or not comic books were responsible for promoting delinquent behavior in young people.
Some experts argued that comic books had a harmful influence on children, while others argued that there was no evidence to support this claim. We’ve heard these sorts of claims for decades, attached to a variety of entertainment options- movies, TV, video games. There is never a shortage of people who know better than you do what is safe for you to consume. But in situations like these, the evidence never needs be more than someone in authority saying “I know this to be true” for opinions to be proof, and proof to become actionable.
As a result of the hearings, the Comics Magazine Association of America, a trade group representing the major comic book publishers in the United States, formed the Comics Code Authority (CCA) in 1954. The CCA established a set of guidelines that comic book publishers were expected to follow in order to avoid negative publicity and government censorship.
The Comics Code Authority (CCA) was a censorship organization that was created in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association of America. The CCA was established in response to public outrage over the content of some comics, which were perceived as promoting crime, violence, and other inappropriate themes. The CCA developed a code of conduct for comics publishers, which outlined the types of content that were considered acceptable and unacceptable in comics.
“William Gaines, Congressional testimony day 3.”
The CCA code included strict guidelines on topics such as crime, horror, sexuality, and language. For example, comics were not allowed to depict “excessive violence,” “sympathy for the criminal,” or “incidents of torture.” The code also prohibited the depiction of “sex perversion,” “sexual abnormalities,” and “suggestive and salacious illustration.” In addition, the code required that all comics include a disclaimer stating that they were “approved by the Comics Code Authority.”
EC was one of the publishers that was most affected by the CCA’s guidelines. The company was known for pushing the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in comic books, and many of its titles were rejected by the CCA. In order to continue publishing, EC Comics was forced to self-censor its material and make significant changes to its titles in order to meet the CCA’s standards. There’s a reason the many reprinted versions all end after a few volumes- EC stopped publishing their bread and butter in 1956, leaving only one title left: Mad Magazine. Ah, Mad. The little humor magazine that could, skewering just the sort of people who would hold hearings over comics, and giving William Gaines a small chuckle, if not the last laugh.
“What, me testify?”
Here’s hoping we have enough people looking backwards at events like this to get some firm lines in the sand, because I’ll be an unhappy web-head if I’m hearing that people have to travel out of states to read Spider-Man. Let’s move government out of our bookshelves and back into our bedrooms where it belongs. (Hey, wait a tic…) Like the 50’s, what these specific state operatives are hoping to do is get towns, schools, and libraries to censor themselves, just like comics did with the CCA, and they’re having a great deal of success with that plan.
If you’d like to see what all the fuss was about with those EC titles, there are excellent, affordable reprints being published by Dark Horse Comics, available through all Graham Crackers locations. You’ll read some excellent books, but are unlikely to find anything remotely controversial.