Premise Carrasco
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For decades comic books have been seen as vulgar
and given an unimpressionable appearance. Since the 1950’s, various groups, like
the Anti-Comics Crusade and other, organizations have been trying to influence
the general public on the Dangers of comic books. However, Psychologist,
Fredrick Wertham had made a definite name for Himself by writing the novel “Seduction
of the innocent. After Studying Juvenile delinquents, he came to the conclusion
that comic books were a prime influence on the children’s misbehaving antics.
(Colville) Since then he has had a permanent and lasting impact on comic books
everywhere, from being a Prime Advocate of the Comics Crusade, to influencing
comic book burnings such as the “Time” documented Binghamton Burning (Segri).
The Works of Dr. Wertham and other anti-comic
leader are a violation of citizen’s right to freedom of speech and press. Since
then, various groups and organizations have arrived to defend the first
amendment rights that citizens have. One in particular, is the Comic Book Legal
Defense Fund, A.K.A. a comic rights group established in 1986.
The result of the CBLDF’s efforts has resulted in
the Abandonment of Comic’s Code Authority in 2001. Although their departure was
slow and gradual through the 2000’s, there has been no apparent statement or
reason as to why they disbanded. Their abandonment could be a result of being
proven that censoring comics is a violation of the first amendment rights that
United States citizens have, and that limiting the content of comics and their
adaptations ultimately prove unsuccessful with modern comic readers.
Since the late 1940’s, Particularly after World
War II , comics had taken a turn out of propaganda to fight the Nazi’s, to
fighting Super villains and more light hearted themes to ease tensions from the
war. However, the CCA have been able to find error in comics in other themes
than violence. One of the first accusations that the CCA have been able to
point out was the rather famous accusations of Batman and Robin having a
homosexual relationship. Accusations like these were made pretty clear to the
CCA, and at one point they went after the Batman comics.(Crusade) However,
these groups, although not present, were able to turn a blind eye to the issue
of “Superman No.17.” In this issue, we see superman train U.S. soldiers to go
and barricade German lines and eventually Superman made Adolf Hitler take quite
a beating. Now, there is no documentation of any organization or group taking a
stand against this act of violence. Could this just be because of the hype that
the propaganda of the war has caused? Even more so, the CCA had been focusing
on taking the blame for small things that they had notice that may or may have
not been influence on youth readers
In a panel at San Diego Comicon in
2010, Stan Lee, creator of Marvel Comics, shared a certain situation where he
believed that the CCA was being unreasonable with their rejections on comic
books. He said that the only time he ever had a serious issue with the CCA was
when they rejected one of his pages for making smoking too alluring. In one
panel of a comic he wrote, Lee depicts a cowboy smoking and leaving a solid
ring like puff of smoke. The CCA noted him that the puffs of smoke were
alluring and too distinct. They refused to publish his cowboy western comic
without dimming the smoke down. (Lee)
All these examples fail to recognize that we
have a right to freedom of speech and press. Americans have every right to
create a comic that can be as violent and vulgar as needed and should be able
to feel protected by this amendment. According to David Hajdu, writer of “The
Ten Cent Plague”, “The Self regulations imposed on comics in the 1950’s was
secretly self-censorship”. In other words, Publications like the comic code
authority are making something is in fact a censorship of the opinion of
someone into a governed censorship.(Hajdu)
During the 1950’s Horror Comics were the
highest genre in banned comics and one of the highest selling too, selling a
quarter of 80 million graphic novels, publication. Of these comics, one had
seemed to violate 3 main points of the comic code authority in a major
capacity. The Story had featured a vulture psycho-killer romance story of a
grave digger who falls in love with a woman, kills her and then rapes her corpse.
(“Press”) The comic displayed unique methods of crime, showed scenes of
excessive violence and brutal torcher and showed lurid, unsavory, gruesome
images. (“Code”) Each of these examples violated the General standards to the
comic’s code authority, and received negative reactions amongst protesters and
even congressional investigation in Horror Comics.
However, the lasting impact of the more
serious and gruesome comics have ultimately played a bigger role in getting a
larger crowd of comic readers to buy comics. Christopher Noland’s rendition of
America’s caped crusader, Batman, had proven to not only gross highly in the
box office, but spawn an outpour in comic purchases. Immediately after the
movie the dark knight, comics sales rose to a staggering $429 million dollars
in sales. This created a desire for more serious and gruesome batman stories
instead of the campy tone of batman used. (“Clash”)
Although comics can occasionally be
explicit, it is really up to the readers to determine a comic books stay in
comic stands. No organization should ever intervene with the press rights that
comics have according to our First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
