Banning of Comics, Safety Precaution or Violation of Rights

Banning of Comics, Safety Precaution or Violation of Rights                                         Carrasco -1

For decades comic books have been seen as vulgar and given an unimpressionable appearance. Since the 1950’s, various groups and organizations have been trying to influence the general public like The Anti-Comics Crusade. 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 con 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).

 Since then, advocate groups have been rising in order to stop the lasting impact of Dr. Wertham. One in particular is the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, A.K.A. the CBLDF. They have been fighting since 1986 to end what Wertham and his colleagues have established that alienates the First Amendment rights that comics have. The result of their 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 are 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 had been able to find error in comics in other themes than violence. One of the first accusations that the CCA had 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 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 had 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. Lee states that the CCA rejected his book because the puffs of smoke in his panels were too alluring and 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 Ammendment. 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 is making something is in fact a censorship of the opinion of someone into a governed censorship.(Hajdu)  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”)