Ding Dong, the wicked code is dead!

[Rob Allen]

I can see that not being in conflict with the original Comic Code. At the very least, it's borderline.

You didn't see it on TV back then.

[The Darknight Detective]

You didn't see it on TV back then.

This is true, Rob.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Here's another one that's a bit daring for kid's comics in 1971.

[The Darknight Detective]

Here's another one that's a bit daring for kid's comics in 1971.

1971 was the year the Silver Age officially ended. Comic book publishers took advantage of the revised Comic Code and only picked up steam throughout the Bronze Age.

[dupersuper]

Not completely sure what year this is. I think possibly it was honestly assumed that the Betty and Veronica reader was generally a girl, so there was more leeway for things like this. Anyway, just posting to prove I'm not crazy and confusing my adolescent Betty and Veronica fantasies for reality.

It makes her feel tingly...and that makes Veronica uncomfortable...

[stelok]

Censorship is an infringement on the freedom of expression, of speech and of press.

U.S. Congress or CCA should not have meddled with the comic book industry in the name of morals and ethics.

[The Darknight Detective]

U.S. Congress or CCA should not have meddled with the comic book industry in the name of morals and ethics.

Agree with you concerning the government (which censorship really applies to anyway), but we all censor ourselves to some extent in our lives.

Having said that, the CCA was forced upon the industry, so that can be considered censorship. It's not like the Hays Office for motion pictures, which I believe (could be wrong) didn't involve any coercion upon the film companies.

[MDG]

Having said that, the CCA was forced upon the industry, so that can be considered censorship. It's not like the Hays Office for motion pictures, which I believe (could be wrong) didn't involve any coercion upon the film companies.

The intent of the Hays Office and the CCA were really to assure exhibitors/retailers that they could do business without worrying about local state or civic or whatever organizations closing them down. Before the hays office, each state (or even cities) would cut movies as they saw fit; in the 50s, states and locatlities were starting to look at legislating comic sales (or at least lean on stores to stop them selling comics).

But a (studio) film wouldn't get into theatres without code approval--just like a comic wouldn't get on the stands.

[The Darknight Detective]

The intent of the Hays Office and the CCA were really to assure exhibitors/retailers that they could do business without worrying about local state or civic or whatever organizations closing them down. Before the hays office, each state (or even cities) would cut movies as they saw fit; in the 50s, states and locatlities were starting to look at legislating comic sales (or at least lean on stores to stop them selling comics).

But a (studio) film wouldn't get into theatres without code approval--just like a comic wouldn't get on the stands.

So they were both created for the same reasons then. Interesting.

Thanks, MDG!

[Shawn Hopkins]

Okay, I bought a big load of Archie comics this weekend and I found two examples of more relaxed attitudes to states of undress in humor comics. Both solidly Silver Age and before the 1971 Code change, both featuring girl next door Betty Cooper.

http://www.comics.org/issue/221885/



The first is from Betty and Me 25 from Dec. 1969. It's an Al Hartley story about Betty freaking out over a pimple. She discovers the pimple in the bathroom, in her underwear. It's kind of like a nightshirt and some frilly bloomers. I wish I had a scanner, the first panel is pretty funny with her doing a big Archie take in front of the mirror, literally off the floor with her butt sticking out. Most of the rest of her story is her thrashing on her bed, still in her underwear, as her parents think something is seriously medically wrong with her.

http://www.comics.org/issue/221887/



And the second is from Betty and Me 27 from April 1970, a story called "That's the Breaks" by Dan DeCarlo. Betty is invited to ice skate with Archie so she comes home and, while telling her mother about how great Archie is, strips so she can get into her skating costume. The outfit she takes off is like a full body leotard with a red dress over it. There's one panel of her taking the dress over her head an just in the leotard, and there's one panel of her in her skirt and bra, about to put her sweater on. It looks a lot like a DeCarlo panel I saw in a pre-Code issue of "My Friend Irma," just a casual "Oh, I'm just putting on clothes as I talk" scene to inject a little steam into a story.

And there you go, the mystery of Silver Age nudity in humor comics solved.

[The Darknight Detective]

Okay, I bought a big load of Archie comics this weekend and I found two examples of more relaxed attitudes to states of undress in humor comics. Both solidly Silver Age and before the 1971 Code change, both featuring girl next door Betty Cooper.

http://www.comics.org/issue/221885/



The first is from Betty and Me 25 from Dec. 1969. It's an Al Hartley story about Betty freaking out over a pimple. She discovers the pimple in the bathroom, in her underwear. It's kind of like a nightshirt and some frilly bloomers. I wish I had a scanner, the first panel is pretty funny with her doing a big Archie take in front of the mirror, literally off the floor with her butt sticking out. Most of the rest of her story is her thrashing on her bed, still in her underwear, as her parents think something is seriously medically wrong with her.

http://www.comics.org/issue/221887/



And the second is from Betty and Me 27 from April 1970, a story called "That's the Breaks" by Dan DeCarlo. Betty is invited to ice skate with Archie so she comes home and, while telling her mother about how great Archie is, strips so she can get into her skating costume. The outfit she takes off is like a full body leotard with a red dress over it. There's one panel of her taking the dress over her head an just in the leotard, and there's one panel of her in her skirt and bra, about to put her sweater on. It looks a lot like a DeCarlo panel I saw in a pre-Code issue of "My Little Margie," just a casual "Oh, I'm just putting on clothes as I talk" scene to inject a little steam into a story.

And there you go, the mystery of Silver Age nudity in humor comics solved.

The first story might have passed muster under the Code (need to see it first to be sure), but the second one definitely was in conflict with the CCA. Maybe they got away with it due to the cartoony nature of the animation (though that never stopped me from thinking Betty was still hot ).

Thanks for researching this, Shawn!

[Joey Deadcat]

It makes her feel tingly...and that makes Veronica uncomfortable...

That Sabrina cover and those Betty and Veronica panels just lend themselves to all sorts of in-new-enders...!

[Lorendiac]

I know the code was horribly misguided, but it might have saved comics.nif not for the code, would there have been an act of congress that would have had far reaching unforeseen effects not just in comics, but in all entertainment? Would South Park or Grand Theft Auto have been a reality if a law had been passed banning violence and vulgarity from comics before comics and cartoons had been marketed at a strictly adult audience, and before video games even existed?

You reminded me of Frank Miller's once-notorious
keynote speech at the Diamond Comic Distributors Retailers Seminar in 1994.

Here's an excerpt in which he talks about what actually happened in the 50s when Congress probed into the comic book industry:

Misconceptions. Here's a whopper. One that has cost us dearly. The dreaded 1950s. Fredric Wertham. The outside world.
It seems a week doesn't go by where I don't sit down with my Comics Buyer's Guide and read about somebody, somewhere, fretting about the almighty outside world and how it is bound to notice our adventures are getting more adventurous. Nobody's come after us in any big way, but there's a little bit of the stink of censorship in the air, isn't there? There's all this noise about Janet Reno and Paul Simon and Beavis and Butthead, isn't there? And we all know what happened last time, don't we? In the 'fifties, with Fredric Wertham and the Senate hearings. They shut us down, didn't they?

The outside world went and noticed us. The United States Senate held hearings and decided comic books caused juvenile delinquency, right? So we had to institute the Comics Code, right? Our backs were against the wall, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. They didn't. The Senate vindicated us. Fredric Wertham failed.

This is how screwy our sense of our own history is. Most people in comics don't realize that the Senate vindicated us. After due consideration, the United States Senate decided comic books were not a cause of juvenile delinquency. We were vindicated.

Why, then, the Comics Code? Abject cowardice, maybe? Maybe partly, but not entirely.

He then goes on to argue that the primary purpose of the Comics Code was to drive EC out of business. Other comics publishers (he says) couldn't compete with it on a level playing field, so they banded together to create a bunch of rules specifically meant to force Bill Gaines to stop publishing the lurid crime and horror titles which seemed to be exactly what the masses wanted to read! Congress, on the other hand, was already losing interest in the whole thing.

That's Miller's take on it, anyway. I don't know if his interpretation is strictly accurate, but it sure is interesting!

[MDG]

He then goes on to argue that the primary purpose of the Comics Code was to drive EC out of business. Other comics publishers (he says) couldn't compete with it on a level playing field, so they banded together to create a bunch of rules specifically meant to force Bill Gaines to stop publishing the lurid crime and horror titles which seemed to be exactly what the masses wanted to read! Congress, on the other hand, was already losing interest in the whole thing.

I don't disagree that the big NY publishers instituted the code to avoid ordinances against comics at the local level and to comfort distributors and retailers. But EC was pretty small potatoes--at their height, they only put out about a dozen bi-monthly books where others were flooding the market.

[Lorendiac]

I don't disagree that the big NY publishers instituted the code to avoid ordinances against comics at the local level and to comfort distributors and retailers. But EC was pretty small potatoes--at their height, they only put out about a dozen bi-monthly books where others were flooding the market.

Frankly, I have no idea what anybody's sales figures were, compared to anybody else's, in that era. Neither in terms of how well any individual title was doing, nor in terms of how much loot any given publishing company was raking in as its grand total, month after month. So I certainly don't know if EC was making enough to make Archie and DC, for instance, feel terribly threatened.

That's one of the reasons I said I wasn't sure how accurate Miller's take on the thinking behind the original wording of the Comics Code might be.