Was this document drafted with good intentions? Or, a thinly veiled attempt to run the late William Gaines outta business? You decide....
The Evidence:
Standards of the Comics Code Authority Code For Editorial Matter
General Standards Part A:
1) Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.
2) No comics shall explicitly present the unique details and methods of a crime.
3) Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority.
4) If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.
5) Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates the desire for emulation.
6) In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.
7) Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited. Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gun play, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated.
8) No unique or unusual methods of concealing weapons shall be shown.
9) Instances of law enforcement officers dying as a result of a criminal's activities should be discouraged.
10) The crime of kidnapping shall never be portrayed in any detail, nor shall any profit accrue to the abductor or kidnapper. The criminal or the kidnapper must be punished in every case.
11) The letters of the word "crime" on a comics magazine shall never be appreciably greater than the other words contained in the title. The word "crime" shall never appear alone on a cover.
12) Restraint in the use of the word "crime" in titles or subtitles shall be exercised.
General Standards Part B:
1) No comic magazine shall use the word "horror" or "terror" in its title.
2) All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.
3) All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated.
4) Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or or shall be published only where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue and in no case shall evil be presented alluringly nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader.
5) Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.
General Standards Part C:
All elements or techniques not specifically mentioned herein, but which are contrary to the spirit and intent of the Code, and are considered violations of good taste or decency, shall be prohibited.
Dialogue:
1) Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.
2) Special precautions to avoid references to physical afflictions or deformities shall be taken.
3) Although slang and colloquialisms are acceptable, excessive use should be discouraged and wherever possible good grammar shall be employed.
Religion:
Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible.
Costume:
1) Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure.
2) Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable.
3) All characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society.
4) Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities.
NOTE: It should be recognized that all prohibitions dealing with costume, dialogue, or artwork applies as specifically to the cover of a comic magazine as they do to the contents.
Marriage and Sex:
1) Divorce shall not be treated humorously nor shall be represented as desirable.
2) Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at or portrayed. Violent love scenes as well as sexual abnormalities are unacceptable.
3) Respect for parents, the moral code, and for honorable behavior shall be fostered. A sympathetic understanding of the problems of love is not a license for moral distortion.
4) The treatment of love-romance stories shall emphasize the value of the home and the sanctity of marriage.
5) Passion or romantic interest shall never be treated in such a way as to stimulate the lower and baser emotions.
6) Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested.
7) Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden.
Code For Advertising Matter:
These regulations are applicable to all magazines published by members of the Comics Magazine Association of America, Inc. Good taste shall be the guiding principle in the acceptance of advertising.
1) Liquor and tobacco advertising is not acceptable.
2) Advertisement of sex or sex instructions books are unacceptable.
3) The sale of picture postcards, "pin-ups," "art studies," or any other reproduction of nude or semi-nude figures is prohibited.
4) Advertising for the sale of knives, concealable weapons, or realistic gun facsimiles is prohibited.
5) Advertising for the sale of fireworks is prohibited.
6) Advertising dealing with the sale of gambling equipment or printed matter dealing with gambling shall not be accepted.
7) Nudity with meretricious purpose and salacious postures shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product
8) To the best of his ability, each publisher shall ascertain that all statements made in advertisements conform to the fact and avoid misinterpretation.
9) Advertisement of medical, health, or toiletry products of questionable nature are to be rejected. Advertisements for medical, health or toiletry products endorsed by the American Medical Association, or the American Dental Association, shall be deemed acceptable if they conform with all other conditions of the Advertising Code.
My opinion? Gaines was a target...
His stuff was selling throught the roof. Other publishers were scared and Gaines was the most public of them all, because of the popularity of his product...plus, he was fairly outspoken and intelligent...and knew his rights, three traits that didn't go well with the then current Establishment...anybody who's seen footage of the Mccarthy hearings can vouch for that.
Wertham's book, SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT, was making waves (anybody who's read it can see that ol' Fredrich himself had some issues... ). He even goes in-depth on how not only comic books, but nearly any form of entertainment caused juvenile deliquency.....even sweet foods, like fucking ice cream. I couldn't make this shit up and not have it sound as hilarious...
I never realized the code was so extreme. Comics such as Lobo,Precher and Punisher could never be writen under the code and those are some of my favorite comics.
I recall Frank Miller discussing the Comics Code, that EC's titles, particularly their horror line, HAUNT OF FEAR, TALES FROM THE CRYPT, and VAULT OF HORROR, were runaway bestsellers that no other company at the time could possibly compete with. So the other publishers, with the restraints built into the Code, purposefully set out to ban the story elements that allowed EC's titles to exist and to dominate the market.
Such as :
Quote
General Standards Part B:
1) No comic magazine shall use the word "horror" or "terror" in its title.
2) All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.
and
Quote
General Standards Part A:
11) The letters of the word "crime" on a comics magazine shall never be appreciably greater than the other words contained in the title. The word "crime" shall never appear alone on a cover.
12) Restraint in the use of the word "crime" in titles or subtitles shall be exercised.
Banning those words from the very book titles wiped out EC's bestselling series VAULT OF HORROR and CRIME SUSPENSTORIES alone, and in their typical cover hype banned, pretty much shut down all five of EC's horror and suspense titles. EC made a great effort to conform and do truly innovative new stories and titles, but none of their "new direction" titles had any success. So they were pretty much left with the MAD comic as their only title still selling well.
So... yeah. Yeah, I think it was done maliciously. Pretty obviously.
And MAD switched from a comic book to a magazine format to escape any further censorship, in a magazine format no longer subject to the Comics Code. But the damage was already done from 1955-1957, the EC line was destroyed, and EC was down to one title. I think MAD magazine, despite having a great assembly of talent from the start, didn't fully take form and reach its peak until 1961-1962, with artists like Mort Drucker , Al Jaffee, Dave Berg and Don Martin, who gradually developed the style we know them for now. And then taking aboard other great talents like Paul Coker Jr., Antonio Prohias, Sergio Aragones, Norman Mingo, Kelly Freas, MAD reached perfection at that point, to take on and parody the wildly changing culture and politics of the 1960's, as only MAD could. Becoming an icon.
Also, in roughly the same early 1960's period wwhen MAD reached fruition, beginning in 1964, Jim Warren launched CREEPY and EERIE magazines, that revived horror in the EC tradition, and just like MAD in a black and white magazine format, Warren's horror magazines were able to operate outside the restraints of the Comics Code. With gorgeous Frank Frazetta covers on most of their early issues, and artists like Wood, Williamson, Crandall, Davis, Evans, Severin, Torres, Craig, Orlando, and Toth doing interior stories, the same ones who were among the most acclaimed on the EC horror line. After a pause of about 8 years, were now free to do the same kind of stories they were prevented from doing at EC under the Code.
In another wave after that, it was the EC line, and MAD, and the later Warren magazines, that inspired the creative freedom of the underground comics movement.
And then with editor Joe Orlando a few years later beginning in 1968, a similar revival of horror in comics at DC, in HOUSE OF MYSTERY, HOUSE OF SECRETS, WITCHING HOUR, GHOSTS, WEIRD WAR, WEIRD WESTERN, WEIRD MYSTERY, PLOP and many others.
And being no fools, the editors on the Marvel side also got in on the monster craze, first with reprint titles, and then with FEAR, GHOST RIDER, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, FRANKENSTEIN, MAN THING, MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE, SON OF SATAN and many others.
And for me, the ultimate vindication of EC came with the Wein/Wrightson SWAMP THING issues, that reached the highest acclaim, and swept the awards for all 3 years it ran from 1972-1974. And Wrightson's covers even looked like they could have been issues published by EC. Wrightson was very clear in interviews that his greatest inspiration was the EC horror line, particularly artist Graham Ingels. DC artist and editor Dick Giordano also said that the quality and creativity of the EC line was his inspiration as well, for his own work as an artist, and what he wanted to do with DC as managing editor.
So ultimately, the Comics Code didn't destroy that creative freedom in comics, it just re-directed that creativity. And suppressed, that creative EC energy still rose up through other formats, other publishers, and writers, artists and editors who either came directly from EC, or were inspired to continue the EC legacy.
Here's a History Channel clip showing Dennis O'Neil, Julius Schwartz and Neal Adams, with Adams explaining in 1971 how Adams initially proposed a drug-issue story for GREEN LANTERN (that ran in issues 85 and 86). That editor Schwartz initially rejected it as impossible to do because of the Comics Code. So Neal Adams walked over to the Marvel offices where John Romita was working on a drug story in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 96-98, that the Comics Code rejected, but Stan Lee ignored the CCA, and ran the story anyway, with no apparent backlash from anyone. So after that became known, Adams shared that outcome with editor Schwartz at DC, and O'Neil and Adams got the green light to go ahead with their own drug story.
The GREEN LANTERN 85-86 story was much better done, all the better for being done by an exceptional writer and an exceptional artist, and inker, who had already been working together for several years when taking on the project of doing a drug story. https://viewcomiconline.com/green-lantern-v2-085/
I feel what Neal Adams said was a bit misleading, that "a couple years later, the Comics Code Authority was gone". It remained on the covers of virtually every Marvel and DC title till into 2011. It could be argued that the Comics Code was less impactful after those two 1971 stories from Marvel and DC, but Comics Code approval or rejection was still a possible dealbreaker for getting a story published for at least 11 years after GREEN LANTERN 85 in 1971, and in the examples below, maybe another 20 years.
The last I heard of the Code still being a significant influence over comics publishing was a Frank Miller DAREDEVIL story about children getting high on "angel dust", originally slated for DAREDEVIL 167 (Nov 1980), but was not approved by the Code, and Marvel held it back and ran another story in 167 instead, and for almost 2 years after, debating a number of other ways to publish it (weighed by Dennis O'Neil as DAREDEVIL editor at that point, considered possibly running it in a Marvel black and white magazine, as a Marvel graphic novel, or as a Marvel direct-only comic). And finally O'Neil ran it as a 2-part story in 1982, in DAREDEVIL 183 and 184, to reach the widest young audience, that the drug awareness message was intended to reach when the story was first created. https://viewcomiconline.com/daredevil-1964-issue-183/
There were several other stories where Marvel and DC self-censored, either on their own, or possibly some potential fear of Comics Code rejection, such as with the "Dark Phoenix" final issue in X-MEN 137, or the death of Elecktra in DAREDEVIL 181. Or in DC setting up a ratings system in 1987 that caused Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Alan Moore, and Marv Wolfman to quit doing work for DC. The last I'm aware of is when Rick Veitch quit working for DC, that occurred after DC commissioned Veitch to do a story in his SWAMP THING run where Swamp Thing travels back through time 2,000 years and meets Christ during the crucifixion. But then then DC management, over apparent fear of media backlash, suddenly pulled the plug on the story, at which point Veitch quit both the series and DC. It would have been issue 88 in Sept 1989.
