Dr. Wertham was Right!

The sort of unofficial history of the Comics Code Authority is that after its enactment, the comic book industry moved to the direction of… well, something like this:

  Which…

DC Comics has been reprinting these items for the past few years in 500 page volumes.  Black and white news-print.  About what you’d want with these things — because, Really: do you need high quality reproductions of the Adventures of the Superhero team composed of  Super-Horse, Streaky, Krypto, and Super-Monkey?  Whatever else you can say about them, they probably beat their new iteration for DC Comics, post- Comics Code Authority… which… um…  Er?  Huh.

Maybe there’s just no real way to make these comics make any sense when your object is to release mass product issue after issue, with the Comics Code or without it.

And maybe the Code didn’t have any affect of superheroes, as witnessed 1946 Captain Marvel.

The Comics Code Authority is now the domain of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.  Which means they will now use it to ironic effect to in merchandise when such and such a municipality raids a comic book store for selling porn to adults.  It is interesting, because I half-suspected the Code had fallen into the realm of public domain, if only with the sort of parody intentions that the CBLDF is apt to use it.

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