{"id":7475,"date":"2011-01-24T13:50:15","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T20:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=7475"},"modified":"2011-01-24T13:50:15","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T20:50:15","slug":"the-comics-code-authority-1954-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2011\/01\/24\/the-comics-code-authority-1954-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"The Comics Code Authority: 1954 — 2011."},"content":{"rendered":"

To much fun-fare and media attention, we got this<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0on September 8, 1954.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In reaction to, for instance, this<\/a>, a million “injuries to eyes” which profligated the comic book in the late 1940s and early 1950s — and had to be wiped out due to the massive epidemic of Juveniles injuring other kids’ eyes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Comics Code Authority is unveiled, and Code Administrator Charles Murphy shows its impact.\u00c2\u00a0 The character of Sarah Harper is given wrinkle cream and an amazing dentist.\u00c2\u00a0 Good taste abounds from here on out.<\/p>\n

New York Times headline for December 24, 1954:\u00c2\u00a0 NEW’ COMIC BOOKS TO BE OUT IN WEEK; First ‘Approved’ Issues Put More Clothing on Heroines and Tone Down Violence .\u00c2\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a perpetual issue, and sometimes very real.<\/p>\n

And on to:\u00c2\u00a0 Charles F Murphy, Administrator of the Comics Code Authority, will receive a citation for “outstanding contributions to cleaner literature” tomorrow at the sixteenth annual communion breakfast of the Hoy Name Society of blah blah Catholic Church Brooklyn.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is an anachronism, as evidenced here<\/a>, but I like following through on the history of anachronisms to its last dying deaths.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the comic book industry is something of an anacrhonism itself, and “you would be shocked at how low the circulation is” for just about any comic book.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Comic books ceased to be a mass medium\u00c2\u00a0at the advent of television.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00c2\u00a0re-adjusted to a lucrative and narrower market, focused on\u00c2\u00a0the superhero genre,\u00c2\u00a0and sales\u00c2\u00a0have generally declined from there, moving full scale into comic book stores\u00c2\u00a0and leaving the supermarket and convenience stores,\u00c2\u00a0before edging back into the book stores.<\/p>\n

The Comics Code Authority was not the death knell of the industry\u00c2\u00a0(artform?\u00c2\u00a0 medium?)\u00c2\u00a0— television was –, but I imagine probably pulled it through one moment in history to exist on some level.\u00c2\u00a0 Fifty-six years later, and to no fan-fare (there is a post at a Washington Post blog, and there is nothing at the New York Times), the Comics Code Authority is no more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s news that DC Comics was dropping the Comics Code, leaving Archie the last surviving member of the Comics Code Authority\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em>comes word that Archie has also dropped the Code<\/em>, starting with books on sale in February.
\n<\/em>Thus ends the last clinging particle of darkest days in comics history, an era that did its best to choke the life out of an artform \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t succeed.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the Green Lantern opted out of the Code to tell a “relevant” story in 1971, it made the New York Times<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don’t know who was looking over the submissions of DC Comics and Archie Comics over the past few years, and I am finding it hard to see them underlining anything and charging back to publisher headquarters to get things back into its proper guidelines.\u00c2\u00a0 The first people looking them over included — as you see in that image — a “Charles Murphy”, and Archie publisher John Goldwater.\u00c2\u00a0 There are veiled and not veiled opinions about the role of Archie Comics in the creation and administration of the Comics Code Authority — he sure threw EC Comics out of business!\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0and on that score, it is approrpriate that they are the last publisher to ascede — there\u00c2\u00a0for the creation, there\u00c2\u00a0for the burial.\u00c2\u00a0 Question of the day:\u00c2\u00a0 what will be the last comic book approved by the now defunct “Comics Code Authority”, and will someone please nit-pick some affront for outrage\u00c2\u00a0from out of its contents?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To much fun-fare and media attention, we got this\u00c2\u00a0on September 8, 1954.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In reaction to, for instance, this, a million “injuries to eyes” which profligated the comic book in the late 1940s and early 1950s — and had to be wiped out due to the massive epidemic of Juveniles injuring other kids’ eyes. The Comics Code […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7475"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7477,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475\/revisions\/7477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}