The CCA is really fascinating to me-- it's basically the Hayes code but retooled for comics. It's fascinating how they both fell because of people pushing the envelope no matter what (Some Like It Hot!) and how they both stifled the media & have effects that linger to this day.
I was just explaining to a friend the other day about why superhero movies have gone so damn grimdark, to overcompensate for the campy stuff of the past, and this filled in a whole bunch of missing pieces I didn't know about. Really interesting and informative vid!
New superhero movies dark? My 7yo won't even watch that lame brain hack garbage! 50's and 60's comics camp? Batman is the definition of camp, until the reboots of course, and as the host says, most early comics wouldn't even bother with what was considered a lame campy sub-genre of comics known as SUPERHEROES. 50's and 60s comics were primarily HORROR i.e "dark". Infinitely more dark than that new Disney propaganda machine called marvel
Mad Magazine became a magazine to keep its creator, Harvey Kurtzman, happy. The fact that the new format allowed Mad to be free of the Comics Code was simply a welcome byproduct.
I always assumed that the comics code was about public morality in the early 20th century. I should have known that it was connected to corrupt capitalism. Very informative. Thank you.
Harvey Comics' troubles came to light in the early 80s. By this time, the company's output consisted mostly of Richie Rich titles. I believe Casper and Hot Stuff kept chugging along with their own flagship titles alongside Richie Rich Inc., but most of the Harvey stable of characters had largely been forgotten or relegated to reprinted backup stories in various Richie Rich titles (i.e. - Little Dot and Little Lotta). Marvel was interested in purchasing the rights to some of the Harvey characters but a disagreement between Harvey brothers Alfred and Leon killed the deal. After a 3 year hiatus, Harvey resumed publication in '86 under the guidance of Alfred's son Alan. A few years later, the company was sold to Jeffrey Montgomery and operations moved from New York to California. Under this new direction, success came in the form of box office receipts when Casper and (to a lesser extent) Richie Rich appeared in live action films in the mid-90s. But comic book production consisted mostly of reprints from years past and ::shudder:: the Richie Rich and the New Kids on the Block mini-series (yes, this really happened!). By the late 90s, though, Montgomery was out at Harvey Entertainment and the rights of various characters sold to Classic Media (later known as Sunland Entertainment and eventually absorbed into the Dreamworks/SKG empire). The classic characters are currently in limbo although a newly designed Richie Rich debuted in a short-lived series in the early part of this decade published by APE Entertainment. APE also re-activated the old Harvey title Richie Rich Gems with resumed issue numbering featuring some new material done in the old Harvey style as well as some re-colored reprints. So is the Harvey legacy done for good? Who knows...
Still though, successfully censoring art even for a minute causes tremendous backlash. Look at the music industry since the famous PRMC heqrings. It was the death knell of rock and roll and thirty years later, we still have not recovered
There's a podcast I follow (History Honeys, @HistoryHoneys on twitter), I suggest also looking up their episode on the Comics Code Authority for more info. For example, the guy who wrote Seduction of the Innocent? Wasn't even happy with the CCA, because it made comics show violence without its consequences (blood, gore, even smoke coming from guns, etc). He wanted a ratings system. And plot twist, by the end of the CCA (in 2011!), *the CMAA was no longer even operating*! For the last couple years, Archie comics had assumed they could just put the CCA seal on their comics as long as they paid their fees, while DC didn't reveal who they supposedly submitted comics to. Even more impressive, the contract with the company running it ended in 2009, and all that was left was a single woman who would simply use the checks to pay off the CMAA's debt, didn't take any money for herself, and even tried to call up major publishers proposing doing *something* with the company (like a charity event, getting comics in libraries, a healthcare fund...), purely out of love for the medium.
I remember reading why DC comics in particular were so weird is the current editor or president(?) at the time would come up with bizarre ideas for covers the writers would have to create a story around. such as Superman making Jimmy Olsen dig his own grave, or burn Batman as a witch, or Superman/Batman/Flash/Wonder Woman as fat/old/babies/weaklings/traitors I thought I read it on Superdickery one of MovieBob's "Comics are Weird" videos but I can't find it. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I swear I'm not crazy!
Jules Pfeiffer would come up with a cover concept and have a plot written around his cover idea. It was an old practice in the Sci Fi pulp magazines he edited prior to coming to comics.
could you make an issue about graphic novels? because all your episode focused so much on the western style of comics, and i think there is so much more beauty and variety in the rest of the comic world
Gotta get the big stuff out of the way before getting to more nuance and varied things, I'm guessing. Would love to see a recommendation episode of standalone GNs though
Susana Polo, You are the cream of the crop when it comes to comic crap! I only say this because I have been a collector since the 60's. Every thing you say is bang on! I don't subscribe to much on youtube, but you are worth it. You go girl.
I appreciate you mentioning EC Comics, because that's usually ignored when people talk about the CCA, but will you please stop giving "Seduction of the Innocent" the credit for creating the conditions for it? Wertham was completely against it. It was created specifically to push EC and Lev Gleason off the market, not to appease the public, especially because Dell outsold all other publishers and didn't have the Comics Code seal. Redarding comics relevancy and the 1971 update to the CCA code, it wasn't achieved by the big companies, by Zap Comix, Rip Off Press and similiar indy efforts.
Marvel had the spiderman anti drug comic, but one of the first comics i ever read was the DC comics one where green arrow and green lantern had to fight against addiction to heroin.
Great clip! Remember,even the Dark Knight,with all the whacks and punches,even Batman busting a one-way police mirror with Joker's head,NEVER drew a drop of blood?! I always looked at the Michael Keaton Batman as the original and the Christian Bale Batman as the graphic novel version. Even so,perhaps 'no blood' kept it open to a wider,younger,'PG' audience,and I still watched both dozens of times(didn't you?)
I love this series! The episodes appear wildly out of order for me in the playlist, though, and after every episode I have to go search for the one that's consecutively numbered after this one. I think the playlist might not be set up right?
SO why they didn't just do what Japan did by have different publishing houses for different age groups/ categories? For example if you want to write and illustrate a comic for a younger audience, then you can write it in a publishing house that caters for it, or if you want to write a more mature comic, then you can write it in a publishing house that caters for mature comics. It's not that hard to do. Japan does it with shonen jump, young animal etc.
Oh, this seems nice. Weird that it got to Episode 5 before I noticed it. It's impressive what conservative moral guardians can convince themselves of. Wholesome comics didn't seem to stop the street crime spike the 80s. Meanwhile, the European comic scene had everything from Dylan Dog to Tintin and it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
Read it last year. Highly recommend it, as it not only gives in-depth accounts of both the beginnings of the comics industry and the 1950s backlash, it also has a huge bibliography and a list of those who never worked in comics again due to the Code.
It may have been a repressive time,but sometimes restrictions can force people to get creative in some truly unique ways,just as having too much freedom can result in something undesirable.
Dude, the t-shirt is from Mockingbird, which is a hilarious comic btw. It says "Ask me about my feminist agenda", yet in the comic storyline, Bobbi never actually wears it. Just on the cover.
If your'e going to wear a t-shirt with words on it, please show off the full text at least once in the video. It's distracting to be trying to see the shirt throughout the whole video. What's the shirt say!??
The CCA is really fascinating to me-- it's basically the Hayes code but retooled for comics. It's fascinating how they both fell because of people pushing the envelope no matter what (Some Like It Hot!) and how they both stifled the media & have effects that linger to this day.
I was just explaining to a friend the other day about why superhero movies have gone so damn grimdark, to overcompensate for the campy stuff of the past, and this filled in a whole bunch of missing pieces I didn't know about. Really interesting and informative vid!
New superhero movies dark? My 7yo won't even watch that lame brain hack garbage! 50's and 60's comics camp? Batman is the definition of camp, until the reboots of course, and as the host says, most early comics wouldn't even bother with what was considered a lame campy sub-genre of comics known as SUPERHEROES. 50's and 60s comics were primarily HORROR i.e "dark". Infinitely more dark than that new Disney propaganda machine called marvel
@@stephenhargrave7922 , check out the Boys and Invincible
And American Vampire
Mad Magazine became a magazine to keep its creator, Harvey Kurtzman, happy. The fact that the new format allowed Mad to be free of the Comics Code was simply a welcome byproduct.
I always assumed that the comics code was about public morality in the early 20th century. I should have known that it was connected to corrupt capitalism. Very informative. Thank you.
Harvey Comics' troubles came to light in the early 80s. By this time, the company's output consisted mostly of Richie Rich titles. I believe Casper and Hot Stuff kept chugging along with their own flagship titles alongside Richie Rich Inc., but most of the Harvey stable of characters had largely been forgotten or relegated to reprinted backup stories in various Richie Rich titles (i.e. - Little Dot and Little Lotta). Marvel was interested in purchasing the rights to some of the Harvey characters but a disagreement between Harvey brothers Alfred and Leon killed the deal. After a 3 year hiatus, Harvey resumed publication in '86 under the guidance of Alfred's son Alan. A few years later, the company was sold to Jeffrey Montgomery and operations moved from New York to California. Under this new direction, success came in the form of box office receipts when Casper and (to a lesser extent) Richie Rich appeared in live action films in the mid-90s. But comic book production consisted mostly of reprints from years past and ::shudder:: the Richie Rich and the New Kids on the Block mini-series (yes, this really happened!). By the late 90s, though, Montgomery was out at Harvey Entertainment and the rights of various characters sold to Classic Media (later known as Sunland Entertainment and eventually absorbed into the Dreamworks/SKG empire). The classic characters are currently in limbo although a newly designed Richie Rich debuted in a short-lived series in the early part of this decade published by APE Entertainment. APE also re-activated the old Harvey title Richie Rich Gems with resumed issue numbering featuring some new material done in the old Harvey style as well as some re-colored reprints. So is the Harvey legacy done for good? Who knows...
I'm glad regulations on comics aren't so strict now. Some of the best comics ever could never have been made under those rules.
Still though, successfully censoring art even for a minute causes tremendous backlash. Look at the music industry since the famous PRMC heqrings. It was the death knell of rock and roll and thirty years later, we still have not recovered
I [STAR WARS] loved this [STAR WARS]
There's a podcast I follow (History Honeys, @HistoryHoneys on twitter), I suggest also looking up their episode on the Comics Code Authority for more info. For example, the guy who wrote Seduction of the Innocent? Wasn't even happy with the CCA, because it made comics show violence without its consequences (blood, gore, even smoke coming from guns, etc). He wanted a ratings system.
And plot twist, by the end of the CCA (in 2011!), *the CMAA was no longer even operating*! For the last couple years, Archie comics had assumed they could just put the CCA seal on their comics as long as they paid their fees, while DC didn't reveal who they supposedly submitted comics to. Even more impressive, the contract with the company running it ended in 2009, and all that was left was a single woman who would simply use the checks to pay off the CMAA's debt, didn't take any money for herself, and even tried to call up major publishers proposing doing *something* with the company (like a charity event, getting comics in libraries, a healthcare fund...), purely out of love for the medium.
I remember reading why DC comics in particular were so weird is the current editor or president(?) at the time would come up with bizarre ideas for covers the writers would have to create a story around. such as Superman making Jimmy Olsen dig his own grave, or burn Batman as a witch, or Superman/Batman/Flash/Wonder Woman as fat/old/babies/weaklings/traitors
I thought I read it on Superdickery one of MovieBob's "Comics are Weird" videos but I can't find it. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I swear I'm not crazy!
Jules Pfeiffer would come up with a cover concept and have a plot written around his cover idea. It was an old practice in the Sci Fi pulp magazines he edited prior to coming to comics.
could you make an issue about graphic novels? because all your episode focused so much on the western style of comics, and i think there is so much more beauty and variety in the rest of the comic world
Gotta get the big stuff out of the way before getting to more nuance and varied things, I'm guessing. Would love to see a recommendation episode of standalone GNs though
I like weird. If I had money, I’d collect a bunch of pre code horror comics.
Susana Polo, You are the cream of the crop when it comes to comic crap! I only say this because I have been a collector since the 60's. Every thing you say is bang on! I don't subscribe to much on youtube, but you are worth it. You go girl.
I appreciate you mentioning EC Comics, because that's usually ignored when people talk about the CCA, but will you please stop giving "Seduction of the Innocent" the credit for creating the conditions for it? Wertham was completely against it. It was created specifically to push EC and Lev Gleason off the market, not to appease the public, especially because Dell outsold all other publishers and didn't have the Comics Code seal. Redarding comics relevancy and the 1971 update to the CCA code, it wasn't achieved by the big companies, by Zap Comix, Rip Off Press and similiar indy efforts.
....that's what she said.
Well produced.
*_EARTHMAN,_* GIVE ME YOUR *_SEED!_*
walking into the club like
Damn this series is good, keep it up!
Marvel had the spiderman anti drug comic, but one of the first comics i ever read was the DC comics one where green arrow and green lantern had to fight against addiction to heroin.
This video introduced me to my new favorite comic
Nice episode to stumble on my subscriptions. Looking forward to more, gonna watch the rest now :D
what a good video! very informative, well edited and the girl is very good too :)
cant wait for that *star wars* ep
Great clip! Remember,even the Dark Knight,with all the whacks and punches,even Batman busting a one-way police mirror with Joker's head,NEVER drew a drop of blood?!
I always looked at the Michael Keaton Batman as the original and the Christian Bale Batman as the graphic novel version. Even so,perhaps 'no blood' kept it open to a wider,younger,'PG' audience,and I still watched both dozens of times(didn't you?)
I'm sooooo GLaD we don't have that code today!! 😬
the 60s will never top 2014-2016 Image lineup
Kill or Be killed my dear friend
Thank you for this!
I love tales of the crypt 😭😭😭😭
Great show. Thanks.
I'd like to express my appreciation for the correct usage of apostrophes in the title. Also, the video is great overall.
Nice Mockingbird Shirt BTW
So comics would have the diversity of Manga if not for the comic code?
A pity.
Love the shirt!!!
I love this series! The episodes appear wildly out of order for me in the playlist, though, and after every episode I have to go search for the one that's consecutively numbered after this one. I think the playlist might not be set up right?
Wish we still had the comic code. Comics of the 50s , 60s , 70s were so much better than the comics of today.
I must say that Wertham had I point.
so good!
In my opinion, the comics were much better then, and the ones now are just repetitive, uncreative and unnecessarily violent.
Amazing!
SO why they didn't just do what Japan did by have different publishing houses for different age groups/ categories? For example if you want to write and illustrate a comic for a younger audience, then you can write it in a publishing house that caters for it, or if you want to write a more mature comic, then you can write it in a publishing house that caters for mature comics. It's not that hard to do. Japan does it with shonen jump, young animal etc.
Oh, this seems nice. Weird that it got to Episode 5 before I noticed it.
It's impressive what conservative moral guardians can convince themselves of. Wholesome comics didn't seem to stop the street crime spike the 80s. Meanwhile, the European comic scene had everything from Dylan Dog to Tintin and it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
Did you read Ten Cent Plague? I haven't but I imagine this is what it's about.
Read it last year. Highly recommend it, as it not only gives in-depth accounts of both the beginnings of the comics industry and the 1950s backlash, it also has a huge bibliography and a list of those who never worked in comics again due to the Code.
I LOVE this show
so, they had their own golden era Tipper Gore...
Sounds a lot like Haze code
huzzah, just in time for lunch
Susana Polo, thank You for this. You remind me of my wife.
Smart and informative gal. Though hard to take her seriously with that shirt.
It may have been a repressive time,but sometimes restrictions can force people to get creative in some truly unique ways,just as having too much freedom can result in something undesirable.
So glad we dont have these busy bodies anymore. Now Anita Sarkeesian and co can show us the way
Captions?
Knowing people that read comics, I thing that guy was right.
...like comics ain't WEIRD ANYWAY??
ASK YOU ABOUT YOUR WHAT
WHAAAAAT
-7:16 Star Wars of what?
Could you please let us read your T shirt???
Dude, the t-shirt is from Mockingbird, which is a hilarious comic btw. It says "Ask me about my feminist agenda", yet in the comic storyline, Bobbi never actually wears it. Just on the cover.
This is why I hate morals
the comics code needs to come back as comics today are stale, unimaginative,demonic,violent way overpriced trash that lack any originality.
I haven't bought any new comic books in ten years.
If your'e going to wear a t-shirt with words on it, please show off the full text at least once in the video. It's distracting to be trying to see the shirt throughout the whole video. What's the shirt say!??
super censoring
Bashing Batman V Superman, how original.
I killed the 69 comment amount
Before this comment there were only 69 comments