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Comics Code Dead
tverbeek writes "After more than half a century of stifling the comic book industry, the Comics Code Authority is effectively dead. Created in response to Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, one of the early think-of-the-children censorship campaigns, and Congressional hearings, the Code laid out a checklist of requirements and restrictions for comics to be distributed to newsstand vendors, effectively ensuring that in North America, only simplistic stories for children would be told using the medium of sequential art. It gradually lost many of its teeth, and an increasing number of publishers gave up on newsstand distribution and ignored the Code, but at the turn of the century the US's largest comics publishers still participated. Marvel quit it in 2001, in favor of self-applied ratings styled after the MPAA's and ESRB's. Last year Bongo (publishers of the Simpsons comics) quietly dropped out. Now DC and Archie, the last publishers willingly subjecting their books to approval, have announced that they're discontinuing their use of the CCA, with DC following Marvel's example, and Archie (which recently introduced an openly gay supporting character, something flatly forbidden by the original Code) carrying on under their own standards. The Code's cousins — the MPAA and ESRB ratings, the RIAA parental advisory, and the mishmash of warnings on TV shows — still live on, but at least North American comic publishers are no longer subject to external censorship."
I don't know about the MPAA or the others, but i know the whole point of the ESRB was that it was a voluntary measure the video game industry took on itself in order to avoid something like the Comic Book Code getting created by an outside group. So it's not external censorship and it's really kind of weird to put it up as an example of the Comic Book Code's "cousin" living on. It's really a good example of the _right_ way to inform consumer about what's in the content they're consuming without being subject to censorship.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
and in the meantime for the past quarter century I have wanted the porn industry to establish the same kind of warnings. I'm still waiting.
Gay characters are harmful to children? Children who might be gay themselves, and feel like monsters since they aren't aware that being gay is fine since they are never exposed to positive examples of it, in say, comics?
How does this kind of idiocy exist?
And it was always voluntary. The publishers were not subject to external censorship. They chose to follow that "code" (and of course not all did. You just never heard of those who didn't.)
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
While schemes like the MPAA and ESRB systems are good in theory (rate the content, allow people to make their own decisions), the market realities of them basically end up resulting in "no adult content allowed". No one will stock or publish an ESRB AO game, just like no theatres ever show NC-17 films. As such there is no money in them, and the end up never being made.
I knew about the Movie Code from the 1930s-50s. It stifled movie creativity, and required that women be subservient to men, or that an evil person ALWAYS wound-up dead or jailed. I thought such nonsense had long ago been abolished and didn't realize "the code" had been revived to stifle comic book creativity.
I consider this a perfect example of what happens when you ignore the Supreme law of the land: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....." "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution... are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The US Government has zero authority to censor movies or books.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
...as well as his roommate Leonard Hofstadter and friends Howard Wolowitz, and Raj Koothrappali.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
People didn't like what other people did WITH THEIR OWN COMIC BUSINESS THAT THEY OWNED, so they petitioned the government to control their behavior and fit their idea of what is healthy for society.
Really, I don't see much of a difference between this and smoking bans.
1) Someone does something you don't have to participate in. 2) Someone else participates in it anyway. You/they perceive harm, real or imagined, it doesn't matter. 3) You petition the govenrment to control their behavior.
Sorry, that's a dick move. Glad to see Bongo (Simpsons Comics) and even Archie finally dropping this bullshit censorship code from our parents' days.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
*Ding dong the witch is dead*. And good riddance. Censorship has no place in a freedom loving society and its really appalling that Republicans who blather on about freedom are the first to support authoritarian censorship. Censorship and other social conservative ideas generally makes a society by condoning violent behaviour and sanctioning supression and violence against others who have views, expression or opinions some do not like.
Skin never hurt anyone, the idea that nudity or sex is bad (or psychedelics for that matter) is completely concocted by society, these things are victimless, as a society we should let individuals make up their own minds and decisions, rather than have a authoritarian government and the right wing religious organisations, the private quasi or defacto governmental form of that, watching over our every move.
I prefer more of a western European model, with a socially liberal atmosphere and little or no censorship, nude beaches etc, and governments that concern themselves with making sure people have food, housing, good jobs, and health care, and education, rather than obsesssing over imposing arbitrary ideologies on people. As a social libertatian, that is what we believe in and leads to a truly safe society.
The idea that nudity is wrong is, in fact, a lie. It is a lie promulgated by oppressive religious ideologies that are designed to control, enslave and indoctrinate peoples minds. It is opposed to individual liberty and rationality, that people should have individual self determination rights and things which do not deprive others of their own freedom should not be enacted. Nudity is victimless, it takes away no ones right to not or to wear clothes as they prefer. In fact, laws against nudity take away our right to make these choices for themselves. Nudity is truly harmless, and there is much more of it in Europe. Yet Europe is far safer than the US and has much less violent crime, an overall safer society.
The most socially conservative places in the world, such as Iraq, or Afghanistan are also the most dangerous and violent.
Ironically the country that Republicans seem to want is one where public school has been replaced by bible school, harmless. natural and innocent things like nude swimming have been banned, and with children dying on the street from starvation and treatable medical conditions, massive military and industrial prison complexs and so on.
We will all be better off when we evolve past medieval religious ideologies and systems of oppressive social control designed to take away individuals freedom, not preserve them.
I haven't collected since I was a kid...actually I've never collected. I just got them and read them until the covers literally fell off. But, those young readers were the pool from which adult readers sprang. Creating titles that everyone could read is what made the industry so ubiquitous. Now, it's a boutique niche with drastically reduced readership. Maybe that's made it more satisfying to the adult readers, I don't know.
I had a friend in college who collected and bragged about the value of his collection with the confidence of a basement full of gold bullion. That was before everyone figured out the only readers left were just the collectors, and the valuation formulas were all wrong. Kind of like their own economic bubble.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We will all be better off when we evolve past medieval religious ideologies and systems of oppressive social control designed to take away individuals freedom, not preserve them.
Like the two-party system that convinces people that there's a "good guys" camp and a "bad guys" camp and causes them to act irrationally in support of "their tribe" and spit vitriol against the "other tribe"?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"only simplistic stories for children would be told using the medium of sequential art"
Yeah, That's exactly how comics have been since the CCA.
Eyeroll
Wow that brings back some memories!!!
Now THAT is a movie I would like to get a BD remaster of, all cleaned up, so that when I have kids I know they can watch it...
Time for some googling...
I guess now it's really effectively dead.
Kind of reminds me of a certain dead parrot.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Now maybe Batman and Robin can be honest about their love.
As one of the pre-teens reading comics during the late forties and early fifties (Including the horror stuff that was one of the things the busy-bodies complained about.) I think that foolishness alone proves congress has always been a pack of idiots unqualified to do anything but waste the peoples money on stupidity. The difference between the stuff published pre-code and afterward was obvious even to those of us with single digit ages. Even the mainstream things like Superman and Batman went to total dumb and boring while anything that might make you think was verboten. Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse were more intellectually challenging than the trash DC was putting out and the predecessor of Marvel mostly did terrible sci-fi hackery.
Archie Comics spokesman mentioned the whole "we're not going to have any women in refrigerators" just because we're dropping the comics code, which is somewhat ironic, as the woman in that particular refrigerator came to be as a direct result of the comics code authority interference. Originally in the Green Lantern story the incident occurred in, the woman in question was supposed to be brutally murdered, but the comics code didn't want people to see a murdered woman, so instead, they had her put in the refrigerator and alluded to it instead. Nice work, comics code.
Looking at some data for box office revenues, it looks like PG movies are actually the most profitable segment of the market.
Most years in recent history show a ratio of 1 PG-rated movie being released to every R-rated movie, yet the percentages of total gross have remained close to one another in recent history:
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=mpaa&chart=byyear&yr=2010&view=releasedate&p=.htm
I was on the internet in minutes, registering my approval.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Minor mistake -- that should be 1:3 ratio of PG:R...
So...what you're saying is that consumer demand for NC-17 and AO products is pretty low, therefore content providers don't produce much of it?
If you want to complain about something I think a bigger complaint is both games and movies that just throw a few extra F*bombs to get a R or M rating when it adds nothing to the game/movie.
ARCHIE has a gay character? After decades of frustration with the girls did Archie come out?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
And until "real" censorship, i.e. government mandated censorship, happens, this will stay dead. Let's hope for a long resting in peace.
The only reason such "codes" could fly is that the makers of art had to rely on a distribution system that could force such arbitrary restrictions on them. Write to our code or we don't publish, and if we don't, nobody worth mentioning will. You will not sell your comic, you will not show your movie, your game will never be sold.
Now, the internet makes the whole scheme crumble. You don't sell my game, my comic book, my movie and nobody in the US does? So I sell it through a publisher in another country, and unless the US forbids import of the game (and unless they plan to swing that censorship hammer, they won't), I couldn't care less for your "code of conduct". People who are fed up with your "coded" content will gladly look abroad and with global shipping, yes, it might cost them a bit more, but they get what they want. Whether I pay 5 bucks for a comic I don't want or 8 for one I do is not going to break my neck financially.
But it sure will break yours, since I'm not the only one who can't care less for your "coded" crap.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So...what you're saying is that consumer demand for NC-17 and AO products is pretty low, therefore content providers don't produce much of it?
No, AO games sell fine when they aren't AO. Look at GTA: San Andreas. It sold fine, then it became rated AO and was removed from store shelves at the time, despite the fact that the content couldn't be normally accessed. It wasn't any merits of the game itself that caused it to be removed from store shelves, but rather a pointless rating system by the ESRB.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Just wait until the next issue when they realize that Comics Code was *NOT* dead, but instead placed in suspended animation when his arch nemesis switched the translator module causing a brain cascade failure... And in all that time, Comics Code was in an alternate reality, getting stronger, leveling up....
Next issue.. Comics Code returns!
So there *was* a reason American comics are inferior to manga!? And I tough it was only a matter of personal taste.
(There are good western comics I know, *I guess*, I've read great things about The Sandman)
But... the future refused to change.
...it was a compromise that allowed (in the first case the first Batman movie) to be 'allowed' to be watched by 'children' instead of making it a 15 and losing 50% (or more) of their audience. The onus was on the parents (as it should be).
It sold fine, then it became rated AO and was removed from store shelves at the time, despite the fact that the content couldn't be normally accessed. It wasn't any merits of the game itself that caused it to be removed from store shelves, but rather a pointless rating system by the ESRB.
"Hot Coffee" was accessible in both PC and console versions of the game.
Rockstar Games, the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series, initially denied allegations that the minigame was "hidden" in the video game, stating that the Hot Coffee modification (which they claim violated the game's End User Licence Agreement) is the result of "hackers" making "significant technical modifications to and reverse engineering" the game's code. However, this claim was undermined when a hacker known as N.A.V.A.I.D G, on July 12, 2005, released an "Action Replay Power Save" for the Xbox console, and codes for the PlayStation 2 Action Replay game enhancer that allowed the scenes to be accessed in each of the console versions. These new methods of accessing "Hot Coffee" demonstrated that the controversial content was, indeed, built into the console versions as well.
The creator of the original PC mod, Patrick Wildenborg (under the Internet alias "PatrickW"), a 38-year-old modder from the Netherlands, rejects Rockstar's claim that the mod required significant technical effort, pointing out that he only changed a single bit in the installed game's "main.scm" file, and that there is absolutely no new content that he actually created--every piece of the required code was already in-game, just not available to the player. The PC mod itself is actually just an edited copy of the game script files with the bit changed. The mod was also made possible on the console versions, by changing the bit inside a user's savegame or by using a third-party modding device.
The possibility of enabling the minigame by changing a single bit of code shows that the sexual intercourse content is part of the game's original data, and not new content inserted into the game by the mod. However, it is not possible to access the sexual content simply by playing the game as intended by the developers, because it was fully disabled and the bit cannot be changed by normal gameplay. The oral sex animations are however clearly visible in the background of an early mission, "Cleaning the Hood", even in the re-released game. This may explain why the mini-game was not simply removed when the decision was made to cut it from the game: its assets were in use elsewhere. Hot Coffee minigame controversy
Rockstar had a history of pushing the limits of the M rated game.
Rockstar's use of inner city gangland stereotypes did not endear it to America's racial minorities or the American inner city itself. That was dangerously charged territory to tread for a developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Introducing a button-mashing sexual minigame into a game that implies or allows the rape or murder of a prostitute raised even more red flags. Prostitutes call for ban on GTA
There is - or can be - a meaningful distinction between handling adult sexual themes in a game and porn. The adolescence of "Hot Coffee" was absolute proof that the video game industry had a lot of growing up to do.
The one thing Rockstar could not survive was the precedent it had set for embedding AO content in an M rated game. Content which could be unlocked with a wink and a nod sometime after release.
Recently, we took our kids to see Yogi Bear. It was exactly what you'd expect a movie based upon the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon to be -- inoffensive and insipid. Yet, "Rated PG for some mild rude humor."
From comparing notes with other parents, I gather we're on the restrictive end of the scale -- we actually examine 'M' rated games before deciding whether to allow our 14-year-old to play them, whereas other parents in our circle seem to allow younger kids to play 'M' rated games with no supervision at all. I generally give the go-ahead for our 14-year-old, but I do want to check first. In practice, we're more worried about avoiding high octane nightmare fuel, then about sex or violence, per se.
It's striking to me, though, that I rarely see games that rated below 'T' or 'M', even games that are clearly aimed at young children, just as I rarely see a movie that is rated below 'PG-13'. The overall pattern seems to be a sort of rating inflation, in which the more restrictively rated material is seen as more attractive by most consumers, and there are only disadvantages to having less restrictive ratings.
Overall, rating systems seem to have become almost completely useless, and this is a problem, because I do think parents could use tools to help them screen the content their children will be exposed to, especially younger children.
...the hardcore Archie-and-Jughead scenes. (Yes, I know, they probably exist in slash fiction, but a Google Images search reveals surprisingly little. Get on it, folks!)
Tom Geller
The only reason such "codes" could fly is that the makers of art had to rely on a distribution system that could force such arbitrary restrictions on them.
Actually there's a theory (which I'm not sure I totally buy) that the whole thing was contrived as a way to destroy E.C. Comics.
At the time, E.C. -- the publisher of Tales from the Crypt, the Vault of Horror, the Haunt of Fear, and Weird Science, among others -- was the best-selling comics publisher in the industry. It was a bona fide phenomenon. Many publishers tried to imitate E.C.'s success, but none were able to truly recreate its unique formula of quality art and stories.
So instead, the also-ran publishers colluded to knock E.C. out of the market. Many of the objections raised in the Congressional hearings on comic books were examples taken directly from E.C. Comics covers and stories. Much of the language of the Code seemed to directly target E.C. -- for example, comics were not allowed to use the words "terror," "horror," or "fear" in their titles. The Code pretty much made it impossible for E.C. to continue to publish its top-selling titles in their original form, because when the smaller publishers all voluntarily jumped on board with the Code, distributors soon stopped shipping comics that didn't carry the Code seal on their covers.
At the time, the E.C. horror titles were still so popular that it was getting ready to publish the Crypt of Terror, a fourth title featuring its Crypt-Keeper character. Only one issue of that title was ever produced; instead, the Code killed all four titles.
While the rest of the industry continued on with superheroes and newspaper strip reprints, E.C. tried to launch a new line of titles with subjects like medical dramas, war stories, pirates, and (believe it or not) true tales of psychoanalysis. None of them were successful. Before long, E.C. Comics had vanished from the racks, with the company's only remaining product being the (admittedly successful) Mad Magazine.
Like I said, I'm not totally sure I believe this interpretation -- it seems odd that so many publishers, who were themselves publishing horror titles, would rather shoot themselves in the foot than compete honestly -- but it is pretty odd when a company can go from being the industry leader to practically filing for bankruptcy, not because of government regulation (there never was any), but solely because its competitors chose to collude on a voluntary censorship scheme... don't ya think?
Breakfast served all day!
The reason adults-only works don't sell has nothing to do with lack of consumer demand, and everything to do with distributors refusing to carry them. This is very much like what happened with comics and the Code: you could still publish and sell comics that (for example) showed police in a negative light, or included lurid images of women in ripped clothing, but you could not distribute them through the newsstand sales network (which was pretty much the only way of selling comics in those days).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
And ... there was no examination for breaking cartel regulations? It sounds a lot like the textbook definition of "collusion with the intent to gain unlawful advantage over competitors".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When they said 'turn of the century' my first thought was 1901, but no, sadly they meant 2001. Censorship was alive and well in 2000, and some of it is gone, but draconian, authoritarian organizations like the MPAA and RIAA still live and breathe in this century. We can only hope that one day soon they too will be gone too.
Didn't MAD purposely go to magazine format to dodge CCA-type stuff?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The federal government wanted the Code; they weren't about to object to it just because of restraint-of-trade issues.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The comics companies were voluntarily complying with the Comics Code. Since they have stopped, I'm sure some well-meaning, rich mom will get Congress to make the Comics Code legally required. After all, Think of the Children!
Not much point in censoring a medium that doesn't have wide appeal, particularly with "the children", is there?
I'm not sure (in the English-reading world anyhow) that kids read Archie much; their preference for "alternate lifestyles" seems more focused on horny vampires and pre-teen wizards, no?
As for gingers, a roundup of the red-headed is the concept of M.I.A’s “Born Free” music video; it seems clear that she was trying to say that discriminating against groups that actually are commonly targeted is just as nonsensical as the targeting of redheads in the video.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I recall some film with a D.B. Cooper subplot suggesting that he burned most of his ransom money to stay alive longer in the wilderness; stacks of $20s also seem to fit your "flammable valuable" theme.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
He must be happy from this news. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The codes could fall under the category of accurate product information even in a free market; yes, they're far more obnoxious in oligopoly situations, but I could see them theoretically playing a role.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Yes, and you had to modify the game code to access it, just like every other idea that gets put into a game then latter scrapped. It is silly to rate a game on what can be done outside of the game itself. It was their own decision to access a part of the game that could not be accessed normally, and if we take this to its logical conclusion, we should be rating all Mario games M because someone could make a game save or a patch that makes texts in the games say FUCK simply because there is an F, U, C and K sprite. But yet we aren't doing this. And perhaps you want to look at the sales figures, GTA San Andreas is the highest selling game for the PS2 and it refutes the claim that AO games wouldn't sell well because no one would buy them.
In games, a lot of content gets scrapped, levels get unused, and such. Yes, you can modify the game code to let you access it, but such things are not part of the game itself and shouldn't be rated as being part of the game because it isn't, it is a third party patch where users are clearly warned what they are doing. This isn't some kid finding out they can press up up down down L1 L2 X and Start and it will suddenly play the minigame, rather you have to use a third party tool to edit the hex data of the game.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
It isn't just a problem with retailers not stocking the game. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all prohibit AO content on their consoles. It is almost as bad as if MPEG-LA refused to license DVD patents to companies that that make NC-17 movies. That leaves the PC as the only place you can sell AO games, which is why publishers would rather modify their games rather than cut out 2/3 of their market.
Explain that please. So I could be kept from getting a product without "accurate product information"? For real? Ok, let's say I want to see a comic without nanny protecting me from seeing something bad, can I get it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Accurate knowledge about a product is crucial to the operation of a free market, and a CCA seal (_or the lack thereof_) is amongst the things that could serve as a shorthand for that information/knowledge.
The way it was actually used isn't free-market, but labels like that theoretically could be
Analogous to some conception of trademarks, perhaps.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
"Periodic revisions were made to the Code to reflect changing attitudes about appropriate subject matter (e.g., the ban on referring to homosexuality was revised in 1989 to allow non-stereotypical depictions of gay men and lesbians)"
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Such practices still need to be outlawed because they're about as anti free market as they get. A free market requires the customer as the deciding factor because he chooses the superior product. If that decision is made by someone else (because a monopoly or cartel position is abused to eliminate a (possibly) superior competitor), free market cannot work.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
De facto banning stuff that fails to meet the code is of course anti-free-market: what I meant was code-passed and code-failed material circulating in parallel; some might value the options and the identification marker.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I need to take a shit.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
'Nuff said.
No more censorship? Not true - try to get a comic with adult content onto the iPad via Apple's App Store.
Apple's censorship is objectionable, but there seems little outcry against it.
A great deal of places have a sign that says "we refuse the right to serve anyone". I have a sneaking suspicion that people like you would rather force people to serve everyone.
The funny thing is, I had a long conversation with a retired DEA agent. He always dreamed of using his retirement money to buy a bar. But the smoking ban in Virginia was in the works at the time, and he said no fucking way would he start a business if he couldn't do what he wanted there. Even the DEA gets it, apparently. Which is quite ironic. The guy talked about how much he wished he had weed before his cancer surgery. Nice old man.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Voluptuous, for athletic builds, women who wore very little for the kind of physical work they did. And Wonder Woman too, I suppose, but I wasn't a DC reader when I was a kid. Being a kid and reading the X titles was as close to walking around with a Playboy in public. There was even a swimsuit issue at some point when I was older. Then I found out about the indie books, not the underground mind you, but stuff like Dirty Pair. Even with the CCA, some of the Marvel titles had enough to keep the juices flowing in a hormonal teen.
Are they gonna resort to nude women now? Kids get enough sex and nudity without them having to see it in comics. Sure comics do handle adult themes and sexuality is just another one, but some prudish throwback in me says to leave explicit sex to the underground books and let the books deal with folks in tights trying to save the world.
I don't read the X titles any more, it's been a long time. From the snippets I've looked at, I don't know who is who and what timestream they belong in anyway. Plus, I don't need to imagine naked women at this stage in the game.
Hey, you brats! Get off my la-- Damnit! Now look at me!
"To stop the terrorists."
Tell that to your local comic shop or ask about Diamond.
The whole "hot coffee" thing seems quaint now. In Red Dead Redemption, at least on the PS3 version I played, there's actually a scene where one of the characters is shown fucking a topless woman. It's part of the main story, no mod needed. Maybe it's ok because he's doing it missionary style?
No, you don't see any actual penetration, but there wasn't any for hot coffee, either.