Dick Grayson remains one of the more important superheroes as the only Robin the general public gives a shit about, and given his mere existence was crucial in the formation of the Comics Code Authority.
Spot the difference! Frankie Raye and Johnny Storm from Fantastic Four #238 by John Byrne and my photoshopped joke version. Can you guess which one was the original?
Just so you all know: The Horror Zine, the infamous horror writing org with the ridiculously restrictive submission guidelines for "acceptable content", can be directly contacted via [email protected] , and submissions for this year open on the 27th of October
Send your complaints, send your hate mail, send your submissions that are likely to be rejected due to having "unacceptable content" such as excessive gore, political themes or Victorian-style writing. The time is now!
So I'm continuing my research into the comic code authority which is basically the Hayes code for a comics, and it's amazing how many of the people that led to the CCA existing were straight up upset about Superman punching Nazis
Comics have been long associated with low-brow comedy, propaganda, and even teenage delinquency. Ironically enough, this is mostly due to the consequences of censorship in the medium. The concept of ‘comics’ became such a joke that ‘adult who reads comics’ became a long-standing joke in the media, wonderfully represented in shows like Big Bang Theory, where adult men huddle over books in a comic book store to a round of laughter from the track. In one episode, a woman walks in, and the audience roars. Yes, this is the entire joke. Though people are aware of comics’ reputation, it usually comes as a surprise that the industry has a long history of being at the forefront of censorship campaigns. Comics are uniquely susceptible to book bans for several key reasons. The visual nature of the medium makes it easy to take single panels or pages out of context to bring before a jury, in a way that one can’t with a book or movie. Anyone can print the pages off of a comic hosting website or a site like RatedBooks, and claim the entire comic is inappropriate without any context about the where, why, or how of the panel within the book itself.
Censorship arising from a moral panic has been a constant presence throughout the history of comics, despite their popularity. An anti-comics editorial by Sterling North in The Chicago Daily News from 1940 reads, “Badly drawn, badly written and badly printed—a strain on young eyes and young nervous systems… Their crude blacks and reds spoil the child’s natural sense of color; their hypodermic injection of sex and murder make the child impatient with better, though quieter, stories.” This was reprinted and distributed throughout the US, despite the fact that 25% of printed materials sent to soldiers on the frontlines of World War II were comics. Comic books became the scapegoat for Cold War era anxieties like juvenile delinquency, “deviant sexuality”, non-traditional gender roles, and Communism (among many others).
Seduction of the Innocent was written by Fredric Wertham in 1952, based on his experiences with at-risk youth. Wertham, unlike the article writers and outcriers of the previous years, was well known for his contributions to society. He was an unsung hero of the early civil rights movement; he brought the first psychiatric clinic to Harlem, where he served patients free of charge, and conducted research into the effect of racial segregation on children's mental health. This research, and his testimony about it, played a crucial role in the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education case that ended segregation. It was at his Harlem clinic that he started to form connections between juvenile delinquency and comics. Reading comics was the one thing that all of his young clients had in common, and Wertham believed that comics were either the root cause of their problems, or a part of a larger issue. Comic books opened the door to bad things, not only introducing new ideas but normalizing and rationalizing them. Parents who let their kids read comics were neglecting them. After all, children wouldn’t need to read escapist fantasies if they had a good home life.
In some ways, it’s hard to deny much of Wertham’s indictment. Comics were then, as they are now, written for all ages and genres. Many parents, however, thought that all comics were kid friendly and didn’t supervise their reading habits. Horror comics had begun to feature Grand Guignol depictions of severed heads and limbs, graphic shootings and stabbings. The violence was heavily flavored with sex, and nonwhites were depicted as subhuman. Some contained detailed plans for committing crimes. But these were comics written for adults, not children, and the examples Wertham selected were chosen specifically for shock-value. But horror comics weren’t the only focus of Wertham’s rage. Superhero comics, which were the most popular among children, surely contributed to children’s emotional problems. Superman, for instance, promoted bullying. At the time, Superman was nigh undefeatable. The more “super” he was, the more issues sold. This was the crux of the problem, Wertham argued. Superman attacked people and never faced consequences, and was immune to pain. In fact, he was applauded and considered a hero for his violent efforts. Even though Seduction of the Innocent had more pages dedicated to Superman, Wertham’s lambasting of Batman is what most people think of when they hear of his work.
In the chapter “I Want to be a Sex Maniac!” Wertham writes about how Bruce Wayne and his young ward, Dick Grayson, are not only in an age-inappropriate homosexual relationship, but grooming other young children as well. Bruce Wayne, for one, was rich. He lived in a mega-mansion and had everything he could ever dream of provided for him. Several interviewed kids stated that they wanted to be rich like Bruce. Hearing this, Wertham compared money to an aphrodisiac - "It is like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together" (p. 190). Not only was Batman rich, but his house was well decorated. His butler Alfred served lavish meals, and kept Wayne manor filled with flowers. There were no women in the home, meaning that the inhabitants must be homosexual. The underlying assumption was that these were sexually active characters and since they weren’t married, they would seek each other out instead. Ironically enough, Robin had been a boy because the creators didn’t want their moral crusader living alone with an adolescent girl - surely they had no idea that this decision would result in this. While Wertham’s “Bruce” complaints were rooted entirely in stereotypes, he also had problems with their nightly crime-fighting activities. Danger is stimulating, Wertham argued, calling dangerous Batman stories “erotic sexual fantasies”. Batman and Robin spent many comic issues caged or tied up while the other tried to save him; This, supposedly, was meant to make Robin more devoted to and dependent on Batman than anyone else on earth - a common grooming technique. "Like the girls in other stories, Robin is sometimes held captive …. They constantly rescue each other from violent attacks by an unending number of enemies. The feeling is conveyed that we men must stick together because there are so many villainous creatures who have to be exterminated. They lurk not only under every bed but also behind every star in the sky" (p. 190-1). In short, Batman selected a poor child to entice with wealth and fun, seducing him afterwards. Wertham’s comments changed the trajectory of Batman stories, writers introducing female companion after female companion to pair up romantically with the stars. In short, Wertham charged Batman with sexual misconduct, and in response DC filled the books with romance between same-sex teams to the point he seemed sexually insatiable. It wasn’t until the 90s that the dynamics were changed to be more like that of a family (A Bat Fam, if you will) - after almost half a century.
In 1954, thanks to Wertham’s efforts, comics were put on trial by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. The trial was meant to decide whether the medium needed government regulation or not. Over the next two days, the committee heard from child psychologists, comic book publishers and artists. Wertham testified before the court, where senators gave him the opportunity to address a satirical propaganda piece published in EC’s Haunt of Fear, “Are You a Red Dupe?” In response, Wertham only said, “This is from comic books. I have really paid no attention to this.” Bill Gaines, the publisher of EC Comics and co-founder of Mad Magazine, had chosen to testify of his own violation and was called up directly after. Gaines was 32, filled with righteous indignation, undergoing amphetamine withdrawal, and on diet pills that made him very fatigued by the time he made it to stand. In short, he absolutely crashed and burned. “I was the first publisher in these United States to publish horror comics. I am responsible, I started them. Some may not like them. That is a matter of personal taste. It would be just as difficult to explain the harmless thrill of a horror story to a Dr. Wertham as it would be to explain the sublimity of love to a frigid old maid,” he said on the stand. The next morning, the headline of the New York Times read “NO HARM IN HORROR, COMICS ISSUER SAYS”.
The comic industry was quickly backed into a corner, faced with an angry public and the threat of government regulation. To avoid this, the Comic Magazine Association of America was created , which instituted the Comics Code Authority - a code that censored comics for years to come. All comics were brought down to the level of a young child overnight. While the CCA had no official control over what one could or could not publish, distributors refused to carry any comic that didn’t have the approval seal. Publishers didn’t want to take a chance on them, and horror, crime, science fiction, and other genres appealing to older readers were wiped out for a generation. Samples of content banned may read as familiar to current events:
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.
If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.
Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority.
Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation.
In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.
Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited. Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gunplay, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated.
No comic magazine shall use the word horror or terror in its title.
All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.
All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated.
Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used 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.
Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.
Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.
Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure.
Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable.
Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities.
Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at nor portrayed. Rape scenes as well as sexual abnormalities are unacceptable.
Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested.
Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden.
Nudity with meretricious purpose and salacious postures shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product; clothed figures shall never be presented in such a way as to be offensive or contrary to good taste or morals.
The CCA led to almost 60 years of self-censorship, decimating the comics industry. Artists and writers now had to lie about their profession, as admitting one worked on comics was viewed as deviant in the same way being a fringe pornographer is. The number of published titles dropped from 650 in 1954 to 250 in 1956, putting more than 800 working creators out of a job. 1960s reprints of earlier pre-Code stories redrew panels to replace previous art - redrawing necklines to remove cleavage, making scary faces more ‘normal’, and whiting out any sort of weapon. Comics were reduced to tame romances, funny animals, extensions of TV/movie brands, and most famously, dopey superheroes. The Silver Age of comic books lasted from 1956 to 1970, and is known as silly and inoffensive as the artists and writers had no choice. Blood couldn’t be shown, villains couldn’t kill, cops couldn’t be corrupt, and there was no drug use or murder allowed. Even so, cape comics dominated as others were killed off, and this emphasis on superheroes led to a monopoly of cape comic publishing that exists in America even today. Unfortunately, the dumbed-down nature of comics drove the public perception of comics to dip even further. In many states, the restrictions and commercial rejection of the Code were still not enough. Over 100 titles were banned in multiple states, and ordinances to regulate comics passed in dozens of cities. By 1955, bills on comic books had been passed in the legislative bodies of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. Legislation was proposed and either shot down or not acted upon in Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin. One law in New York banned the use of the words ‘crime’, ‘terror’, ‘sex’ or ‘horror’ in comic book titles and prohibit the publication or the distribution of lurid comics, defined as those ‘devoted to or principally made up of pictures or accounts of methods of crime, or illicit sex, horror, terror, physical torture, brutality, or physical violence’. Any sale of’inappropriate’ comics were only to those above 18, punishable by one year in jail, a $500 fine, or both. The Senate Subcommittee hearings, the Comics Code, and the subsequent flurry of laws regulating the sale of comics combined to form the most brutal era of censorship arising from moral panic that American pop culture has ever known.
In many ways, the censorship ruins the story. For example, in the above War of the Worlds comic example, the original ends with the husband shooting his wife and then himself to protect them from the alien invasion. The second, censored comic shows the two simply running away. Which, in your opinion, is the stronger story?
The amazing thing about art is that it perseveres, and that’s what comics did, too. From the 1960s counterculture arose. Underground Comics was formed, a movement full of adults who had been children when the Code went into effect and remembered the abrupt changes to what they were reading. Underground Comics were characterized by an emphasis on creating work that explored topical and taboo subject matter without restriction, often from an authorial point of view. The first recognizable Underground Comic was God Nose (Snot Reel), published in 1963 by Zap Comix. Zap Comix was the gold standard of Underground Comics, established by Robert Crumb, whose work inspired and defined the Underground Comics movement. Zap Comics used unique and individualized styles to speak about class, sexuality, politics, and economics, often in a rude, vulgar, or sexually explicit way. These were self published, and didn’t pass by the desks of the CCA at all before arriving on shelves. They were sold in bookstores, art galleries, record stores, and headshops around the United States. As the movement grew, however, the crackdown began. Bookstores were busted and shut down for selling them, and galleries developing art shows or displaying work by cartoonists that participated in the movement were busted for displaying obscene material. In California, an employee of a small bookstore was arrested for selling Zap Comix No. 3. Before, publishers were the main target. Now that there was a workaround, censorship began at a retail level.
In June 1963, the United States Supreme Court officially put the decision on what was and wasn’t considered obscene in the hands of each individual state. The three prong Obscenity Test was as follows:
whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law; and
whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
This gave local jurisdictions the ability to determine what was appropriate and, to avoid the headache and legal trouble, many businesses pulled content from shelves preemptively. Thus, the Underground Comics movement was relegated to under-the-table trading at conventions and coffee shops.
The tipping point came in December 1986. The month before, two officers in Lansing, Illinois bought 15 comics from manager Michael Correa of the comic book store Friendly Frank’s after “monitoring places youths congregate”. Come December, six officers came back to raid it, seizing various titles and dragging Correa off in handcuffs to face charges of display of obscene materials. Marc H. Greenberg writes about this day in his book Comics, Courts and Controversy: A Case Study of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:
“The arresting officer, Sergeant Jack Hoestra, told the Gary Post-Tribune that, in addition to the legal charges of obscenity, he noticed a “satanic influence” in many of the shop’s comics. He told the paper: “Oh yes, there was absolutely a lot of satanic influence in the comics there. … If you know what you’re looking for, you can see the satanic influence all over. Three-quarters of the rock groups today show satanic influence, and it’s all over the television.”
Soon after the raid and arrest, Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press met with retailers at a comic book convention in Minnesota. Together, they decided to aid Friendly Frank’s owner Frank Mangiaracina in defending his employee. Publishers and retailers worked with famous artists to set up a portfolio to raise money for Correa’s defense. Artists included Sergio Aragones, Hilary Barta, Reed Waller, Steve Bissette, Bob Burden, Richard Corben, Robert Crumb, Howard Cruse, Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Mitch O’Connell, Don Simpson, and Eric Vincent. Together, they raised $20,000 and placed it in a bank account called “Comic Book Legal Defense Fund”. The trial was held in June of 1988, before the fund was complete, and Correa was found guilty and fined $750, along with one year of court supervision. Afterwards, Kitchen recruited Bertonn Joeseph, co-founder of the Media Coalition, Playboy Foundation and First Amendment pioneer to take up the case. Upon retrial, they won, and the remaining funds were set aside to create a permanent organization to protect comics: the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. The CBLDF still exists today, though a majority of their work is done unseen as they fend off cases before they go to court. The CBLDF works to protect comics, fight unconstitutional legislation, and perform advocacy work. In recent years, the CBLDF has been helping libraries by providing access to resources and writing letters of support in cases where comics are challenged.
It would be nice if this was the end of the constant fight against censorship, but the fight continues. Since 2021, comics have been among the top books banned in America. In the 2024-2025 school year, 601 comics were listed out of 6,719 total restrictions and bans, making up 9% of the total. Of this selection, manga and manwha account for 40% of bans. The focus on east-Asian publications shouldn’t be surprising, with the current anti-Asian, anti-immigrant sentiments in America today. Lists of the most frequently banned authors in America always include the mangakas Yusei Matsui, of Assassination Classroom (54 books banned) and Atsushi Ohkubo of Soul Eater (45 books banned). If their manga were one-shots and not a series, Matsui would be the most banned author in the US, and Ohkubo would be the second. Both would have their manga banned twice as much as the number one most banned book in American schools. When the Department of Defense Education issued orders to ban 596 titles from military schools worldwide, 10% of those were comic books.
The top 5 comics banned in 2024-2025 are Heartstopper, This One Summer, Lumberjanes, Soul Eater, and Fairy Tale - one queer story, one story about being a young girl, one story about women, and two manga. Currently, three new titles are up on the chopping block - Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, a story about growing up and falling in love with food and eating. Brazen: Rebel Ladies who Rocked the World, a biography about women throughout history. Lighter Than My Shadow, a memoir about growing up with an eating disorder and working towards recovery. All three are nonfiction stories written by women. Outside of original work, comic adaptations of narrative works are often among the most banned, sometimes without their source materials being banned alongside them. The fight to get a novel banned can be quickly won, but comics are banned at a higher and faster rate. 28 comic adaptations were banned over the 2024-2025 school year, including 1984: The Graphic Novel, adapted by Fido Nesti, Ann Frank’s Diary, adapted by Ari Folman and David Polonsky, The Lottery, adapted by Paul Duffield, and The Odyssey, adapted by Gareth Hinds. Queer comics, especially nonfiction, make frequent ban targets - comics like Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erica Moen and Matthew Nolan, and The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights by Archi Bongiovanna and A. Andrews are often on the chopping block. Book censorship is often done with little attention to the actual work, and with comic books being so quick and easy to ban, random stuff is often caught in it: Amelia Earhart: Legendary Aviator by Jameson Anderson and Rod Whigham, The Great American Dust Bowl: A Graphic Novel by Dan Brown, The Hardy Boys Graphic Novels by Scott Lobdell, all books in the Learn to Draw Manga series by Richard Jones and Jorge Santillan, and A Tour of Your Digestive System by Molly Koplin and Chris M. Jones, among others. Comics are thriving as a format, growing in numbers and accolades, and are thus a massive target to those eager to hinder access to information.
In the years following World War II, comic books became a focal point for a broader cultural push toward censorship. Waves of comic book burnings, along with anti-comic campaigns that even prompted police raids, revealed how readily extreme measures could be framed as acts of moral responsibility. Destroying books was recast as a defense of American values - family, faith, and patriotism. Organizations not typically associated with authoritarian tactics, such as the Boy Scouts, the American Legion Auxiliary, and 4-H Clubs, embraced these efforts for both symbolic and practical reasons. Public reaction was largely supportive or indifferent; many Americans saw no contradiction between suppressing comics and upholding the freedoms they valued. Although public burnings have faded, the underlying appeal of censorship, and its alignment with the goals of well-meaning citizens, remains much the same as it was in the 1950s. A glance at today’s headlines shows that this troubling pattern in both comics history and American culture is far from over.
SO, WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT COMIC BOOK CENSORSHIP?
READ MORE:
Tales from the Code: How Much Did Things Change After the Enactment of the Comics Code of 1954?
I think it's lowkey crazy that some comic fans have the "approved by the comics code authority" stamp as a sticker or pin or something. Like do you know what that means or do you just not research the merch you buy? Did you intentionally put the fucking censorship stamp on your shit? Either way I don't think you're the type of comic fan I want to converse with.
