Limited Collectors' Edition #C-23: "The House of Gargoyles!"

Near the top of the cover on nearly any post-1955 American comic book, you will find a strange little postage stamp containing the words "Approved by the Comics Code Authority." For nearly fifty years the "C.C.A." has controlled what you are permitted to read in almost all comics distributed to America's newsstands. So what is the origin of the C.C.A., still in force today, and how did it acquire this superpower?

Back in the late 1940s, before television, 10¢ comic books were the biggest selling entertainment around, consumed by nearly all children and many adults. In this expanding market, publishers jumped onto whatever was the next bandwagon: "true" crime launched by Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay; romantic confessions introduced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Young Love; and the twist-ending horror story perfected in Tales from the Crypt and William Gaines' other EC titles.

But the more popular these racy genres grew, the more concerned certain Americans became about their possible harmful effects on younger readers' morals. Since they first emerged in the mid-1930s, comic books had been criticized for promoting illiteracy and even eyestrain. But after World War II, America's moral guardians became alarmed by the rise in juvenile delinquency. Rather than confront issues within society or the family, they picked on comic books, misunderstood as solely for children, as the easy scapegoat.

The case studies of leading psychiatrist Fredric Wertham provided their campaign with the vital voice of scientific authority. Treating troubled youngsters in his clinic in New York's Harlem ghetto, Dr. Wertham became convinced that reading comic books had a negative influence on every patient. As the media seized on his findings, moral panic swept the nation. Religious and civic groups blacklisted offending titles and told their members to boycott retailers who stocked them. School teachers organized mass comic book burnings. Nearly 50 cities adopted local laws banning the sale of certain titles.

The anti-comics crusade climaxed in 1954, when Wertham published his unrelenting expose of the industry, Seduction of the Innocent, and his calls for government intervention prompted three days of televised Senate Committee hearings into the links between comic books and juvenile delinquency. It was the comic's darkest hour.

Ranged against the damning testimony of Wetham and other experts, the defenses of EC Comics' William Gaines and only three other publishers failed to persuade. Although federal legislation was ruled out as contrary to freedom of the press, the pressure was on the comics industry to clean up its act.

Gaines attempted to rally his fellow publishers into opposing regulation and funding independent research and a public relations counteroffensive. But nearly all either closed down or caved in and conformed to the C.C.A., the industry's new self-regulating authority with the strictest code applied to any medium. Publishers could not get their product onto the newsstands unless they paid to submit their material for approval and removed any objectionable content. Only Dell's range and Classics Illustrateds were wholesome or educational enough not to need the C.C.A.'s stamp. Of EC's once proud line, only the satirical Mad survived by converting to a magazine.

Thanks to the Code, comics survived this attack but at a price. The market was decimated, artists exiled, content infantilized. The medium had to wait until the unregulated underground comix outrage of the late 1960s to address adult subjects again.

In 1971 and 1989, the Code was gingerly revised. It still polices the minority of comics sold from the newsstand, though most publishers now supply their comics just to specialist shops. The future of the C.C.A. looks less secure after Marvel Comics' withdrawal in 2001 of its entire line, replaced by in-house, movie-style ratings.

Still, the critics have not completely disappeared, so the industry has set up the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, just in case....



Credits

Cover: Nick Cardy
Script: Jack Oleck
Pencils: Jack Sparling
Inks: Jack Sparling

Reprinted:

• from House of Mystery (DC, 1951 series) #175 (July-August 1968).

• in Limited Collectors' Edition (DC, 1972 series) #C-23.
• in DC Special (DC, 1968 series) #11 (March-April 1971).
• in Showcase Presents: The House of Mystery (DC, 2006 series) #1.

The Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #11: "Bruce the Barbarian!"

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“	Vic Catan Jr (Vicatan) 1948-2004: Probably the closest of all Redondo's followers, Vicatan shared the great man's beautifully lush brush strokes but married that style to an ever-so-slightly humorous sensibility. Although his first strip to DC appeard in House of Secrets #101 in 1972, it was not until much later in the decade that he began to get any substantial commissions from that company. However, making up for lost time, he went on to contribute fully 60 strips for DC's horror and war books, including runs on Sgt. Rock and "The Mercenaries" (in GI Combat). At Warren, he drew 10 strips, primarily for 1994, which, if anything, are even more impressive than his DC period.	”
	—Comic Book Artist Magazine V2 #4

Credits

Script: J. Marc DeMatteis
Pencils and inks: Vicente Catan, Jr. (as Vicatan).


Reprinted:

• from Unexpected, The (DC, 1968 series) #205 (December 1980).

• in The Best of DC (DC, 1979 series) #11.
• in Haunted Tales (K. G. Murray, 1973 series) #43.

Crypt of Shadows #15: "My Coffin is Crowded" (Bob Fujitani art)

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It was while using the pen name Bob Fuje in the 1940s that Bob Fujitani did some of his best, as well as some of his most gruesome, drawing in comic books. His art credits for that period include Shock Gibson, Cat-Man, The Black Condor, Hack O'Hara, Sky Wolf, The Zebra, and Hangman. He'd first worked on the latter character when assisting the earlier artist Harry Lucey. Appearing in Pep Comics, Hamgman dealt with some of the nastiest and most bloodthirsty criminals of the era. Fujitani did them all justice, especially the ones who had a tendency to drool while at their work. He was also a regular contributor to Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay and contributed to the pioneering but short-lived horror comic Eerie.

Later on, using a milder and more subdued style, he drew such things as Dr. Solar. He was the first artist on a comic strip titled Judge Wright in the middle 1940s and from the middle 1960s to the middle 1980s he ghosted the Flash Gordon strip.

Script: unknown.
Pencils and inks: Bob Fujitani.

Reprinted:

• from Suspense (Marvel, 1949 series) #16 (pictured inset).
• in Crypt of Shadows (Marvel, 1973 series) #15 (January 1975).
  

Where Monsters Dwell #28: "Tough Guy"

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The Devil Made Me Do It! Here is a short funny which I first read at my cousin Jimmy "Skeeter" Beavers' home, whom used to astound me by seemingly purchasing every single horror anthology comic-book that was available on the newsstands at the time. Needless to say, "Little" Jimmy was my favorite cousin to hang out with when we were mere slip of boys. In stark contrast to the previous post, I thought that this comic story was absolutely hilarious at the time and, perhaps, might even be deemed "politically incorrect" using today's rod of measurement vis-à-vis the political arena. The story's lowdown is that Bart Nelson is too tough for the demons of hell—nothing they do to him has any effect until they come up with a rather unique idea.

While I do not know who wrote "Tough Guy" as the author is not credited, the Grand Comics Database lists John Rosenberger as the illustrator of this very imaginative story.

Reprinted:

• from Journey Into Unknown Worlds (Marvel, 1950 Series) #17 (April 1953).

• in Where Monsters Dwell (Marvel, 1970 series) #28 (May 1974).

Saga of the Swamp Thing #33: "Abandoned Houses"

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The most successful animated compost heap in comics, Swamp Thing first emerged from the bog in the summer of 1972 to make his muddy debut in DC's Swamp Thing #1. Len Wein was the writer and Berni Wrightson, a disciple of both Frank Frazetta and Graham "Ghastly" Ingels, was the artist.

The folk belief in spontaneous generation, the notion that a living organism can form from nonliving matter, is many centuries old. It became a favorite of comic books from the 1940s onward, providing such Swamp Thing precursors as the Heap and Solomon Grundy and such contemporaries as Marvel's Man-Thing.

An earlier prototype had appeared in House of Secrets in the summer of 1971. Revamped, he became Swamp Thing and got his own book a year later. Never a major hit despite two movies and a television series, he has managed to hold on in comics. Wein and Wrightson concocted sentimental horror tales about a scientist who was transformed into a muck-encrusted horror after being doused by chemicals when his bayou lab was destroyed by criminals. Swamp Thing was a caring monster, and Wein's scripts worked at being touching, even philosophical, but the real attraction of the early issues was the spidery, vaguely disturbing Wrightson artwork.

Another series devoted to the forlorn bayou monster began in 1982 as Saga of the Swamp Thing and later became simply Swamp Thing. The team of Alan Moore and Steve Bissette, who worked on the newer version, earned the title considerable attention. That second series ended in 1996, and Swamp Thing returned under the Vertigo banner for twenty issues from 2000 to 2001. Mike Kaluta provided some of the drawing.

Script: Alan Moore/Len Wein
Pencils and inks: Ron Randall/Berni Wrightson

Reprinted:

• from House of Secrets (DC, 1969 series) #92 (Pictured inset).
  
• in Essential Vertigo: Swamp Thing (DC, 1996 series) #14.
• in Saga of the Swamp Thing (DC, 2009 series) #2.