They gave shape to promising concepts and form to dastardly darkness. The code got rid of all of that beauty and pressed each book, each writer, and each creator into a painful mold of conformity. Kids' publishers will be gone by The code is the reason superheroes became popular with creators and artists again. It was fairly easy to graft the tenets of the Comics Code onto a story of a do-gooder. Superheroes were a safe bet and allowed surviving publishers to rally around the biggest demographic said heroes appealed to: teenage boys.
But even superheroes got repetitive. Comic scripts at the time usually consisted of a goofy villain launching some dastardly but not too dastardly plot before eventually getting caught by a superhero. By bending to the will of the code, comics started to feel redundant — like different singers covering the same song over and over.
It isn't hard to see why comics began losing the audience that had ravenously consumed 80 to million issues per month just six years earlier.
And television didn't have to work very hard to grab this uninterested audience. One of the clearest examples of the code's effect is in the evolution of Batman. Batman, as we know him today, was a hero created by one of the darkest episodes in comics — he witnessed a mugger shoot and kill both his parents when he was a child. In , he was painted as a character that was dark, ominous, and used guns:.
During the comics backlash and throughout Wertham's press tour, Batman was targeted for all of those things his gun use was dealt with before the Comics Code , and Wertham also insisted that Batman and Robin were homosexual. In response, Batman was written to be friendlier, brighter, and more heterosexual.
Batman's love interest Vicki Vale was introduced in a year after Wertham first burst onto the scene :. The softening of Batman made him less interesting and less serious. This would also show up in the Adam West-led television series in Though we can now recognize the subversiveness and camp of the show, at the time, it was still a reflection of the lack of edge in the source material.
With this code in place, underground comics emerged and gained popularity. They didn't have to abide by the code and offered saucier material than what mainstream comics were producing. But even in the mainstream, there were creators who took the form to a new level by challenging and circumventing the code. Marvel's Roy Thomas gave readers the dark and twisted Ultron in , a Trojan horse brimming with an Oedipus complex and a macabre message about technology and control.
Thomas coyly lampooned the type of villains that peppered comic books in the wake of the Comics Code by making them Ultron's henchmen.
There was also the legendary Jack Kirby, who hid commentary on huge political and social ideas within the superhero genre. Further, Howe points out that the cosmic comics of the '70s delicately danced around the idea of psychedelic drugs.
Stan Lee had what's considered the biggest "F you" to the code in , when he crafted a drug abuse storyline in Amazing Spider-Man Nos. That move chipped away at the power of the code. In the years following Lee's revolt, the code was rewritten and ratified. Its loosening grip allowed creators to explore darker topics and make villains who were just as interesting as the heroes. Remember: one of the code's rules was that readers couldn't sympathize with a villain. The final nail in the code's coffin wasn't something artists or creators did.
It's a lot more boring and has to do with the direct market. Comic book shops began popping up in the '70s. As time went on, publishers weren't indebted to their distributors, and a new distribution method allowed them to sell stories to shops that didn't have the code's seal of approval. Over the years, one publisher after the other started dropping the code.
Today, with the rise of digital comics, the audiences that read comics in the first half of the 20th century are finally coming back. Digital comics , for instance, appear to appeal to female readers. But even at the height of anti-comics sentiment, not all comics were aimed at children.
Romance comics, for instance, were explicitly marketed to older teenagers. As the kids who grew up reading superhero comics entered the comics industry themselves, they began to add a more sophisticated touch to the medium.
Check it out! Thomas also liked to infuse his work with literary references. Check out this psychedelic panel from Strange Tales You can also gauge the maturity of the audience at this time by the letter pages, where the creators print and respond to fan mail.
And yet, the idea that comics are only for kids refuses to die, even among some who worked on them for decades. Alan Moore helped popularize however inadvertently dark, ultra-violent, definitely-not-for-kids comics through his work on, among other things, Watchmen. He has since disowned his own comics, which he talks about in this interview from October This is all very pretentious and patronizing, but there is a fair point to be made about the role childhood nostalgia plays in driving modern superhero stories.
A report showed that most people who buy superhero comics are male, and about half of them are between 30 and 50 years old. These older, male readers are far more likely to do their buying in a comic book shop versus a bookstore or online. And unfortunately, when the comic book industry measures comic sales, they focus on sales of single issues — the kind people buy at comic book shops — and exclude digital issues or collected issues sold in bookstores.
They let you sit, provide you with cushions, sofas, settees, so that you can read at peace. I am the guy who started off on regular AND non-child fiction books right off.
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The Cybernag. Comics — good or bad for children? First let us look at the good points: Like Picture books, comics tell the story in pictures — lot more pictures and so are interesting for children. Large chunks of text can be intimidating to children who have just begun reading by themselves. They help children develop reading skills and learn new words even if some might be difficult. They develop their vocabulary by reading words in the context of the narrative. Boring topics can be made interesting and easy to understand by breaking them down into smaller illustrated bites.
For many children it is the first step towards reading books without illustrations. Classics and epics can also be easily understood in the comic book format. And the bad points? Children tend to believe that the comic book heroes are real and try to emulate them with disastrous results as had happened after the Superman and Spiderman series were launched.
The language can be inappropriate for smaller children with bad grammar and swear words. The idolization of negative characters can be bad for the psyche of the child. Action comics with too much violence and horror comics with their gory and gruesome visuals can lead to nightmares or worse. While some might consider the superheroes series as being good, for in them the good triumphs over evil, others might not agree.
Even the seemingly harmless and innocent Archie comics have come under feminist ire as being bad for girls. And some find negative tones in the Tom and Jerry comics too. My friends Harshal and Anuradha have pointed out in their comments that CB has already come out in the comic book form. Thanks you for the update! And here is the something I had said I will share with you all. Spread the word Tweet WhatsApp. Like this: Like Loading Follow Blog via Email Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Email Address: Follow. Follow The Cybernag on WordPress. Hi Zephyr! This is your First blog that I am reading.. Will definitely jump to the other ones… Like Like. As someone said in an earlier comment, there are two sides to everything! Same with comics! Recently,on a flight,a woman in her mid 40s sitting in the same row with me was busy reading comics Like Like. What Ho! Hello Zephyr! Interesting choice of topic, Zephyr. Enjoyed this one!
Srini Like Like. You do that. I am sure she will soon begin reading. Destination Infinity Like Like. Er… Re: Chhota Bheem… Over books are out, mostly large picture books. Enter the discussion Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.
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Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. And in fact, I went into one of our local comic book stores one day, and left immediately, swearing never to bring my kids inside that place. Of course, only some maybe most comic books are like this; many are not. Whether or not you're happy that comic books have become so pervasive, you have to admit one benefit of their spreading popularity: they've really branched out, in style, in content, and in intended audience.
You really can find comic books or graphic novels that will appeal to people who are neither sexist nor gore-happy nor morons. Furthermore, there is a backlash, at least in some quarters, against the sleazier side of comic books.
We see males satirically portrayed like typical hypersexualized female superheroes here and here , to point out the absurd contortions comic book women are subjected to.
We see people imagining more modest and functional! At least people besides the Ladies Censorial Sodality for the Perpetually Outraged are talking about these things. And we see people doing genuinely interesting things with graphics.
There are genuine artists at work in some comic books. So two kids arguing about the difference between Batman and Superman's motives, their relationship with the city and with their parents, and whether or not someone's heroism is affected by inborn qualities or technological assistance?
You could do worse. And then there's manga, which I always accidentally type as "mango," which shows how knowledgeable I am about it. My year-old daughter who has no tolerance for sexy stuff or nonsense in general is really into it and she still reads actual books. So, who knows.
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