Hi everyone,
I'm doing some research to try to discern why American comics fell so far behind Manga in scope of distribution and breath of content, and one event that seems to me to be one of the major turning points was the 1950s Moral Panic and ensuing comics code.
The most glaring issue I am puzzed by is how draconian the code was, and I wonder why, when the MPAA adopted a scale system that allowed for more "adult" content to be flagged with an R rating, that the CCA adopted such a crippling blanket policy rather than one that couldn't better balance creator freedom and parental reassurance. It seems to me that if they had adopted a better rating system that comics could have continued to blossom their genre diversity and could have prevented themselves from being locked in as "kids stuff", a bias whose lingering legacy can be felt today.
My second part of this double-barrelled question has to do with wether or not I'm correct in starting with the CCA as the "diverging point" that set Manga on a more successful path than the "stunted" American comics route. To what extent is this true? The CCA seemed to me to hit at a formative time in comic's life, where manga's moral panic occurred much later after the industry was established enough that it could weather it, but that's just my active theory and I'm trying to find counterpoints to it. I admit that this is somewhat of a difficult question since there's no alternate timeline to compare to, so I'm really just trying to direct my further research in this area so any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Thanks historians!
The most glaring issue I am puzzed by is how draconian the code was, and I wonder why, when the MPAA adopted a scale system that allowed for more "adult" content to be flagged with an R rating, that the CCA adopted such a crippling blanket policy rather than one that couldn't better balance creator freedom and parental reassurance.
It is difficult to say why they did not, but there are some solid reasons why not. For one, there weren't any particularly good examples of a graded censorship system at the time: the Motion Picture Association of America, for example, was still using the Motion Picture Production Code or Hays Code was introduced in 1930, implemented in 1934, and lasted until a graduated system was introduced in 1968. Other magazines and publications didn't observe a graduated rating system either, although some publications were intended solely for adults, like Playboy (1953).
Before there was a Comics Code, there existed a number of individual codes and company-specific policies - this was in large part a holdover from pulp magazines, where individual editorial policies heavily shaped the content. You can read about "The Other Comics Codes" in Horror Comics: The Illustrated History, but for example:
In the early 1940s, Sheldon Mayer, an editor at DC Comics, had this list of rules for is writers and artists:
- Never show anybody stabbed or shot.
- Show no torture scenes.
- Never show a hypodermic needle.
- Don't chop the limbs off anybody.
- Never show a coffin, especially with a body in it.
These restrictions may seem a bit silly, but they emphasize two important things: 1) they speak directly to concerns voiced by teachers, doctors, parents, and politicians, and 2) they are aimed directly at the low-grade, gory, and livid crime and horror comics. The Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America was incredibly restrictive on those two specific genres - to the point that they basically put Al Gaines and EC Comics out of the comics business, although he would go on to find success with Mad Magazine.
It is notable that now that the Comics Code Authority has "broken down," publishers do use a graduated rating system; this is of the 1960s and 70s, when underground comix began ignoring the Code entirely (publishing, among other things, pastiches and parodies of old EC comics), and publishers like Marvel and DC began working around it, marking selected books as "mature." You can read DC's current rating system here, and Marvel has about the same thing.
My second part of this double-barrelled question has to do with wether or not I'm correct in starting with the CCA as the "diverging point" that set Manga on a more successful path than the "stunted" American comics route. To what extent is this true?
The Comics Code Authority had much more immediate effects than just in the United States alone; the moral panic it sparked also traveled to the United Kingdom, which you can read about in A haunt of fears : the strange history of the British horror comics campaign and other countries in Pulp demons: international dimensions of the postwar anti-comics campaign. It wasn't just that the CCA stifled creative output of two specific genres of American comic books and impacted all others, but American moral politics and American production of comic material was so substantial that it had a sizable impact outside on other countries as well - and yet, that fissuring of the market also greatly helped the development of local varieties and tastes in comic works.
The CCA can be said to have stunted the growth of American comics for a generation, because it was a creative and publishing bottleneck. But that same restriction also provided the pressure for underground comix in the 60s and 70s, the rise for non-CCA affiliated independent comics scene in the US and Canada, and the interest in the different comics that began to filter in from Europe, Asia, and South America through anthologies like Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal. Ultimately, the Code was subverted, and in 2011 abandoned.