For the April 2021 edition of “Ghosts”, I’ve decided to theme all the historical items around sex. Calm down… It’s very unlikely to be what you’re imaging.
Adults didn’t care much for comic books in the late 1940s. As a new form of entertainment, parents failed to understand the appeal of the poorly drawn and colored monstrosities. Comics were occasionally blamed for everything from bad grades to child deaths not because they actually caused these things, but because parents are always looking for scapegoats when their children aren’t perfect. I like to imagine there was an outcry in ancient Egypt when teenagers started writing notes on papyrus instead of stone.
Naturally, authority figures respond in a way that validates these feelings. That’s how Detroit Police Commissioner Harry S Toy got his 15 minutes of fame in 1948. The April issue of Time magazine included an interview with him where he claimed to have examined all the comic books available for sale in his community. He’s not clear on exactly how many that was, nor is it clear if “examined” is more or less strenuous than “reading”. As a side note, there were 239 unique comic titles published in 1948. Some of these might not have been available in Detroit, but Toy would still have had a lot to plow through.
However many he actually examined, Toy’s findings were shocking. All those comics were “loaded with communist teachings, sex, and racial discrimination.” These vague allegations were damning because parents, teachers, and clergy were already suspicious of comics, and because the only proponents of comics were children. No one cares what they think.
Toy left the national spotlight after that article, but he remained an active member of the Detroit crusaders. By August 1948, Detroit police forbade the retail sale of 36 specific comic titles within city limits. Thankfully, the ban was lifted when someone realized the first amendment applied to Michigan.
This is speculation on my part, but I’d like to believe this short-lived ban fetishized comic books for Detroit kids, which is why there were enough local fans in 1964 to make the Detroit Triple Fan Fair a success. This event served as a template that future comic conventions built on.
“Do you ever get deja vu?”
“Didn’t you just ask me that?”
Forty one years after Toy’s complaints in “Time”, Joe Queenan made very similar complaints about comics in the April 30, 1989 issue of “New York Times Magazine”. Specifically, he criticized their portrayal of sex. This was part of a larger social movement at the time to force various media to label themselves so parents could monitor their kids’ habits without actually doing anything, modeled after the MPAA code for movies. Some industries (music) caved quickly with explicit lyric labels. Some resisted but later caved (kids TV programming).
Comics were still operating under the Comics Code Authority, but no one outside the industry knew or cared what that tiny white stamp meant. Even if people did understand it, its absence didn’t necessarily mean the comic contained objectionable content – just that it wasn’t verified to be clean. What moral activists like Queenan and future-second lady of the United States Tipper Gore wanted was a labeling system that let them know what objectionable material was present. DC ended up complying with a “Mature” label on certain titles, but some comic industry stalwarts resisted – Frank Miller especially. In Miller’s view, a mature label was just a sign showing activists which books to yell about.
Publishers did get around to abandoning the CCA for internal rating systems several years later, but no body cared.
Lightning Comics VP Steven Zyskowski explained at the time that other enhancements (foil, die-cut, glow-in-the-dark) were no longer effective sales boosters, and he was looking for something new. Then he saw the regular cover for “H:TBTN” and it just hit him: What if she was nude!? Prior to release, he was confident male consumers would go an extra mile to get a nude variant. When the company check with distributors, they laughed at the idea but didn’t say no to carrying it. Tastefully, the comic was shipped in a polybag with black bars obscuring the naughty bits.
Continued belowThe first nude variant successfully generated interest, prompting Lightning and other publishers (mostly London Night Studios) to make more. Supply quickly outpaced demand, however, and by late 1997 Lightning and London Night both made official announcements that they were stopping the practice. You might wonder why they had to issue a press release for this instead of just, you know, stopping. Well, the comic market was still rough in 1997 and telling everyone “Hey, we’re not doing nudes anymore!” reminded readers that Lightning and London Night still existed.
In the short time it had left, Lightning tried other attention-grabbing stunts like poly-bagging a condom with “Bloodfire” #1. It was totally story-driven, I assure you.
2-D Graphics released this educational gem in April 1998 to combat the problem of sexual assault in colleges. In addition to the 36 page story, writer and penciller D. Deangelo provides a text page detailing the seven year process of creating the comic and the personal history behind it. During that time, Deangelo connected with George Perez at a convention, and through him several big names in the industry signed up to help with inking, pin-ups, colors, and design. The finished product was approved by the National Oranization for Women and a portion of the $3.95 cover price went toward promoting assault awareness.
In his editorial, Deangelo mentions that when he was making the comic, he was unaware of any other comic ever tackling rape as an issue before. Oddly enough, there’s a scene where the rapist is attacking Captain Awareness (which is a power that travels from person to person as needed) that virtually mirrors a scene from Frank Miller’s “Daredevil” #173 from August 1981 with identical dialogue. I’m sure this is coincidental, as the dialogue in question isn’t anything special (“I’m helpless… just like [victim’s name]!”)
The comic market was on the upswing in 2002, thanks in large part to a renaissance at Marvel led by Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada. Part of Jemas’ shtick was to increase fan interest by playing up the rivalry between Marvel and DC (Jemas came to comics via the NBA, and team rivalries are an important part of the sport). The two companies had been on good terms for years, but Jemas longed for the old days of the Distinguished Competition, Brand Echh, and fans who felt loyalty to one company over another.
Jemas began making derogatory remarks toward DC, and Quesada followed his boss’s lead. When Warner Bros bought DC, Quesada took to calling DC “AOL Comics” when he visited comic message boards. (This was back when the conglomerate was AOL/TIME/Warner, you see.) It was a dumb joke then and is empty now that Disney bought Marvel. Oh well.
As part of the rivalry campaign, Quesada made it a habit to publicly denigrate DC every time he could. When the New York Observer interviewed him in April 2002, they planned to talk to him about the upcoming Spider-Man film. Knowing he had a wide audience, Quesada took the opportunity to talk about how well Marvel was doing with comics and films. Then he kept going, pointing out how DC had a great stable of characters but was having trouble making exciting comics or a good film (they were coming off of Batman and Robin and Steel). Then he went further, and made the analogy of DC being a porn star who couldn’t get it up.
Maybe Commissioner Toy and Queenan had a point…
