The Comics Authority and The Punisher: |
|
The medium of comic books has been repeatedly attacked and deemed “low-brow”, violent entertainment ever since the 1930s. Throughout the decades, parents and moral crusaders have called for censorship of comics due to allegations that it “corrupts” kids and causes them to become criminals.[1] In 1954, the “do-gooders” got their wish and the Comic Magazine Association of America instead of having the government regulate comics, implemented the Comics Code Authority.[2] One rule that was enforced by the code was, “All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.”[3] For comic book characters like the Punisher, whose answer to problems is always bloody violence, this code was a problem.
Although Punisher did not make his first appearance in a |
comic until 1974, the code was already in full effect stifling the creativity of artists and authors of comic books.[4] The Punisher character has changed significantly between his inception in 1974 and the current version that is in book-stands and comic book shops. The main difference (aside from the white go-go boots) is the ultra-violence that fills the pages of comic runs like Punisher MAX. In one of the first runs of the Punisher, Punisher: War Journal (when the code was still in effect), the violence was very toned down. A lot of the violent scenes, like where the Punisher’s family was killed for example, shows minimal amounts of blood and leaves the reader to imagine what happens between the panels (see picture below, on the left).[5] This is what author Scott McCloud calls a “subject- to –subject” panel transition where there is certain “degree of reader
|
involvement necessary to render [the] transitions meaningful.”[6] In the Punisher MAX series there is much less left to the imagination. In fact the gratuitous violence is almost like a trademark for the run; for example at the end of the first volume of the series Punisher executes his friend with a shotgun blast to the head leaving him headless and needless to say, leaving the reader in shock (see picture below, on the right).[7]
Aside from the excessive violence, Punisher MAX also does not pull punches when it comes to sex and profanity. This is actually attributed the “MAX” on the cover. “MAX” is part of an “in-house rating system” that Marvel set-up after it withdrew from the Comics Code of Authority in 2001.[8] In Marvel comics with “MAX” on the cover, pretty much anything goes as far as content, no matter how graphic. |
EC's Resistance, and Wertham's Flawed Argument |
|
The Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) formed the Comics Code Authority so that it could save the comic book industry. Parents and “do-gooders” thought comic books were causing children and teenagers to become delinquents by seducing them with tales horror, crime, and illicit sex.[9] The simple fact, however, is that parents and the media used the comic book industry as a scapegoat. At one point New York even passed a bill that made it illegal to publish any type of comic with the words crime, sex, horror, or terror in the title and was punishable by $500 and/or a year in jail.[10] The publisher that held out the longest against joining the CMAA was EC because William Gaines—the head of the company—“despised the code”.[11] If a comic book did not have the Comics Code Authority seal of approval parents did not allow their child to read it; publishers like EC were shunned for not having “appropriate” content and were in danger of going under unless they complied with CMAA regulations. The problem with blaming comic books for the “corruption” of youth is
|
that there is no evidence at all that comics drove kids to be criminals. All the allegations made against the comic book industry were driven by religious leaders, overprotective parents, and the fear mongering of the media. William Gaines said it best when he ran an editorial stating “many groups of adults…would like to blame their lack of ability as responsible parents on comic magazines instead of on themselves.”[12] Gaines and EC seem like one of, if not, the only publisher who remained vocal about the outrageous claims that were made by the media’s allegations about the supposed degradation of the youth by comic books. As Bradford Wright states in Comic Book Nation, “Most publishers…were in no mood to take a courageous stand for First Amendment rights. They wanted to preserve their business. And if the code would achieve that result, so be it.”[13]
Eventually EC was forced to join the CMAA code and William Gaines sarcastically proclaimed, “With comic magazine censorship now a fact, we at EC look forward to an immediate drop in the crime and juvenile delinquency rate of the |
United States.”[14] After horror and crime comics were all gone in the 1950s, rock-n-roll was then the new target for parents to blame during the second half of the ‘50s; this is the major flaw in the whole argument of comic books corrupting youth.[15] Parents or groups who claim that things like movies or comics make children into criminals, whether they are successful or fail in their crusade, always move on to the next “corruptive” source of media. In 1948, students in a school in Binghamton, New York put over 2000 comic books into a pile and had a mass comic book burning as a symbol of protest against the “sleaze” of the comic industry, which goes to show just how committed people were to this ridiculous cause.[16] In retrospect, it is hard to believe that the assault on the comic book industry got as far as it did. Thankfully, nowadays comic book content regulation is left up to publishers; authors and artists have the liberty to create magnificent stories without much restriction on what they can produce.
|
References
[1] “History of Comics Censorship, Part 1,” Comic book Legal Defense Fund, accessed March 17, 2014, http://s414170025.onlinehome.us/history-of-comics-censorship-part-1/
[2] “History of Comics Censorship, Part 1”
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Comicbook: The Punisher,” TV Tropes, accessed March 17, 2014, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Comicbook/ThePunisher
[5] Carl Potts, The Punisher War Journal: An Eye For An Eye, Ch. 1 Sunday in the Park (New York: Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc., 1988) 20, 28.
[6] Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1993), 71.
[7] Garth Ennis, The Punisher MAX: Vol. 1 In The Beginning (New York: Marvel Worldwide Inc., 2011), 141.
[8] “Comics Code History: The Seal of Approval,” Comic book Legal Defense Fund, accessed March 17, 2014, http://cbldf.org/comics-code-history-the-seal-of-approval/
[9] Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 175.
[10] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 175.
[11] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 173.
[12] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 176.
[13] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 174.
[14] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 177.
[15] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 177-178.
[16] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 86.
[2] “History of Comics Censorship, Part 1”
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Comicbook: The Punisher,” TV Tropes, accessed March 17, 2014, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Comicbook/ThePunisher
[5] Carl Potts, The Punisher War Journal: An Eye For An Eye, Ch. 1 Sunday in the Park (New York: Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc., 1988) 20, 28.
[6] Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1993), 71.
[7] Garth Ennis, The Punisher MAX: Vol. 1 In The Beginning (New York: Marvel Worldwide Inc., 2011), 141.
[8] “Comics Code History: The Seal of Approval,” Comic book Legal Defense Fund, accessed March 17, 2014, http://cbldf.org/comics-code-history-the-seal-of-approval/
[9] Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 175.
[10] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 175.
[11] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 173.
[12] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 176.
[13] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 174.
[14] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 177.
[15] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 177-178.
[16] Wright, Comic Book Nation, 86.