By 1953, the furor about the content of comic books was reaching an absolute peak. For a decade, pretty well ever since the medium had displayed mass appeal, there had been articles expressing concern for the books' assumed young audience. And as time had gone on and the content of most comics had become more … Continue reading What Parents Don’t Know About Comic Books
Today, we're going to take a look at another story from Harvey Comics' TRUE BRIDES' EXPERIENCES #15. Like the earlier one we went over, which you can find at the link below, this one also first saw the light of day several years earlier, in the pages of FIRST ROMANCE MAGAZINE #18. And like the … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: TRUE BRIDES’ EXPERIENCES #15, Part Two
Ran across another really good example of the way in which the arrival of the Comics Code impacted on the contents of the stories that could see print. The contents of TRUE BRIDES' EXPERIENCES #15 was reprinted in its entirety from FIRST ROMANCE MAGAZINE #18 in 1952 pre-Code. Both were published by Harvey, only three … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: TRUE BRIDES’ EXPERIENCES #15
Here is an interesting oddity: a pamphlet created around 1953 extoling the hazards presented to the youth of America by the scourge of comic books. This sort of propaganda added fuel to the fire being espoused by folks like Dr. Frederick Wertham, and led over time to the televised Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency, … Continue reading The Truth About Comic Books
This was another comic book that I purchased out of the drugstore's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics, books that had been reported destroyed but which had actually been sold "off the back of the truck" to my drugstore at a cut-rate price. I almost certainly picked up this issue to fill out a grouping … Continue reading BHOC: SON OF SATAN #8
Yes, I know we covered a portion of this issue before, but there's still some fascinating stuff to look at in the other stories contained in FANTASY MASTERPIECES #6. To recap a bit; Marvel had begun reprinting the earliest Captain America adventures from 1941 within the book's pages. But, because the Comics Code had come … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: Fantasy Masterpieces #6
Here's a post that you can credit (or blame) entirely to Mark Waid. Mark sent me these two old Quality Comics releases with instructions to read a particular story inside each one. And now I'll share that story with all of you--another example of how the Comics Code of America was protecting the corruptible youth … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: LOVE SECRETS #48
In the mid-1960s, Joe Simon began legal action to try to reclaim the copyright to the Captain America stories he and Jack Kirby had written and drawn twenty years earlier, and by extension the rights to the character. In a move apparently made to help re-establish his ownership of the material, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: Fantasy Masterpieces #6
Well, not really the Comics Code per se--but this is the area where we look at how vintage comics were changed for publication, so this entry fits. On the right is the cover to MYSTERY TALES #38 as it saw print--and on the left is the cover as originally submitted by Bill Everett on Alan … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: MYSTERY TALES #38
Saw this one over at the very fine blog http://marvelsilverage.blogspot.com/ and I thought it was worth showing to a wider audience. On the right is the cover to ASTONISHING #50, published by Timely/Atlas/Marvel in 1956. And on the left is its UK reprinting in Alan Class's CREEPY WORLDS--except there, they shot from the uncorrected original … Continue reading Your Comics Code at Work: ASTONISHING #50
The Tom Brevoort Experience 