Section 01
The Code
Self-censorship written to pre-empt regulation. A psychiatrist's book, a subcommittee, a trade body and a stamp on the cover: five entries on how the American industry came to police what it printed, and on the one format that escaped.
- 01·1
Seduction of the Innocent
Fredric Wertham's 1954 book argued comics were harming children, and it arrived at exactly the moment a legislature was looking for a subject.
- 01·2
The Senate hearings
A subcommittee took evidence in 1954, and the industry read the room.
- 01·3
The seal on the cover
A small printed stamp in the corner decided whether a wholesaler would carry the title at all, which made it more powerful than any law.
- 01·4
What the Code forbade
The document is specific to the point of strangeness about words, endings and who may be shown to win.
- 01·5
Magazines outside the Code
Publishing in magazine format sidestepped the seal entirely, which is why a whole category moved there.