Comics and the Comics Code

Comics are an old art form whose basic qualities define the evolution of graphic novels, both as a medium and as a term. A combination of pictures and words,  comics master Will Eisner claims that they appeared in ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe.  More broadly, the term “comics” is drawn from the name for materials often printed in newspapers starting at the beginning of the twentieth century. Comics, or funny pages, were short pieces usually predicated on visual jokes and vaudeville style slapstick comedy.

Comic books, the stand-alone twenty four page pamphlets, began to grow as an industry in the late 1930s and quickly became something of a national phenomena. By 1948, it was estimated that fifty million comics were published per year on a wide range of topics. Criticism of the art form followed immediately. Psychologists like Frederic Wertham noted that child delinquents were often eager consumers of comics.

Comics were considered to be overwhelmingly violent media. Detractors would often count  the individual panels in a comic book, then identify panels which were “violent” (including violent sound effects), and relate the relationship to aghast audiences. Kidd Colt, one book reviewed by Dr. Wertham, featured one hundred and eleven panels, sixty nine of which were images of violence, including “violent sound effects such as poww or thapp”.

Widespread fear of the industry percolated for years, as psychologists built symposiums and materials leveling every possible accusation against the popular content of comics books.  Psychologist Gerson Legman accused comics of having “Naziist” and anti-Semitic content in his article written under Wertham’s symposium.  Detroit Police Commissary Harry Toy accused the material of being “Communistic”. A Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Deliquency called upon Wertham several times to serve as an expert witness testifying to the dangers of the media for young readers.

Under pressure from the committee, comics publishers voluntarily created the Comics Code Authority. Banning violent imagery and even objecting to the inclusion of certain themes or subjects, such as zombies, the code served to tighten restrictions on comics. The years of bad publicity and the restrictive code also contributed to the low esteem in which comics were held.

It was against this bad press and the nonrepresentative language that forced creators like Eisner to reconsider the way in which their medium was considered by the press.  That atmosphere lent itself to the evolution of terms to create the spiritual successors to the term “comic”–graphic novels.