If you grew up reading American comics in the late 20th century, Comics Code Authority. I like this stamp. The Amazing Spiderman From Carl Barks’ reprint of the Scrooge McDuck tales Jughead Double digestBut I can’t say I cared much about it then. This was the 1990s, and the Comics Code itself had become much less effective by then. But when it was enacted in 1954, its policing power over comic book content was as strong as the Hays Code once was over movies.
according to The video above is from YouTuber mattttThe Comics Code was introduced in response to, among other things, the publisher EC Comics, which published comics with dark and graphic titles such as: Tales from the Basement and A Treasure Trove of Terror It had a major impact on popular culture and damaged the reputation of the comics industry. The industry came together to Comic Code Authority It imposed a regime of self-censorship, plunging the EC into chaos at the very moment when it was about to publish one of the most innovative stories in the form. “Master Race” The story of a former SS officer living in modern-day New York. Bernard Krigstein.
At its peak, EC was a veritable comics factory, with a series of procedures in place for efficiently churning out cheesy thrills, often at the expense of much of the medium’s potential. KrigsteinAlways highly artistically aspiring, he chafed at these limitations and developed workarounds, such as dividing the rigidly defined panel space into a set of consecutive images to better convey movement and action. This technique proved most effective in “Master RaceThe film features a cinematic masterpiece in which a haunted Carl Reisman slides under the wheels of a passing subway train.
Quality takes time, and Krigstein missed a story deadline just before the Comics Code went into effect. “The Master Race” was published a few months later, in one of EC’s newer, more sophisticated, and therefore less popular titles. The visual storytelling techniques he refined are now standard elements of comic art, but lovers of the medium can see how far Krigstein could have gone without the frustrations that ultimately led him to abandon comics for a career in high school teaching. “I could do something great, if only they’d let me do it,” he said. With the Comics Code long since repealed and EC’s most disturbing comics now looking tame, content became laissez-faire. But was any artist brave enough to push the form as boldly as Krigstein?
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Based in Seoul, Colin MaOnershall Writing and broadcastingHe has written papers on cities, languages, and cultures, and his projects include the Substack newsletter. Books about cities And books A city without a state: Walking through 21st-century Los Angeles. Follow us on Twitter CollinhamOnershall or Facebook.
