10 Things You Might Not Know About The Comics Code Authority

In honor of the ten year anniversary of this sad little fizzle that marked the end of an era, I rounded up ten interesting facts about the Comics Code Authority that you can impress your friends with at cocktail parties where the conversation revolves largely around comics history. Also, please invite me.

1. There were actual Senate hearings about comics.

Even as someone who loves comics, I feel like perhaps the highest legislative body in our country should probably have more pressing things to talk about, but apparently not! The increasing fervor over whether or not comics were Bad For Children led to the formation of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which held hearings to discuss comic books in particular in spring of 1954. One of these was held on April 22, 1954 — the same day as Joseph McCarthy’s first hearing on supposed Communist infiltration of the Army, which is a neat little bit of timing if, say, you’re a 21st century writer looking to make a point about the culture of paranoia and repression that would lead to something like the Comics Code. Ahem.

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2. Seduction of the Innocent wasn’t about whether Batman and Robin were gay.

One of the sparks that set off the anti-comics bonfire (and there were literal bonfires of comics in towns across America) was Seduction of the Innocent, the 1954 book by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham. Today, the book is probably best remembered for Wertham’s claim that Batman and Robin were lovers, which even at the time comics professionals found laughable (though Will Brooker’s Batman Unmasked argues that some of the early subtext was intentional and positive). Wertham also took issue with the widespread use of bondage in Wonder Woman comics (which was definitely supported by the text) and claimed she was a lesbian (dude, even in 2021 we can’t get DC to consistently admit that she’s bi).

But superheroes weren’t the most popular genre of comics at the time, and they weren’t Wertham’s main target. That was reserved for the often extremely gory and nihilistic crime comics that were dominating the market, particularly those by publishers like the now-defunct EC Comics.

3. Yeah, some of the comics really were pretty wild.

Today, most of us think of the early ’50s as a time of relatively tame, conservative media, thanks in no small part to the Hays Code, which did for movies what the Comics Code would do for comics. But the art could be pretty salacious — check out these covers to Phantom Lady #14 (Fox Comics) and Crime SuspenStories #22 (EC Comics).