<div class="header-image"></div> <table class="table-header"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="2"></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2024-05-26</td> <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="About.md" class="internal-link">About</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> # The Cycles of Censorship in Comics  While this post will mainly deal with the modern situation of censorship in comics, I do want to point out that comics have a **long** history of censorship, all the way back to the mid-1950s. The panic surrounding comics at that time is its own topic and deserves a separate post, but for now, I will say that EC Comics was the main target of this campaign, which was a panic similar to the "Satanic Panic" of the Reagan years. EC Comics did not survive and closed its doors. The entire debacle culminated in the formation of the Comic Book Code, which lasted all the way into the mid 2000s. I don't think the situation with modern comics is as bad as what many fans seem to think. It's certainly not as bad as it was in the 50s. It's actually a bit of a return to what they were 30-40 years ago. The comic books I remember as a kid were mostly from the mid to late 80s. This was an era when the conservatives were fighting back (and winning!) against the excesses of the hippy movement. They spoke of degeneracy, crumbling society, and cried about the loss of gender roles, drugs, crime, and the streets being unsafe. This was the backdrop of the Ronald Reagan presidency, the "Just Say No" campaign, and new censorship codes for movies, music, and comics. This was in the era of the comic book code. The stories in pretty much all media, not just comics, were either watered down, family friendly, say-nothing stories (think The Cosby Show or Family Ties) or, if more difficult topics were discussed, they'd be wrapped up in a nice kid-friendly morality tale. "Stay in school, kids." "Say your prayers and eat your vitamins." "Don't do drugs." These were the morals of so many stories from that era, I can barely remember anything else. It wasn't until the 90s that these themes began to fade in favour of an apathetic middle class trope that had begun to form. It was a return to the "turn on, tune in, drop out" slogan of the 60s, popularised by Timothy Leary. But this time, it wasn't dropping out of a corrupt society; it was a weariness of childish morality plays. We were told that Heavy Metal would turn us into Satanists. Hip Hop would turn us all into gangsters. Dungeons & Dragons would turn us into insane murderers, convinced that Middle Earth was reality. And marijuana would turn us all into junkies, frothing at the mouth, crawling on our hands and knees begging for just one more puff. We believed these tales as children, but we grew up. We were lied to, and to turn it all on its head, we just made fun of **EVERYTHING**. All sacred cows of older generations (and our generation too!) were subject to *absolute ridicule*. This concept is important, because it answers a lot of questions that, for some reason, people my age either don't remember or wilfully ignore. But *THIS* is why Ted Danson showed up at the Emmys, accompanied by his girlfriend Whoopie Goldberg, in full minstrel blackface and everyone accepted it as just a joke. *THIS* is why there are so many pictures of Justin Trudeau in blackface. *THIS* is why Sarah Silverman wrote an episode of the Silverman Show that featured her in blackface. This is also why it appears that there are so many homophobic and racist scenes in movies from the 90s and early 2000s. It was making fun of the stereotypical views of people who were either exceptionally stupid, or who *were actually bigots*. It's an easy mistake to make if you ignore, or are ignorant of, the context. So the culture changed. Shows and movies became a little more raunchy. Comics and video games matured, and grew up along with their audiences. Uncut versions of movies we loved were re-released on VHS featuring scenes that were cut out by censors. Banned episodes of beloved shows like the Family Guy were seen again on DVD. People laughed at stereotypes, so they were featured a lot. It was understood that the message was NOT to reinforce those stereotypes, but to *make fun* of the stereotypes themselves. And it was finally understood that what was offensive to some might not be offensive to others, and that was okay. It was everyone's personal choice to consume media they liked, and ignore what they didn't. It felt like the world was finally growing up. So fast forward to the early 2010s, after more than a decade of Generation-X just making fun of everything, and generally apathetic to world events and politics in general, loose with jokes, comfortable with sexuality, and ironically playing into old gender-specific tropes of the past for humour's sake. The next generation--Millennials-- has come of age. This generation doesn't have the context of where this all came from, and they take it at face value. There's a good argument to be made that younger generations, being hopelessly glued to their phones, simply don't understand subtle, satiric humour, and that's why so much of this period is misunderstood, but that's for another post. Lacking the proper context, or a proper sense of both irony and humour, Millennials and Gen Z see the world as rife with bigotry, and have just the right amounts of narcissism and self-righteous egotism to believe that it falls upon them to eradicate it. And the strategy for this is to insert themselves into every aspect of culture, whether or not they were actually invited. Kind of like Abbie Hoffman "changing the system from within" back in the 60s. This is where we get comic art "corrections" [making women less sexy](https://archive.ph/Wq70F).  One can't help but compare the "corrections" of sexy art to the "corrections" of [revealing bathing suits in the 20s and 30s](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/women-arrested-bathing-suits-1920s/).  This is also where we get the claim that orcs in Dungeons & Dragons, and in Tolkien's Middle Earth, are a "racist representation of black people." [No, I'm not making that up.](https://www.wired.com/story/dandd-must-grapple-with-the-racism-in-fantasy/) I should point out, however, that every generation must, at some time, insert themselves into culture. At some point everyone gets replaced by someone younger. They do have to work. And young people, invariably, have different values and perspectives than the generations who came before them. So while we made fun of everything about, well, everything, the next generation just got *offended* by everything. And they brought this offence to work with them. So after 10 years of Millennials working within various media and getting offended by all if it, of course the culture completely changed. But this is what happens. Young people insert themselves into life, get jobs as writers, producers and creators, and shake things up. Sometimes this makes things really interesting and free, and art is created unlike anything anyone has seen or heard before. Think Jazz and Swing, Rock 'n' Roll, Beat poetry, Hip Hop, Expressionism, Surrealism, etc. But sometimes things get dialled back. Panics happen. The Comics panic of the 50s, for example; McCarthyism, the Satanic Panic, the War on Drugs, or the modern [panic about "Misinformation"](2024-05-26%20Alex%20Jones%20Is%20a%20Crazy%20Kook%20and%20That's%20Why%20I%20Like%20Him.md). This dialling back usually encompasses just about everything in culture, including comics. And thus, comics have again turned into a format for kids with, modern, if not familiar morality tales: "Don't consume the wrong media.. " "Twitter Gurus will turn you into a woman-hating right wing Nazi." "Podcasts will turn you into a conspiracy nut." "Don't hate on the gays."  It's not the first time comics characters have changed to better fit in with current trends and styles. Just look at the many iterations of Batman. When The Bat-Man was first introduced in the 30s, he was a detective *first* and superhero second -- a far distant second. He carried a pistol, and his books had a very crime-noir style. In the late sixties, Batman became a silly, super-campy, over-the-top romp with psychedelic overtones. He remained this way until the late 80s when Frank Miller gave him a fresh coat of paint, and a severe chip on his shoulder. So, while the argument that modern writers are changing established comic characters is *true*, it's something that happens with every generation, and is not a big deal, *even if* Marvel, and DC especially, are making all their heroes gay. I mean Adam West era Batman was pretty fucking gay too. And I love going back to those old shows. They were really fun. So what's the issue with Nightwing now being a gay comic? Just wait another decade and some other Frank Miller will come along and give one or more of these characters a nice, gritty rewrite that will catch on to their respective universes. For now, though, these comics have returned to the sanitised, kid-friendly, mediocre morality tales of the 80s Reagan era. Saturday morning cartoons that lecture you to go to school and tell you that "knowing is half the battle." These books are just not meant for adults. There will be a time when returning to them will be fun, when a sense of ironic nostalgia will just make them cheesy, lame, and remind us of earlier times like Batman '66 (and GI Joe!) does. There's some great golden age reprints available too that are just hilarious (I'd recommend the [Weird Love](https://13thdimension.com/exclusive-preview-weird-love-6/) series).  And besides, there is always room for watered down, bland, kid-friendly comics. I'm just not the target audience for kid-friendly stories. Even if everything from North America is going back to this conservative style morality tale (albeit left wing conservatism), there will always be room for more adult-themed content. Right now that content seems to be coming from the indie scene and Japan, so that's where my dollars will go. There's really no reason to make a big deal out of any of this. These cycles come and go. And it does seem like this current wave of conservatism is winding down. I am concerned, however, that left-wing conservatism will be replaced, not by a relaxed period of open humour and free ideas, but another wave of right-wing conservatism, but time will tell.