AOB6 - Regulation

This is a comic front page I created reminiscent of the 1950s when the CCA was in full swing.  The brief was to produce a cover that would be banned.

The CCA (The comics code authority) was first introduced in 1954 as a system to filter out any material in comic books that people believe would offend children. The CCA was created shortly after the release of the Frederick Wertham book Seduction of the Innocent, stating how comic books influenced the minds of children. The CCA was based on the Association of comics magazine publishers (ACMP) founded in 1948, but was rarely enforced. The CCA was much stricter than its predecessors. A few examples of the CCA rules include:

1. In every instance the hero must win and the villain punished for his evil deeds.
2. No comic can have the words "horror", "crime", or "terror" in the title of the comic
3. Profanity , obscenity and any words or symbols that have undesirable meaning can not be placed in a comic
4. Any attack on any religious or racial group is prohibited

While the CCA was an optional route for the comic industry, many magazine distributors would only sell comics that had the CCA seal on them. Some companies were able the survive well through the CCA while others had to adapt their comics in order to make the money they needed. However, William Gaines, owner of EC comics, believed that the banning of the words horror, crime and terror, on the front cover on a comic was deliberately targeting his own best-selling comics Crime SuspenStories, The Vault of Horror, and The Crypt of Terror. Because of these restrictions, EC comics had to cancel all of its titles except for the MAD comics, making EC comics very unprofitable. William Gaines went on to try and counter the CCA by reprinting a comic called judgment day from Weird Fantasy#18 toIncredible Science Fiction#33. It was printed as a replacement for another code-disapproved comic story, but the CCA also disapproved this because the of the main character being black. The story (written by Gaines) was a message against the evils of racism, which wouldn't be shown if the main character wasn't black, and if the CCA didn't allow this story to run, he said that he would make sure that the world knew why. This resulted in the CCA allowing this story to be run. Soon afterwards, from the sheer restrictions that the CCA imposed on his comics, Gaines decided to quit the comic business to concentrate on the MAD magazine.
During the 60's the comic industry went underground, selling more adult comics without CCA approval, causing some but not massive success.
The CCA between these times had started to revise their laws as more subjects they opposed became more socially acceptable.In the late 90s and during the beginning of the 21st century, more and more comic book business now publish their comics without CCA approval. Also, more comic book stores have shown up, meaning more, non-code comics can reach a larger audience. As the CCA is starting to become less important as the time goes by, the only major businesses that still submit their work to the CCA before selling (as of 2007) are DC comics and Archie comics, though DC comics only submit a small amount of their work.
An example of a recently banned comic is MurderDrome, made by Al Ewing and Paul J. Holden in Belfast, banned by Apple, as it was available on the Apple iTunes store. The reason for this was for the amount of excessive violence that was shown in the comic.

Lately, the government has gotten round to closing loopholes, stopping creation of certain images that were able to be allowed under old schemes, one of the mainly concerned "Child Pornography". Due to the release of the new Coroners and Justice bill that came into effect earlier this year, (although it is being reviewed at the moment) would make some well known graphic novels become banned, such as two Alan Moore Graphic novelists, Watchmen and The lost girls. Because of this, a comic book alliance was formed by Alan Moore's daughter, to help out any comic book creators, as this bill has the potential to land innocent people into jail over possession of a newly banned comic book.