Who's Who in the CBU 2009

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

Cracking the Code

By Regie Rigby

Regular readers of this column will know that I have a bit of a thing about censorship. I don’t like it. I find the idea that anyone should tell me what I can and cannot read or watch deeply offensive. Just as I hate the idea that I should be able to tell anyone else that they cannot exercise their own judgement and read whatever they please.

Now before folks start getting hot under the collar and asking me stupid questions like “what about libel?” and “what about child pornography?” I will make the usual qualifications. Any kind of criminal image (and all child porn must fall into that category) is and should be banned because such images cannot be produced without the violation of an individual's human rights. I worry less about libel to be honest, so long as the victim has a right of reply and redress, both of which are available in most cases. (And yes, I am aware that I’m generalising here and of course there will be exceptional cases, but this is a comics column for goodness sake – if you want legal argument go hang out on the Bar Association’s website!)

You would imagine then that I am also no fan of the Comics Code Authority – that dead hand which has done so much in the last forty years to stifle creativity and artistic freedom in the medium that I love.

And of course you would be right!

I’m sure that this does not come as a shock to anyone. I have used this column on several occasions to criticise (or at least moan about) the code and the negative effects it has had on the industry in the past. We all know that the main problem faced by the medium at the moment is the popular perception that comics are for kids. But why is that the popular perception when so many comics are aimed squarely at adults and the average reader these days is in their mid to late twenties?

Well, it has a lot to do with the CCA. Their rules and regulations forced so much that was “grown up” about comics out of the medium (MAD Magazine for example used to be a comic until the fifties when it adopted magazine format to avoid the attentions of the then newly formed authority.) It isn’t just because of the code that the industry today is so superhero heavy and adolescent in tone, but for a long time the code was very successful at keeping anything approaching adult themes away from the mainstream.

We all therefore have good reason to dislike the CCA.

So, you might think I would have been pleased to read that Marvel comics (recently referred to by Warren Ellis as the best looking commercial comics line out there) are abandoning the Comics Code altogether in favour of their own “parental advisory” system.

Somehow though, I don’t feel any of the elation that I thought I would. I had built the CCA into this huge “bogey man” figure in my mind, but now I come to think of it this once powerful body has had little real influence for more than a decade. Not since that issue of Swamp Thing that the CCA rejected and DC went and published anyway back in the eighties. (And no, I can’t remember which issue, and no, I can’t go and check because I don’t own a copy. Sorry. Although if anyone wants to clue me in, do feel free to drop by the message board.)

Think about it. How many publishers pay any attention to the Comics Code these days? DC still use it, but have no problem publishing books without the seal rather than amend the content. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a CCA stamp on any book from Dark Horse or Image. Indeed I don’t think I have seen the CCA logo on any of the smaller publishers.

Now Marvel is turning it’s back on the CCA, there doesn’t really seem to be much of a future for it. Strangely, I find myself feeling a little ambivalent about the code’s apparently imminent demise. Because however bad the CCA has been for comics, the organisation has had its uses.

For a start, however imperfect a solution it might have been, the creation of the CCA in the fifties deflected a lot of unwelcome interest from outside the industry. The code gave the medium a measure of protection against even more draconian ideas, which were seriously being considered at the time. There were those who wanted comics banned altogether, those (notably Dr F. Wertham) who argued that comics were corrupting the youth of America.

There was a time – at the height of the McCarthy paranoia – when retailers would simply return bundles of comics unopened because they were afraid that the government would take action against them if they inadvertently sold something that was “un-american”. The CCA saved us from all of that (and how long could that have gone on before the industry collapsed.

Besides – while I have no desire for people to tell me what I can and cannot read, I have absolutely no problem with the idea of classification. See, I’m not stupid (whatever appearances might suggest). Parents have a right to make choices about what young children are exposed to. Kids have a right not to be exposed to things they aren’t ready for.

And of course, however paranoid the behaviour of those news vendors may seem when viewed from today’s twenty first century perspective, you would do well to remember that it is only a few years ago that London’s GOSH comics was almost put out of business when HM Customs and Excise raided the premises and took away crate loads of “obscene” material. (I remain unsure what HM Customs definition of “obscene” actually is, but since the items seized included issues of Batman and Sandman, I suspect that it is different from mine.)

Those of you who were around for my first column here at SBC (Common Sense(orship) – still available to view in the archives) may remember the story of the British anthology weekly Action!, and will be aware that comics were being hounded off the news stand as recently as the late nineteen seventies. For better or worse (largely worse in my view), comics are associated in the public mind with children. That makes them easy prey to the “moral majority” brigade.

Clearly the existence of the code didn’t prevent that raid on GOSH, and it was irrelevant to the campaign agains Action!. But I can’t help but wonder how many other raids there would have been if the code had never existed. The Code Authority states that it is confident that support form DC and Archie comics will keep it in work for the foreseeable future, and I find myself (to my utter astonishment) accepting that if the CCA didn’t exist then we would have to invent it.

But Marvel are right when they say that the code as it is currently written and enforced is no longer relevant to the modern reader. It needs to change – perhaps to a ratings system similar to that used for film. Whatever we do we need to get on with it. Marvel seems to be leading the way on this issue. The CCA needs to swallow its pride and follow.