The CBLDF and Comic Book Censorship


Hilbert College

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Comic Book Censorship

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(Note: This paper was written at the University of South Carolina)

by: Dewey Adams

23, November, 1999

America's most cherished law is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. America is a land where artists are free to express themselves in any form and espousing any beliefs with little or no censorship. The idea of an American artist being convicted and serving a sentence for the obscenity of his art is unthinkable to most Americans. However, on June 27, 1997 this is exactly what happened to Mike Diana (Romenesko, 1994). It was on this date that the United States Supreme Court denied Diana's request for an appeal to his case. What did Mike Diana create that was so horrible? Some comic books. What can be so bad about comic books? Well, Diana's comics featured very little story content and an excess of mangled, disfigured bodies, and graphic sexual content, but he was not distributing his comics to minors. In fact, he was hardly distributing them to anyone. His largest print run was only 200 copies, but Diana's comic Boiled Angel became comic book's most recent martyr in the fight against censorship, a fight that has been raging for fifty years (Romenesko, 1994).

From Lil' Abner to Spiderman to Spawn, comics have been on the fringe of mainstream society and viewed as mere entertainment for youths, and, because of this, have been used as a scapegoat for youth delinquency and forced to meet stringent censorship criteria. Perhaps the most appalling consequence of this misconception is the lack of artistic respect given to comic book creators. Comic creators and retailers who offended the gods of the legal bureaucracy had no champion until 1990, when the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was officially formed (Comic Book Legal defense Fund, 1999). The following lines discuss the history of comic book censorship, the CBLDF's contributions to the censorship battle, and the story of Mike Diana.

Many historians attribute the beginning of American comics to the appearance of Lil' Abner in the 1890's. This famous comic strip was the first nationally popular one of it's kind and was later collected and reprinted in book format. However, real comic book historians look to early 1922 and Embee Distributing Company's Comic Monthly (Goulart, 1986). This publication was also just reprints of newspaper comic strips, but it was an ongoing series and set the standard for comic book proportions and length. The 1930's saw the birth of such comic legends as Superman, Batman, and Captain America (Feiffer, 1965.). These comics were truly created exclusively for children and adults paid little attention to the magazines. Truly, the adults of America had more important things to worry about, the great depression and World War II for example. However, at the end of World War II American adults turned their attention to comics and persecuted the medium much like television has been persecuted in the past twenty years.

In August of 1950 a survey among "interested groups" proved that 70% of the people surveyed did not believe that there was a correlation between crime in comics and crime among youth. So, the Senate released their findings and was done with it. Despite the lack of public support, Congress continued to investigate the industry using the United States Postal Service as their watchdogs. In the spring of 1954 the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency began investigating the comics industry for its influence on the growing delinquency among America's youth (Nyberg, 1998). Two of the main comics on trial were crime comics, like Crime Must Pay the Penalty and Crime Suspense Stories, and Shock Suspenstories, especially a story called "The Whipping" about racism. All stories used in the trial involved good triumphing over evil or another positive social message, like the anti-racism message of "The Whipping", but the prosecution misrepresented the comics by taking scenes and dialogue out of context and presenting only part of the story to the jury. Despite all of the attempts of the Subcommittee's leader, Estes Kefauver, the findings were inconclusive and the official report read:

"Surveying the work that has been done on the subject, it appears to be the consensus of the experts that comic-book reading is not the cause of emotional maladjustment in children"

(Senate Report, 1955).

Despite the Senate's negative findings, the comic book industry was scared and decided to begin self-regulation. In 1954 the Comics Magazine Association of America was formed and, subsequently,The CMAA Comics Code (Lent, 1999). This code was very stringent and placed many restrictions on comic books. A few of the rules include: Crime and criminals shall never be glamorized or portrayed in a sympathetic manner; drugs shall not be involved in the story in any way, shape, or form; racial, religious, gender, physical abnormalities, or any other form of slurs shall not be used. These restrictions were unchallenged until 1971. In 1971, Marvel Comics was asked by The Society for a Drug-Free America to create a story in The Amazing Spiderman that depicted the evils of drug use. The comics code did not allow for drug content in any form in comic book stories, not even if the content was necessary to show the evils of drug use. Marvel faced a dilemma; publish it's first comic book not approved by the code, or do a story that gave a much needed social message. Marvel was one of the big two comic book publishers and it knew that offending the CMAA could hurt it's sales and lead to further scrutiny of their other publications, but they published the story anyway (Daniels, 1991). This issue and its overwhelming success led the CMAA to revise it's comic book code.

With the trials of the 1950's behind the comic book industry and the victory of 1971 the 1970's and early 1980's were a prosperous time in the comic book industry. The government took a hands-off approach to industry regulation, the CMAA revised and loosened its Comic Book Code, and the rest of America payed no attention to the industry because of the rise of more popular scapegaots like television and movie violence. Unfortunately, the 1990's would see an end to that attitude that necessitated the formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was formed in 1990 from the leftover funds raised by the comic's community to defend Friendly Frank's, a comic store in Lansing, Illinois whose owner, Frank Mangiaracina, was arrested for selling "obscene comics." The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's guiding principle is "comics should be accorded the same constitutional rights as literature, film, or any other form of expression." Denis Kitchen, publisher of Kitchen Sink Press and self-proclaimed "self-publisher gone bad", is founder and president of this organization that has comic book legends Peter David, definitive Incredible Hulk writer of almost 12 years, and Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns creator, on its board of directors. Comic's creators like Neil Gaiman and Kurt Busiek have also aided the CBLDF.

In its nine years of official existence the CBLDF has aided many cases. One of the most important was Mavrides v. California Board of Equalization. Paul Mavrides is a Californian creator of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. In 1991, The California Board of Equalization, the organization in charge of ensuring creator royalty receipt and taxation of said receipts, erroneously awarded Paul Mavrides with $80,000 in royalties (Mavrides, 1996). Mavrides notified them of their mistake, but the California BOE used this incident to investigate the nature of and classification of Mavrides' profession. The BOE decided that Mavrides, and all other California based comic book creators, were not artists, but independent contractors who had to pay sales tax on the sale of their product. Mavrides, and the CBLDF, contested that comic creators were artists and their creations were original pieces of art, which are sales tax exempt. A legal battle ensued. The court case cost approximately $75,000, and the amount in question was only $1,400 but Mavrides said: "The money consistently has been the least important matter to me. I was more in fear of the domino effect it would have had both on comic publishers and my colleagues in the comics field." (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 1999.) After five years the California Supreme Court decided 3-2 in mavrides favor. After the case was decided Mavrides said: "It's gratifying that, after five years of struggle, the State of California, through the decision of the Board of Equalization, has officially and rightfully recognized that what cartoonists and comic creators trade in are ideas, not pieces of paper." (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 1999.)

One of the CBLDF's blemishes is the obscenity trafficking conviction of the owners of Planet Comics in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This conviction is considered a blemish not because the store owners were convicted, the CBLDF has lost cases before and they were disappointing, but nothing like this. On September 5, 1997, just days before the trial, the two owners, Michael Kennedy and John Hunter, signed a plea bargain the state of Oklahoma. It is the CBLDF's policy to only take cases when the defendants will plead innocence. If convicted Kennedy and Hunter could have faced up to five years in prison, but the plea bargain allowed them to serve a suspended 3 year sentence, but coast the CBLDF a lot of credibility (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 1999).

The CBLDF's most publicized case to date is Mike Diana v. the State of Florida. The beginnings of the case are disputed some say the Gainseville police fist learned of Diana's work when a secretary at a public school found one of Diana's original pages jammed in a copier. Diana was working at the school as a janitor and was illegeal copying his underground comic book, Boiled Angel, when one of the pages got stuck.(Romenesko, 1994). Other's think that Diana came under scrutiny when a man in California had his car searched, and a copy of Boiled Angel was found that included drawings of dead bodies that were positioned much like the victims of unsolved serial killing at the University of Florida (Rogers, 1997). Either way, Diana's drawings got him in a lot of trouble. He was accused of child molestation and even arrested for the serial killings his drawings supposedly resembeld. In March of 1993 Diana was served a summons for obscenity based on the material found during the Gainsville murder investigation. On March 25, 1994 he was found guilty of obscenity after a mere ninety minutes of jury deliberation(Rogers, 1997). Diana appealed his case all of the way to the Supreme Court but to no avail. So, he stands as the only American artist ever convicted of obscenity. His punishment has been severe to say the least. He is not allowed within 500 yards of any minor, has had to pay over $3,000 in fines, attend a journalism ethics class, have a phsyciatric evaluation, do 1,248 hours of community service, and is on probation for three years. Anytime during this probation Diana's home or Diana, himself, may be subjected to searches without a warrant or notification and if he possess any 'obscene' material he could face a prison sentence. This means that Mike Diana is not allowed to draw anything that may be offensive even if all he does with it is place it in the garbage can (Romenesko, 1994). If you would like to see some of Mike Diana's work that has not been censored then go tohttp://www.testicle.com/mikediana.htm.

As we approach the next millenium comic books stand poised to break their way out of the basements of socially maladjusted pubescent boys, and into the living rooms of mainstream America. Even the academic community is beginning to recognize comic books value. Universities and colleges around the country are beginning to offer courses based solely on comic book literature or at least using comic books as part of the class curriculum (Busbee, 1998). Hopefully these two developments will change America's opinion of comic books; from medium designed primarily for children, to a valid form of expression for adults to communicate their beliefs and ideas. Then, censorship in the medium should diminish from the current strict regime to a loose commonwealth of ideas, beliefs, and, most of all, truly free speech.

Bibliography:

Busbee, James. (1998). Wizard U. Wizard. Volume 1 Issue 80.

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. (1999).Online: http://www.cbldf.org.

Daniels, Les. (1991). Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. Abrams.

Goulart, Ron. (1986). Ron Goulart's Great History of Comics. Contemporary Press.

Feiffer, Jules. (1965). The Great Comic Book Heroes. The Dial Press..

Lent, John. (1999). Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press..

Mavrides, Paul. (1996). Why Me? (Part 2). Online: http://www.darkcarnival.com/DCOLarchive/cbldf.paul.fly.htm.

Nyberg, Amy Kiste. (1998). Seal of Approval: the History of the Comics Code. University Press of Mississippi..

Rogers, Adam. (1997). Arrested Development. Wizard. Volume 1 Issue 74.

Romenesko, James. (1994). The Mike Diana Saga. Online: http://php.indiana.edu/~mfragass/diana_obscure.html.

U. S. Congress. Senate. Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. Interim Report: Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 1955..

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