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cyberghostface (cyberghostface) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-03-08 13:26:00

Current mood:	touched
Entry tags:	publisher: ec comics, title: weird fantasy

Judgement Day

This one's from Weird Fantasy #18. It's a "lost post" that I had done on the old Scans_Daily.
Anyway, this is one of the most famous EC stories ever published.

Here's the letters page that was written in response.

(Post a new comment)

	hybrid2 2009-03-08 01:06 pm UTC (link)
	and the editors,or censure guys? wanted them to change the ending for a white guy... (Reply to this) (Thread)

thekamisama.livejournal.com
2009-03-08 02:32 pm UTC (link)

It was only controversial at the time that it was published but not censored per se.
This story was reprinted in Incredible Science Fiction #33 (which was the post-Code retitled version of Weird Science-Fantasy) after the Comics Code Authority, which was partly created no just to police comics but also to put EC out of business (even though Gaines originally came up with the idea of an industry ratings board).
The Code objected to the "beads of sweat" and had some vauge claim that it violated a code mandate to no portray minority races in an offensive manner (which never seemed to effect the various Asian stereotypes in other Code approved books throughout the late 50's and into the 60's?) Gaines threatened to sue the Comics Code Authority, which backed down. Shortly after this, Gaines stopped publishing comics and instead concentrated on magazine publications, like Mad.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	raisedbymoogles 2009-03-08 01:40 pm UTC (link)
	....and then Unicron ate them. (Reply to this)

	crinosg 2009-03-08 02:35 pm UTC (link)
	I said it before, I shall say it again: Orange robots does not care about the blue robots (Reply to this)

	dr_hermes 2009-03-08 03:05 pm UTC (link)
	Well worth posting again, and thank you. EC did a few stories about prejudice and anti-Semitism and mob mentality. I give Bill Gaines credit for speaking his own mind in an era of conformism and fear; MAD in its early years was quite subversive to establishment values. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	filbypott 2009-03-08 03:37 pm UTC (link)
	I always like the anti-Red Scare stories, myself. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	joysweeper 2009-03-08 04:53 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, nice, now I can re-ad this to TV Tropes. Thanks! Still gives me a bit of a chill. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dorksidefiker 2009-03-08 05:03 pm UTC (link)
	I think I have fallen passionatly in love with your icon. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	joysweeper 2009-03-08 06:35 pm UTC (link)
	:D It's a good one. I think I got it from the fora on that site, but I'm not sure. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	lookingforsigns 2009-03-08 05:44 pm UTC (link)
	I think you mean this. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	joysweeper 2009-03-08 06:34 pm UTC (link)
	That I did. Damn tropes with complicated names and no redirect... (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kingrockwell 2009-03-08 05:58 pm UTC (link)
	That's the link that first brought me to scans_daily! :D! And OP: Thank you. This is a great story and I'm glad to see it reposted. When the comm was suspend, after the shocked settled, I realized the worst part was I no longer had this story Memory'd on my LJ. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	skjam 2009-03-08 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	I too am pleased by this reprint for similar reasons. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	woogledesigns 2009-03-09 07:41 am UTC (link)
	What's your icon? You know, aside from intriguing. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	skjam 2009-03-09 06:32 pm UTC (link)
	The Mask of Justice, a character I made for a Champions campaign. I actually talk about him in the only post on my InsaneJournal account so far. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dorksidefiker 2009-03-08 05:02 pm UTC (link)
	Heh. I just watched a documentry on EC which brought up this story. (Reply to this)

besamim
2009-03-08 07:37 pm UTC (link)

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Just imagine what comic book history would've been like if EC hadn't been driven out of business (except for MAD, that is).

I think it was Frank Miller who suggested that the real reason the other major comics publishers turned on EC wasn't that they agreed with the Wertham-inspired moral panic, but that they knew EC was light years ahead of them in terms of writing and artwork. And they couldn't have that.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

dr_hermes
2009-03-08 08:44 pm UTC (link)

I find that doubtful, to be honest. Publishers were mostly businessmen who don't particularly care about the content, just profit. Dell and Archie and Harvey would not have felt EC was cutting into their market and they were each selling much better than EC ever did.

The national campaign against horror comics, though, could easily have carried over to comics as a whole, and that was a real threat.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

thekamisama.livejournal.com
2009-03-08 09:24 pm UTC (link)

It did also spill over to all publishers. There were public burnings of comics at churches and book swapping crusades at schools and libraries. These actions did not concern themselves with publishers or content.

Harvey had quite a few horror titles in the 50's. Plus, any publisher of periodicals would see an advantage to having rack spack taken away from another publisher if only to give them potential to take it.

You are certainly right about Dell though. They didn't care about EC or any of the competition because often outsold anything else on the stands (especially if it said "Walt Disney" on the cover). They damn near bragged about it during the Senate hearings by telling Congress under oath that they sold 5 million copies of Walt Disney's Peter Pan the previous year. Of course Dell and the Classics Illustrated people both refused to belong or submit books to the Code as well and had the clout to do so.

Gaines didn't invent the idea that the other publishers stacked the Code against his titles as a conspiracy theory. It is a matter of studied, reviewed, and published history in comics.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	besamim 2009-03-08 09:40 pm UTC (link)
	Of course Dell and the Classics Illustrated people both refused to belong or submit books to the Code as well and had the clout to do so. That, and some of the literature they adapted into comics form had content that the Code might have prohibited. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dr_hermes 2009-03-08 10:20 pm UTC (link)
	oh, sure the Code was designed to punish EC specifically. The words "terror" and "horror" were forbidden on covers, for example. That's well documented. I just don't buy Frank Miller's idea that other publishers resented EC because their art and story were just so excellent. That doesn't ring true. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	woogledesigns 2009-03-09 07:53 am UTC (link)
	How much of what Frank Miller says does, though? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-03-09 01:49 pm UTC (link)
	There's that, to be sure. The Spirit movie was going to be true to Will Eisner's vision, as I recall. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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zhangnine
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