PAD and the CCA

Originally published September 10, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1347

So there I was, working on the plot for Young Justice #4. It was intended to be a startling opening sequence, in which the character Arrowette is depicted having been gravely wounded, with an arrow protruding from her shoulder. For a series that had garnered a reputation for tongue-in-cheek silliness, it was to be a departure. A signal to the reader that the title should not be taken for granted. That it was capable of changing mood at a moment’s notice. I didn’t want anyone to get too comfortable, because nowadays, once readers figure they have a bead on you, that’s when you become disposable.

What was uppermost on my mind in working out the sequence, you may ask? Was it the impact it would have on the reader? The shock value? The drastic means taken to introduce Arrowette (plus the other girls) into the series?

Nope.

It was the Comics Code Authority.

For the CCA has an immutable rule, you see. No exit wounds. Although you can show bullets, for instance, entering a body, you can’t show it exiting. Nor can bladed weapons or anything else that punctures the human body be depicted as going out the opposite side of where it went in.

A writer has a variety of responsibilities, particularly when working on something that’s work for hire. First and foremost, of course, he has to please himself. If what’s produced via the old word processor doesn’t meet with the writer’s approval, it shouldn’t get any further than that. No writer has any business turning in substandard work to the editor.

But another of the writer’s chores is that he has to make sure that he presents the editor with something publishable. Aside from a certain baseline of quality that “publishable” entails, one also has to be aware of what will and will not fly within the strictures of the work. And I knew that the CCA had certain big no-nos. That’s why Elektra’s sais were capable of puncturing the back of a chair in a theatre, and the torso (through ribcage, musculature, etc.) of an adult male, but somehow couldn’t penetrate the front of a cotton shirt.

The most powerful way to kick off YJ #4 would have been to show Arrowette with the arrow going in the front of her shoulder and out the back. But I knew I couldn’t. That’s the power of censorious organizations, you see. They produce a sort of creative chill, so that the creator is prompted to short circuit his own thought process for the sake of avoiding hassles. And I just didn’t feel like hassling with the CCA, the organization that major publishers embrace in the continued spirit of self-censorship, as if the tattered umbrella of the CCA would offer one shred of substantial protection when the censors come.

The last time I’d gotten grief from the CCA was in an issue of Justice League Task Force. In that two-parter—something of a gender-bending send-up of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard—the JLTF finds a subterranean race of Amazon-esque (not to be confused with Amazonian) green-skinned women. For reasons too convoluted to go into, J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, had shape-shifted himself to become J’oan J’onzz, the Martian Womanhunter. The leader of the green-skinned women becomes enamored of J’oan. Unaware of J’oan’s true “persuasion,” the leader proclaims that J’oan will become her mate. The wedding was held in part two.

And we were told they couldn’t kiss. The CCA refused to allow the depiction of “two females kissing.”

“Now, wait a minute,” we replied. “It isn’t two women. One of them is J’onn J’onzz, basically in drag.”

Nope. Wouldn’t fly. The CCA absolutely, positively refused to let it through. “Can’t show two women kissing,” we were told. “But it’s not two women!” we tried to say. It didn’t penetrate, or they didn’t care.

As a consequence, the sequence had to be drawn in such a way that the kiss wasn’t actually shown. The artwork was cropped accordingly. And I was left shaking my head at the silliness of it all. There was nothing especially erotic or prurient about the sequence. It was basically a comedic story.

And it wasn’t two women.

Then there was the time when, in the pages of Incredible Hulk, the character Marlo had been stabbed. She lay there on the ground, covered with… black blood. “No red blood,” I was told the CCA had decreed. It looked like Marlo was bleeding India ink. When fans asked me about it (and they did) I explained it was because Marlo was a comic book character, so naturally she’d be bleeding ink.

My brush ups with the power of the CCA had left me aware that their hand extended to all manner of story sequences, and the last thing I felt like doing in planning YJ #4 was putting us squarely in the CCA’s path again.

So in constructing the sequence, I indicated that the splash page should begin with a close-up shot of an arrow head, tinted with blood. In the following pages, we would then pull back to show Arrowette sagging with the arrow shaft lodged in her. But we would never actually show the other side protruding from her. Thus did I choose to go with a less effective, but “safer” means of storytelling.

Editor Eddie Berganza disagreed. I got the art pages back and flipped. There, in all its violent, bloody glory, was Miss Arrowette shown staggering back against a wall with an arrow sticking out her back. Gone was my subtle close-ups and careful cutting around. Here was a sequence that I was positive was going to get flagged by the Comics Code. It was a flagrant violation of years’ worth of prohibitions.

It was needlessly seeking out trouble, and I told Eddie so, repeatedly. Loudly. In writing. How could he possibly think we would get away with this? It was crazy. Just pure craziness. To try and alleviate as much of the damage as possible, I slapped word balloons over the protruding arrowhead in order to hide it. Eddie moved the balloons so that the arrow was in full view. I couldn’t understand it. Why was he going out of his way in order to produce a sequence that was going to get punted.

It went through.

No problems.

The book came out, and there was Arrowette with the fully visible arrow—and red blood on it, to boot.

The scene exactly the way I would have liked to do it, except I was so certain that the CCA would stomp on it, that I didn’t even bother to try it.

It’s not like I’m a shrinking violet when it comes to making my views on censorship known. It’s not as if I haven’t been willing to fight for my creative vision. But when it came to this sequence, I was so sure I “knew” what the CCA would and wouldn’t allow, that I censored myself and wrote the sequence less effectively than it could, and should, have been, only to have it corrected by the editor.

We have been told (mostly by CCA reps) that the formation of the CCA was single-handedly responsible for saving the comic book industry. That could be debated, I suppose. But let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that these reps are correct. That forty-plus years ago, the CCA somehow, through some amazing way, provided the ability for publishers to keep publishing.

Forty-plus years ago, my parents were responsible for me. Took care of me, fed me, nurtured me. And I will appreciate that forever. But my mom’s not still cutting my food for me. My dad isn’t looking over my reading material and saying, “Nope, sorry, that’s not appropriate.” Sooner or later, one has to cut the ties. Move on. Say, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

The industry has moved beyond the CCA. Elfquest comes under attack for sequences that, if submitted to the CCA, would have sailed through. There’s too many titles that don’t subscribe to the CCA in the first place. And in the articles that I read condemning violent comic books after recent shootings in high schools, I don’t recall seeing any journalists proclaiming, “But thank God the CCA is there, protecting us from having things get really bad.” Granted, I didn’t read every article; but I sure did hear quite a bit about violent comics and nothing about the exacting standards to which the CCA holds various titles. Thank heavens America’s youth was protected from seeing a disguised Martian Manhunter kissing a green skinned subterranean woman; who knows how many kids were saved because of it.

Whatever the CCA accomplished, for good or ill decades ago, it’s time for the publishers to grow up and cut the old apron strings. While on the one hand censors heat up the world for comic books, at the same time the CCA is there to provide a chill. In the immortal words of Miss Adelaide: A person could develop a cold.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)