Steve Bissette is a fine creator of these things called comic books — innovative, talented and courageous. Over on his blog, he has been chronicling a moment in the industry's history when a lot of creators — Steve included — felt the business needed more courage than it was showing. A couple of comic book shops (one, in particular) were either being busted for selling "adult" comics and/or afraid such action was looming for them. A couple of powerful folks along the distribution channels were becoming concerned about the content and where it was all heading…in many ways, a valid concern. In response, well-meaning folks at DC Comics, fearing legal problems and protests, were suddenly talking of instituting "new standards" for what some called "in-house censorship."
There's nothing wrong, of course, with a publisher setting standards for what they will and will not publish. It would be irresponsible for any publisher not to care what it put its name on and no one was suggesting that they shouldn't have limits. But those of us who objected, in the little protest effort that Steve recalls, had a number of points…and not all the same ones. A batch of us signed an ad that expressed our unhappiness…but I recall thinking at the time that we did not all have precisely the same objections. Those who affixed their names to the ad agreed with the specific wording of that particular ad but not necessarily to all the ancillary objections and reasons that our fellow signers had.
There were two concerns that did dominate, which is not to say everyone was marching over both or either. One was that the publisher was seeming too eager to launder its product; that they seemed to be assuring the guy who owned one tiny comic shop in North Sparrowfart, Nebraska that if there was anything in their comics that offended him, they'd instantly take it out. Most comic book dealers are great guys but I don't think even any of them ever wanted to have everyone in their line of work have that kind of influence over the over-all product.
The other problem was that the ratings seemed quite subjective and prone to the caprices of different editors. Everyone who has ever done any notable amount of work for a company like DC or Marvel has had the following, maddening situation occur. You tell your editor, "Hey, in the next issue, I want to do a story about people who eat live chipmunks" and the editor says, "Absolutely not! We have a firm company policy against the depiction of chipmunk-eating! It's in terrible taste and we cannot allow it!"
So you drop your plans and toss away that great idea you had. And six months later, in a comic from the same publisher — and usually but not always a different editor — there's someone chowing down on Alvin, Simon and even Theodore. It's not (usually) a case of theft so much as arbitary decisions. It's that what one guy thinks is acceptable is not what another guy thinks is acceptable…and it seemed like the proposed DC "editorial standards" were an invitation for that to happen more often while at the same time pretending there was some impossible standardization going on that would prevent it. Many of us were impressed that guys like Frank Miller and Alan Moore were opposing the ratings because it was assumed that they, being superstars of sales, would be allowed to do a lot more than the rest of us. In fact, our work might be extra-laundered to compensate for their excesses. In any case, a lot of folks with slightly disparate views protested as one…and it probably looked like a more cohesive movement than it actually was.
Steve Bissette has been posting artifacts, memories and analysis of the whole crusade in a series of blog posts. Navigation at his site is a bit tricky so here's a link to Part One. Here's a link to Part Two. Here's Part Three and while I'm at it, here's Part Four, Part Five and Part Six. And when you're through with them, read Part Seven, then Part Eight, then Part Nine and Part Ten and Part Eleven and finally, on to Part Twelve. That last installment has bittersweet meaning because of the recent passing of Dick Giordano, who was in the midst of the controversy.
I do not necessarily agree with all of Steve's observations and conclusions but I'm sure he's not wrong from his vantage point of the period. There are certainly a couple of good lessons to be learned from it all. I wish I knew what most of them are.