Action and adventure
Action and adventure |
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Page 41 of 42  nightmare strip Sex in comics was another common bugbear (as ever, sex went with violence like salt with pepper). This was seen as simply too adult a matter for children to be concerned with - regardless of the fact that comics containing sexual material would appeal to an older readership in the first place. Examples included American crime comics, where women were depicted in a deliberately sleazy manner, in keeping with genre conventions, and some superhero titles, where voluptuous females were often a convenient prop to add sex interest. This kind of content was deemed by some to be beyond the pale - almost capable of turning innocent boys into drooling sex maniacs - and commentators on the subject tended to agree with Wertham that comics were 'aggressively sexual, in an abnormal way'. Later, awareness of other, more specifically political, issues grew, especially with the rise of the movements for Civil Rights and Womens' Liberation in the 1960s. The question of racism in adventure comics was addressed frequently, since stereotypes of blacks as criminals and 'social problems' were common. Even the very few comics that tried to redress the balance, and to reach a black readership, were often politically flawed (the superhero title Black Panther drew particular flak). Other racial minorities were similarly badly served. Arabs were 'shifty', conniving and treacherous; Orientals were 'inscrutable' sadists; and native Americans were monosyllabic savages. In some comics, the level of insensitivity could be astonishing: in one British title from the 1960s, the white hero uses the terms 'wog', 'nignog' and 'Gippo' in a single story. Not surprisingly, both in Britain and America, there were only a handful of creators from ethnic backgrounds working in the industry.  The Code stamp of approval, which appeared on the covers of all American comics submitted to the Comics Code Authority after 1955 |