"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
How Censors Killed The Weird, Experimental, Progressive Golden Age Of Comics
In the 1950s the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency turned an angry eye toward comics, and most publishers felt that heavy-handed regulation — perhaps even outright banning — was imminent. Comic book publishers, in consultation with right-wing politicians, formed the Comics Code Authority, a self-censorship group, in the hopes that this would forestall government intervention in the industry. New York Magistrate Charles F. Murphy, a “specialist in juvenile delinquency” (and a strident racist), was chosen to head the Authority and to devise its self-policing “code of ethics and standards.”
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