For those that haven't heard, the CMAA and Comic Code Authority is now dead. Marvel stopped using them in 2001, Bongo quietly dropped them last year, DC just announced they are no longer going to use them. Archie also announced they decided a year ago to stop using them but held off on announcing it until DC made their announcement, in order to not make DC look so namby pamby. Marvel had long ago began using their own rating system and now DC is implementing a rating system of their own. While there is lost of talk and celebration of the Code finally being gone, I'm really surprised there is no talk of the self censoring ratings that the companies are now doing to themselves. Back in 1986 DC comics had planned on creating an internal rating system and many popular freelancers publicly and privately fought back against it. Creator Steve Bissette wrote a good four part history of this fight on his blog (p1) (p2) (p3) and (p4). Among the arguments against the rating system was that comics were literature and as prose books don't have ratings, neither should comics. Also that the labels identifying books for adults didn't protect the industry from censorship, it just made it easy for the censors to find which books to use for their purposes. Comic readers (and publishers) like to think "oh it says adults only or mature readers on the cover, therefore everybody knows it's not for kids and we'll be protected." But all it takes is a prosecutor to dismissively wave his hand, say everybody knows comics are for kids like it's a given thing and all that goes out the window. Jury members not familiar with comics just go along with it and all the expert testimony that says otherwise is discarded. This is what happened in Texas v. Castillo (2000) where comic store employee Jesus Castillo Jr. of Keith's Comics in Dallas, Texas was originally sentenced to serve 6 months in prision for selling Demon Beast Invasion: The Fallen #2 to an adult undercover police officer. The book was in the Adult Section of the store that had a sign stating "No One Under 18 Allowed Past This Point" and the comic has a "ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CHILDREN!" label on the front cover. Even expert testimoey from Scott McCloud and Susan Napier, a professor at the University of Texas on an Asian studies couldn't overcome the prosecutors argument. She said "I don't care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there; use your rationality; use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids. This is in a store directly across from an elementary school and it is put in a medium, in a forum, to directly appeal to kids. That is why we are here, ladies and gentlemen. We're here to get this off the shelf." That was all she to say to win the case. The prosecution didn't even bother to get an expert witness to contest that the comics had literary merit. The CBLDF was able to get some of the charges reduced on appeal. This is not just a one time incident either, quite often the comics that get prosecuted do have adult labeling on them. There is also the issue of what effects ratings have on the work prior to publication. Different ratings can affect sales. This goes on in the movie industry all the time and is happening right now. The Kings Speech, which is said to be one of the best movies of the year by critics who've seen it is right now undergoing an internal battle of removing a pivotal scene involving swear words in order to get a PG rating vs. an R rating. PG means wider potential audience and can potentially make more money. This can also go the other way, where a movie slightly enters the more graphic area and internally pressure is put on to put in unneeded gratuitous swearing, violence and nudity in order to make it marketable to the audience that likes mature movies. There are also very few G rated movies that aren't made solely for kids as adults don't want to see what they believe to be kids movies. Some creators fear this type of publisher editing happening in the comics industry. The book industry took and continue to take a hard line when censors tried to ban books or threaten authors. They fight tooth and nail and do not make it an easy fight for censors. As a result, the industry does not have to tone their books up or down because of any influence outside of their publisher. The industry has smartly figured out a way to design books so that they appeal to the demographics they are aiming for. Books aimed at kids have bright colours to catch their eyes, with a font that is thick wide. Racy romance books often have darker colours with semi realistic painted covers involving a man or a man and woman together. Sometimes the cover is just a setting for the novel. Often with large letters of the title and/or author in a long and narrow font that will catch an adult's eyes but not interest a kid. The comics industry can do this as well, we do have a bunch of smart graphic designers and we can easily take notes on what we see working in the book industry. Today comic readers don't really pay attention to ratings and there isn't much of an economic push to twist the story one way or another, accept maybe out of all ages because they don't want to buy "kids books" (which is similar to Adults and G rated movies). That said some retailers will and do alter how they order books based on their labels. Some will only purchase enough mature readers books for pre-orders only and none for the shelf. While this is definitely the retailers right, I've heard numerous retailers say they are doing this to avoid legal hassles. Simply put, censors don't care about ratings, they only care about content. If it offends them, they want the removed regardless of what the cover says. If they ratings say it's for all ages, they argue that it's not and how dare they sell this to kids. If it says it's for adults only, they'll use that to argue it's obscene and should be banned, even for adults. The latter is what usually happens too, it's easier to find offensive material in books with adult labeling. Censors just flat out do not believe in the first amendment. The more you capitulate to them, the more power they feel they have and the more they try wield it over you. Surrendering to them will give you more problems, not less.

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