Pre-Code vs. Post-Code: Delineating DATES 1 1

[OtherEric]

2 hours ago, fifties said:

Interesting thread, thx for re-opening it!  There was real hysteria about "those awful comic books" in the early '50's, so no surprise about the government investigation and threat to the publishers to self censor or else. 

The last of the real horror covers were sold over the summer of '54.  By October cover dates, almost everything was toned down, cover wise.  This was very apparent in the slew of Atlas horror titles.  Many titles from different publishers simply ceased to exist.

The book displayed above, Uncanny Tales 29, was their first with the CCA stamp, and the last to have the title in squiggly lines with red (depicting blood?).  The next issue going forward had the title in straight --script.  The stories in that issue, BTW, were sort of in-between the pre-code fare and upcoming pablum cleansed for 10 year old's to read.

One outlier of course was EC, who continued with a Werewolf on the cover of the last TFTC, dated February-March, 1955.  I believe that Weird Science Fantasy #29, cover dated June, 1955 was the last comic book W/O the code seal.

I was toying with posting my copy of that one, of course with the next issue the title changed and the book got code approval.  I hadn't realized that was the only June EC without the code.  Of course, Dell and Gilberton, being "good" comics, were never code approved and had fairly few problems despite that.

[Electricmastro]

26 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

I was toying with posting my copy of that one, of course with the next issue the title changed and the book got code approval.  I hadn't realized that was the only June EC without the code.  Of course, Dell and Gilberton, being "good" comics, were never code approved and had fairly few problems despite that.

Yeah, though interestingly, Dell would dabble in the horror genre in the 60s, with comics like Wolfman, the Creature, and Ghost Stories.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Electricmastro