The Comics Code was responsible for a multitude of sins when it was at the height of its powers. Between its formation in 1954 and its widespread abandonment in the early noughties, the Comics Code Authority presided over the content of all mainstream comic books, censoring content as they saw fit in order to protect the impressionable young eyes that might see it, and pushing entire publishers out of business with their draconian rules over what could or couldn't be shown in horror stories (basically anything, as it happens; least of all werewolves, vampires or zombies, which is why you got characters like X-Men villain Sauron, who transformed into a pterodactyl on a full moon instead of a wolf). The biggest publisher that the CCA put out of business was EC Comics, the infamously pulpy company behind the enjoyably trashy likes of Tales From The Crypt. The Authority's biggest crime when it came to EC wasn't its blanket refusal to approve anything that allowed their horror comics to be horrific - any gore, monsters, violence, or unhappy ending was banned during their reign - but the time Comics Code made them recolour a character to be white instead of black. Judgement Day was a pivotal comic strip of its era, which handled issues of racial prejudice so well it belied its original publication date of 1953. When EC sought to reprint the story in 1956 - after the formation of the CCA - the Authority demanded that they change the story's end panel where it's revealed the astronaut protagonist was a black man. They had no reasoning beyond their own prejudice, seemingly unaware to the irony considering the story he featured in, and when EC printed the story with editing it, it turned out to be the last comic they ever published before going bankrupt.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
