10 Weirdest Controversies Surrounding Comics
If you thought comics were wild, just wait until you see what goes on behind the scenes!
Ever since they exploded onto the newsstands in the 1930s, comic books have always been a form of escapism. A chance to take a break from this crazy, stressful world for twenty to twenty-two pages of bright colours and fun adventures.
Even before they were collected in their own magazines, comic strips appeared in newspapers, allowing anyone who chose to trudge through the daily horrors of world events a brief respite. And even before this, our ancestors would paint their own comics on the walls of their caves, probably to distract themselves from the fact that they lived in caves.
Yes, comics are pure escapism, allowing us to stop worrying about our own lives while we let Superman do all the worrying for us. With that in mind, spare a thought for the creators and businesspeople who are in charge of creating this escapism for us. As it turns out, the working lives they're trying to escape from can often be as wild and wacky as the stuff they come up with.
Yes, the comics industry can be a truly ridiculous place to work sometimes. Don't believe me? What follows are some of the strangest, most bizarre, and all-round baffling altercations from comic book history. No matter how many comics you try to distract yourself with, there's no escaping these weird controversies.
10. DC's Gorilla Warfare
"Please believe me! I am the victim of a terrible scientific experiment!"
This was the writing on the sign held by an encaged gorilla on the cover of Strange Adventures #8 (May, 1951). Inside this issue was The Incredible Story of an Ape with a Human Brain, and for some reason, it sold a LOT of copies. These strong sales convinced the editors at DC to try out their own "terrible scientific experiment": what if, instead of putting human brains inside apes, they put apes inside EVERYTHING?
What followed was an inescapable onslaught of primate content. Not only did DC create new characters like Detective Chimp and Gorilla Grodd, they did everything in their power to insert apes into their already successful flagship series. Superman was suddenly facing the likes of Titano, a King Kong clone who could shoot Kryptonite out of his eyes, while his pal Jimmy Olsen would regularly swap bodies with different gorillas (when he wasn't getting married to them, that is).
While it was undeniable that including a gorilla on the cover of your comic would increase your sales, DC's Vice-President Irwin Donenfeld was afraid that if every comic continued to 'ape' this trend, the novelty would wear off. He therefore introduced his "one gorilla a month" rule, severely limiting the amount of ape-centric issues he would publish. Creators were forced to once again rely on exciting storylines and impressive art to sell comics, rather than simply slapping a big hairy simian on the cover.