[phabox]

I often wondered how and why Dell Comics continued publishing throughout the 1950's and well into the 60's WITHOUT the CCA stamp of approval.

Granted much of their output was Disney/FunnyAnimal stuff which was unlikely to offend anyone but what about those Universal Monster oneshots they did ?

While short of any 'real' horror I would have thought at that time Frankenstein's Monster, The Mummy, Wolman and certainly Dracula would have fallen outside of the code's rules.

Also if Dell managed to retain its place on the comic stands without the bother or expense of code approval why did'nt any other companies try and do the same ?

-Nigel

[narfstar]

It may be hard to realize now but Dell was the BMOC. They were big enough and enough or a rep to say in your face we have our own seal of approval accept it

[OtherEric]

It's in part a matter of timing.  They were big enough and clean-cut enough to get through 1955 and past without the code; by they time they did the Monster issues in the 60's they had a lot of inertia as a publisher not using the code.  Gilberton lasted several years codeless, as well.

[darkmark]

Very true.  In the 50's and early 60's Dell ruled the roost with their movie and TV adaptations.  In 1963 the torch was passed to Gold Key, which took over publishing their titles.  The Ben Franklin dimestore I used to frequent then carried ONLY Gold Keys, and carried all of them.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

[John C]

I seem to recall hearing (though I couldn't guess where) that Dell used its own distributor on account of its size.  I'm fairly certain that only the distributors enforced the Code's acceptance, so if that was in fact the case, it could very well be that Dell's distributor trusted them and they decided to spare the expense.

[kozmo]

I believe that Dell, like Charlton, was their own distributor.  There's not a lot that I can find online about the history of periodical distribution (it deserves further study, too), but Mark Evanier definitely states here that Dell was the distributor and financier for Western Publishing.  When that deal soured and Western began Gold Key, Dell had to fill the pipeline with something, and that's when the mostly atrocious 60's Dell material began appearing.

So not only did Dell pretty much not worry about the CCA because of their material ( I mean, really, the CCA is going to object to material that passes the muster of Hollywood studio licensing requirements?), but since it was a Distributor enforced requirement, they could bypass any questions themselves. In other words, DELL vouched for the material to the regional independent newsstand distributors, and had enough of a reputation to get away with it.

[OtherEric]

As long as we're talking about code or lack of it, what happened to distribution on Amazing Spider Man 96?  Did anybody not shelf it, or did nobody really care at that point?

(My copy of 96 is in very low grade, but if I ever need to sell everything it's one of the 10 or so books I keep no matter what.  I got Gil Kane to sign it many years ago.)

[John C]

The most likely scenario is that an editor called the distributor and said "this is important."  Like with the Dell scenario, my impression is that the shops rarely cared about the seal, relying on the distributor to make the decisions.  So as long as Marvel cleared it with the distributor, everybody'd be happy.

Somethiing I'm curious about, though:  Did the publishers need to pay for the CCA seal?  I know most similar boards charge an arm and a leg to get a rating or seal of approval, and I have to wonder if there were marginal companies that couldn't make it with an extra burden.

[Astaldo711]

With Spider Man 96, Stan Lee had gotten a request from the department of health to do a story about drugs and he figured that the US Government outweighed the CCA.

[kozmo]

my understanding is that the companies paid a fee to be part of the organization -- I'm sure the fee was contingent on how many issues were evaluated.

IIRC, NOW Comics back in the early 90's joined and was the first new publisher to join in a long time. Of course newsstand distribution was just about dead by then, so nobody really noticed overall and NOW was done shortly after that announcement.  Several companies that probably had enough traction in the direct market died when they tried to expand to the newsstand, with Comico and NOW being the two that directly come to my mind.

[John C]

Your comment convinced me to just run a web search.  It turns out that, at least in the '90s, Code approval came in two ways.  If you were a member of the CMAA (which incurred an annual fee, based, as you suggest, on the number of monthly titles published, though I can't find a number for that), they reviewed your books for "free."  If you weren't in the CMAA, every book submitted for review cost five hundred bucks.

The books were then sent out to a contracted reviewing company who decided whether the book could carry the seal.

Turns out there's a book on the subject (and the relevant pages were on Google Books), "Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code," conveniently enough, and that's pretty much what I wanted to know.

[kozmo]

I remember reading about that book when it was in the research stage. I guess I never thought to look and see if it got finished.  it was a doctoral thesis if i recall correctly.