[narfstar]

I put the major blame very much on parents. My son grew up fairly unrestricted with what he watched. But he had a strong Christian upbringing and he has not uttered a cuss word since he was 5 and he is now 27. He is more conservative in some areas than I am. But I think an objective look at tv and movies will show a definite correlation with declining social morals. It excascerbates a social problem.
I am a TV addict. But I still think it to be a major contributer to societal problems. I think that most families could survive comfortably on one income if we did not have to have all things we are told that we have to have and see others having on tv. Of course there are some over simplifications to those statements and not meant to be a definitive statement. But I strongly believe that what is shown on tv has had a very negative contributing affect as a whole on society.

[darkmark]

You probably have something there.  The media do shape our perception of the country and ourselves, and those in control of it (usually liberals, in the mainstream) do, actively or otherwise, shape our society by it.  EC was basically trying to push immorality, in the area of violence, in a very moral time.  Even Harvey Kurtzman objected, it's said, to the stuff in some other EC comics.  (I don't blame him.)  We can go on and on about this, but I do believe that some censorship has its place, and the removal of all restrictions isn't necessarily a good thing.  Also, like it or not, a lot of artists tend to push as hard as they can to see what they can get away with...Steve Gerber flatly admitted to doing this...and when they do, it sets the standard for someone to push that much further. 

I remember when it wasn't like that.  And, at least in that area, we had a better society.  So much for that.

[Drusilla lives!]

EC was trying to push immorality in the area of violence?  Really?  Honestly, I never thought of it that way... and here I thought there was a slight moral (and rather conservative) stance to the stories in their horror titles.  I must be one of those misguided individuals of which John C speaks.

And other than being highly entertaining (btw, that is what the "E" stands for), the only real danger that was posed by some of the stories in the EC comic books was that they made the reader think... which was (and apparently, still is) a very dangerous thing.  In that regard there's nothing to fear from today's comics IMO. 

[Yoc]

"EC was basically trying to push immorality, in the area of violence, in a very moral time." -DM

Sorry DM but I have to disagree with that statement as well.  If you notice all the 'bad guys' paid for their sins in the end.  Their stories were no more violent than a typical Brothers Grimm fairy story.  Heck, they were usually less violent.  They often reused stories from those very Brothers Grimm stories with a twist gag ending.  I seriously doubt Gaines had any agenda with his stories beyond turning a white elephant company into a money maker.  And when he saw so many other companies jump on the horror bandwagon steadily getting more graphic it's not surprising he eventually crossed the line of good taste a few times.  I've read an interview where he admitted by the end it was getting harder and harder to find or write the horror stories and going for gore was an easy way out.  Jack Davis is embarrassed to this day by 'Foul Play.'  But all that doesn't excuse EC crossing the line but I don't think their entire output should be tainted because of those few examples of bad taste either. 

Narf, the days of stay at home parenting have been gone for decades now mostly because of financial necessities like food and housing.  Now the prolonged credit crisis (personal and govt.) and toxic mortgages... there you might have an argument.  Hollywood and TV is built on telling everyone what they NEED to feel happy and successful.  And it's always something you can buy. 

For me, one nice side effect of the Internet is I now watch a fraction of the tv that I used to watch.  And I don't even miss it!

-Yoc

[narfstar]

I do think EC had no hidden agenda they were just shock value entertainment. Hollywood on the other I think has had definite intent. Their moral compass has always been far left of society as a whole. Watching some of the behind the scenes things even from the 40's shows that. They way to feel better about your immorality is to have it become acceptable. When society was saying the lifestyle they enjoyed was wrong they undertook to progressively bring society down to their level. Many of the actions have not changed but wrong is no longer considered wrong. I still point to lying. It has always gone on but was known to be wrong. Kids now actually do not think that it is wrong. Just watch how many TV fathers promote lying as long as you do not get caught.

[darkmark]

You've got a point there, Narf.  And I still have to beg to disagree, Yoc.  As Mike Tiefenbacher said (and I agreed), once you go past a certain point I can't accept it.  When Neil Gaiman, a guy I've personally interviewed twice and enjoyed meeting quite a bit, did his cute little face-off scene in SANDMAN, I threw it in the trash (which, btw, is just what I did with Chaykin's SHADOW).  Miller got similar treatment from me when he did his Russian roulette ish of DAREDEVIL.  There were a lot of good EC's, but there were also a few bad ones, and if that ended up bringing Gaines and a good part of the comics industry of the Fifties down...whose fault was that? 

Sooner or later, even artists have to take responsibility for what they do.

[rez]

For me, one nice side effect of the Internet is I now watch a fraction of the tv that I used to watch.  And I don't even miss it!

Ain't it the truth!
and you rarely have to sit thru mindnumbing commercials.
Some of those commercials can be insulting.

Sometimes ya have to put up with them tho',
like when stumbling across an episode of Monk you hadn't seen before.

[John C]

Random thoughts, mostly...If I sound scattered, it's because there's a freakin' street fair outside my door.  They've stopped the semi-patriotic brass band stuff and are now blasting Sinatra.  No lie.

* Dave, thanks for your kind words, and I mostly agree with your conclusion.  I don't necessarily think that parents need to screen everything a kid touches (nor do you, I'm guessing), but they absolutely need to get involved in the decision-making process so that kids can learn how to make their own choices, and make sure it's clear that none of it (fiction or reality) is meant as a template for your behavior.

* Narf's point about Hollywood's skewed morality hit center stage just this past week as various celebrities defended Roman Polanski.  With any luck, that'll put their credibility where it belongs.  I mean, it should be pretty hard to forget that certain people were downright insistent that it's acceptable and possibly NORMAL to drug asthmatic thirteen-year-old girls to have sex with them.

Of course, just about everybody in Washington has pretty much outright said that lying, bribery, murder, theft, torture, and war crimes (and maybe outright treason, depending on how you read things) are perfectly fine by them, and it somehow hasn't damaged their credibility.  So maybe I'm just being naive.

* I put commercials in the same category as obscenity, honestly.  You can only be swayed if you were already on that path.  I know I've never been remotely tempted to go eat fast food by a commercial, whereas my sister will be, but she regularly eats the stuff anyway.  Likewise, I bought a steam mop because I was wondering how best to clean my floors when I saw the informercial and it was a good idea.  Still, it's nice to trim them down on the Internet...though product placement is quickly replacing it, which annoys me more.

* While, as I said, I'm not particularly against going outside of boundaries, I do wish artists would learn that boundaries arre good for art, not bad.  The reason you're the first person to make religious statues out of human excrement, for example, isn't that you're a genius, but rather that everybody else realized that the idea was stupid.  The same goes with having Superman curse or Captain America decapitate someone--the moment of shock value will quickly be wasted once everybody notices that you didn't have a plan past that set piece.

* I can't help but believe, sometimes, that the decline in home parenting is intentional.  By replacing a single strong influence (a parent or family unit) with a variety of powerless outside influences whose orders they must unquestioningly follow (teachers, coaches, babysitters, and so forth), the kids may become more susceptable to anybody who claims a position of authority, including the guy telling you to buy that hamburger.  I mean, we claim that these are things that nobody can fix, but inflation comes from a single source, as do taxes and extended school hours.

And notice that Hollywood is only too happy to help, here, by showing kids as either useless whiners who can't accomplish anything without several degrees and their parents helping (boyfriend may replace parents, for a teenage girl) or not only independent, but obnoxiously so.

* No matter what people say about other companies, the fact remains that EC was extremely prominent, connected in ways to clean-cut DC, had some of the worst of the worst, and then let Gaines testify that they could've gone nastier.  That really is "asking for it," regardless of what Harvey or Avon or anybody else published.  You have to judge offenses in terms of the worst cases, not the average case.  (That doesn't mean that I'll look down on you for liking EC, just that I think you're wrong that they were unfairly attacked.)

[narfstar]

Kids are being taught not to accept any authority including cops and teachers. They are told to think and decide for themselves without regard to what their parents want. This before they are old enough or mature enough to have actually processed the information correctly or weighed the cosequences.

BTW: I love product placement. It is fun to look for rather than annoying like commercials.

[Yoc]

Narf, John, I respectfully agree to disagree as far as EC being the 'worst' offender or enjoying product placement!
The first time I watched a VCR taped show and used fast forward through a commercial I almost jumped for joy!  Huzzah!


I certainly notice that 'kids today' show almost no respect for any authority of any kind.  The sense of entitlement out there absolutely repulses me.  The less I have see kids the happier I am and that saddens me.

-Yoc

[narfstar]

I disagreed that EC was the worst also. I do see some hope for the future in a meeting that I attended that talked about generations. Like climate change they are cyclical. The entitled generation will produce the opposite attitude in the next generation and on and on and on. Just like global warming is followed by global cooling and on and on and on.

[John C]

Narf, John, I respectfully agree to disagree as far as EC being the 'worst' offender

I do, too.  That's why I didn't say it...

What I said was that EC was bad and, in the crosshairs, had the nerve to defend themselves by saying that "it could've been much worse."

Later, I was pointing out that we (and Wertham and Congress) need to judge EC (and the industry in general) by its worst offenses, not its typical or most appealing examples.  By analogy, we don't judge a murderer by all the hours in the day when he's not killing people.

or enjoying product placement!

Like all devices, there's good, fun product placement and bad product placement.

I don't mind when there's a product logo on display in the background or there's a half-joking reference to a trademark.  What I despise is when dialogue gets eaten up by discussing that...maybe we should get lunch at TGIFriday's.  Because they have the Jack Daniels burgers.  You wanna go to Friday's, guys?  And get the lunch specials?  At Friday's?

As for kids, I can't say too much, because I don't spend all that much time with them (and didn't particularly care for them when I WAS a kid), but I will say that we're generally talking about kids "in aggregate" or under authoritative conditions.  I've always made a point of talking to the busboys, clerks, and so forth as I go about my business, and one-on-one in a challenging conversation, I've yet to find a teenager I've thought should be exiled to some Dickensian orphanage.

So they're still salvageable at least, I think...

[Drusilla lives!]

I still think this "Gaines was asking for it" stuff is just silly.  Take for instance the infamous cover to Crime SuspenStories #22 that was  the star of the Senate hearings.  Thanks to the internet, I did a little quick "legwork" and came up this interesting tidbit, that cover was cover dated April-May 1954, the hearings occurred on April 21st, 22nd, and June 4th of 1954 in New York... then this Fight Against Crime #20 cover was published on (I think) July, 1954 by Story Comics.  I'm not defending Gaines, but can you really say that he was personally asking for it? 

Such was the state of the entire comics industry at the time, not just one company.  Not that I'm defending Gaines, but I think he genuinely conflated "quality" (in comparison to the other comic book publishers) with what was at issue with the crime and horror genres in general... that of "tastefulness" and "good judgement" in the general sense.

And it certainly didn't help that he had those issues (like every one else at the time) as well as MAD, Shock and stories like "Judgement Day" stirring the pot... which btw, the other companies did not.  So IMO, of course it's plausible that he was ambushed at the hearings... and not necessarily for his crime and horror mags (but they were an easy target).

[John C]

I don't necessarily know what Darkmark specifically meant, Dru, but I think you're at least missing my point.

I'm in no place saying that their output is unilaterally more disturbing than any other company.  However, I am saying that:

- They were very popular, and with great popularity comes great civic responsibility.  Or something.  I mean, if you were going to go crusade against network television, you're going to look closer at ABC than Fox, and closer at Fox than MyNetwork or whatever they call themselves now that they're not UPN.

- The worst of EC's output is as bad as the worst of any other company, and the offenses were at issue, here, not general output.

- Gaines defended what his company did by offering up ways it could have been worse.  Gaines in particular, with connection to DC, had to know how to handle this better than outright antagonism.

He can't have envisioned a different outcome, starting from 1948 (the book burnings in upstate New York), and yet he kept on.  "Asking for it" sounds as good a term for it than anything, if you ask me.

Again, that's not to say that EC was the only or the worst offender, just that Gaines seems to have gone far out of his way to not resolve the problem before hurting his business.

[Drusilla lives!]

Who was Gaines suppose to be... Spider-Man?  Just kidding. 

Yes, they were very popular... in hindsight.  But at the time they were just another comic book company in a never ending comic cover "arms race."  And when he was confronted with the truth (after the hearings) I think he did indeed start to tone down the covers to many of his comics (not right away of course, he already must have had two or three covers in the pipeline which couldn't be reworked in time).  And how else was Gaines to defend his company then by offering up suggestions that it could have been worse?... from what I've seen they obviously could have been much worse, and I think that's what he was trying to explain.  My impression from what I've read is that it wasn't a "fact finding" inquiry... I think they had already gathered all the information they wanted and didn't need any more really, from Gaines or anyone else, and his attempts to "explain" things would indeed come off as arrogant to such a group. 

The fact is, he shouldn't have even gone to the hearings period... I don't remember exactly, was he subpoenaed?  I think he went of his own volition... and as for acting antagonistic, well perhaps he thought it would be a situation similar to what his father encountered a couple of years earlier.  Instead, from what I've heard he was left unprepared and holding the bag for the whole industry.  Just where were the heads (no pun intended) of Story Comics, or Timely, or DC for that matter?... and if they were caught unprepared in the hot seat, can we really say they wouldn't act antagonistic as well? 

[Drusilla lives!]

Btw, I just found a site that has the transcripts to the 1954 hearings.  If anyones interested they can be found here.

[Yoc]

 
Ha!  Thanks DL, I was just looking for that!
The direct link to Gaine's testimony is HERE.

John, I think you'll see the 'it could have been worse' statement was about two specific covers.  It wasn't the backbone of his defence for horror comics.
The main gist of his testimony is we don't give 'normal kids' enough credit for having brains and knowing right from wrong and that no horror comic could provoke delinquent behaviour in such a normal child.

His best lines being-
"We think our children are so evil, simple minded, that it takes a story of murder to set them to murder, a story of robbery to set them to robbery?"
and
"I don't believe anything that has ever been written can make a child overaggressive or delinquent...
The roots of such characteristics are much deeper. The truth is that delinquency is the product of real environment, in which the child lives and not of the fiction he reads."

I believe Feldstein later said the 'testing the comics on groups of kids' was something he never saw happen but it could have I guess.
Gaines does contradict himself claiming no harm or good could be done showing crimes being committed but that good could be taught in his stories with 'messages.'  His preachies as they came to be known.

I think his best points which he only touched on quickly was how complex the problem of juvenile delinquency was and how it takes a range of things to create that problem.  Their environment, health, economic and social.  That with delinquency "no pill can cure them. No law will legislate them out of being.  Points that remain today, perhaps more so.

Perhaps part of the problem is not the media itself but what it's used for by parents.  With so many different choices for entertainment real family bonding and moral teachings have been cut back to almost nothing.  The days of families eating around the table and talking replaced by tv tables in front of the 'idiot box.'  Kids and parents would rather spend time watching instead of 'doing' or 'teaching'.  If the old saying that a person's morality is formed in the first five years then it's quite obvious that the parents are the single biggest potential teacher of good for their kids.  If the kids are just dropped in front of a TV as a sitter all the time for whatever reasons the parents are passing the responsibility of rearing a morally upright future adult onto local programmers who aren't there to worry about raising kids.  They are there to fill air time and sell widgets with endless commercials.  That's it.

I once heard a 'radical idea' a while back.  Don't let your kids watch tv until they are five years old!  Teach them to read, talk to them, listen to them!  I don't think it's a bad idea but I doubt it got much airplay in the media!

-Yoc

[darkmark]

I think Gaines may have been running on amphetamines or diet pills of some sort when he did the subcommittee gig.  There's coverage of it in THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE.  While Bill was responsible for some truly excellent, moral, and forward-looking stories in EC, let's face it:  doing something bad can tarnish or banish the memory of all the good that you have done.  Mel Gibson made the excellent PASSION OF THE CHRIST.  Then he made a drunken comment about Jews, and look what happened.  Food for thought, I guess.

[John C]

John, I think you'll see the 'it could have been worse' statement was about two specific covers.  It wasn't the backbone of his defence for horror comics.

But my point is that it doesn't matter.  When shown his own excess, he was unrepentant.  Even if he didn't need to be, everybody knows how bad that's going to look.

The main gist of his testimony is we don't give 'normal kids' enough credit for having brains and knowing right from wrong and that no horror comic could provoke delinquent behaviour in such a normal child.

And I agree with him, wholeheartedly.  But that's not the way to make that argument to people predisposed to control over freedom, as I tend to think that politicians must necessarily be.

I once heard a 'radical idea' a while back.  Don't let your kids watch tv until they are five years old!  Teach them to read, talk to them, listen to them!  I don't think it's a bad idea but I doubt it got much airplay in the media!

I agree with the effect but not the principle.  It's the companionship, I think, that kids need, not a selective choice of stimulation.  I had what's now considered an obscene amount of television time, growing up, and watched things then that I certainly wouldn't find acceptable for a kid today (and also quite a few things, it should be said, that are far better than what's aired today).  But my parents watched with me, and also read to/with me, and brought me for walks, and so forth.

A friend has kids, and as young as two, they clearly know the difference between television and reality, and the difference between their own imaginations and reality.  Except the oldest thinks that dragons come out of the television if you turn it off--I don't know where the idea came from, but it sounds like the best marketing campaign ever!

[John C]

Who was Gaines suppose to be... Spider-Man?  Just kidding. 

The "responsibility" comment was, in fact, intentional.

Yes, they were very popular... in hindsight.  But at the time they were just another comic book company in a never ending comic cover "arms race."

My understanding is that horror took its lead from EC when their sales numbers jumped.  Wikipedia agrees with me, though that usually makes me rethink my position...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_comics_in_the_United_States,_1947%E2%80%931954#Backlash

The paragraph just before that, I mean.

And how else was Gaines to defend his company then by offering up suggestions that it could have been worse?

By acknowledging that, knowing that EC's books are often displayed alongside those meant for small children, it was thoughtless and irresponsible to let that cover through and explain (or claim) they're already toning things down.

I say that because, to me, that's not something you defend.  You apologize and then do what it takes to preserve your business.

Notice, by the way, that the industry never learned their lesson.  While bemoaning the fact that they can't hook a new generation of kids on comic books, they'll still sell Decapitation Crisis 2009 or whatever next to Tiny Titans, and they'll allow (and even encourage, by sending the material) the shops to show half-naked women and superviolent thugs.  Comic shops were a sufficiently risky-looking place when I was a kid, with the papered-over windows (obviously to block out the ultraviolet light from damaging the paper) and the precariously-stacked boxes.  But add in a few Dark Knight Returns posters, bloody Wolverine statues, and the rest of the garbage the companies hawk as upsells, and I wouldn't want a kid within a mile of such a place.

(Apologies, of course, to those who run or patronize a clean, friendly shop.  I know they're out there, and have even had the privilege of visiting some, but they're also annoyingly rare.)

The fact is, he shouldn't have even gone to the hearings period...

I actually disagree.  It was a brilliant move.  He was the poster boy, so to speak, of the second-generation comic book industry that so worried everybody.  He knew the business and knew the art.

However, what he needed to say was "I'm taking responsibility for this," rather than "I think a severed head is in good taste."  Cooperation (and leadership) would have gotten him his adult-oriented Comics Code, presumably contingent on caveats of squeaky-clean covers with a "not to be sold to minors" banner.

[Yoc]

Interesting thoughts John.
But I have big doubts that Gaines would have gotten much different treatment at the 1954 hearings even if he had admitted he crossed the line with the examples shown.  From what I've read, The 10cent Plague most recent, it sure looked like the committee minds had been made long before Gaines took the stand.  A concerted effort was made by several levels of politicians to ban all comics an it was only existing laws of freedom of speech finally shot them down.  The Code might have helped some publishers avert disaster but the economic climate by then was so harsh not many survived anyways.  Between this new free TV thing and paperbacks, a big spike in the cost of newsprint, screaming media and parents calling for blood at the same time as his distributer retuning all his books unsold before itself going bankrupt - Gaines made the smartest decision left for him besides bankruptcy.  Move to magazine size and stick with his one big winner left - Mad.
I find it funny that just a bump in size, page count and price to 25 cents and poof your worries are over.  Because magazines are 'obviously' for adults and comics are only for kids.

-Yoc

[Drusilla lives!]

...  His best lines being-
"We think our children are so evil, simple minded, that it takes a story of murder to set them to murder, a story of robbery to set them to robbery?"
and
"I don't believe anything that has ever been written can make a child overaggressive or delinquent...
The roots of such characteristics are much deeper. The truth is that delinquency is the product of real environment, in which the child lives and not of the fiction he reads."

I believe Feldstein later said the 'testing the comics on groups of kids' was something he never saw happen but it could have I guess.
Gaines does contradict himself claiming no harm or good could be done showing crimes being committed but that good could be taught in his stories with 'messages.'  His preachies as they came to be known.

I think his best points which he only touched on quickly was how complex the problem of juvenile delinquency was and how it takes a range of things to create that problem.  Their environment, health, economic and social.  That with delinquency "no pill can cure them. No law will legislate them out of being.  Points that remain today, perhaps more so.
...

Thanks for restating that Yoc, that's what I now recall hearing... and they definitely don't sound like the words of a man who wasn't concerned about the issue.  In my opinion, if anything, it points to someone who was a rather tortured individual in this regard. 

Btw, in my opinion, from what I've read I think Gaines was tortured by many things... and I've always had a theory that the subject matter of the EC horror comics (as you mention, those aptly named "preachies") was a reflection of some inner quest on his part to examine and try to reconcile his own questions about religion and the nature of God (at least in the "Old Testament" sense).  That's why I think darkmark is so off the mark.  With the horror comics EC wasn't pushing immorality in the area of violence... if anything, one might be able to make the case that they were exploring the idea of pushing religion and moral concepts with violence.  Stepping back from the material, on another ("meta") level, one should have asked oneself "did that person deserve that sort of retribution?" and "look how ugly this all is... is violence always to be met with violence?"  And ultimately, I think this leads to questions regarding the nature of God.  For me the answer to such a question is rooted in the concept of forgiveness and understanding... arguably a "New Testament" concept.  I think all of this might have had its roots in Gaines' terrible relationship with his father, but these are all no more then armchair observations.   

Well, that's just one of my theories on the matter and perhaps I'm giving them more credit and ingenuity then they're due.  But the fact that those old EC comics can still stir all sorts of emotions in people convinces me they are indeed special, and truly works of art.  But I still think at the time, they were just one of many comic companies trying to make money and survive... and like the others they had their lapses in judgment and shouldn't be held accountable now for the ills of the entire industry at that time.

[John C]

like the others they had their lapses in judgment and shouldn't be held accountable now for the ills of the entire industry at that time.

I think this is where we part philosophical company, since I'm pretty sure their lapses of judgement were, in fact, the ills of the industry.  After all, we don't judge a drunk driver by all the trips he made sober, nor do we judge a country by all the years it hasn't been at war.

Unless, of course, you believe that there were companies whose corporate goals were to overtly corrupt America's youth, I mean.  Which you might, I suppose, but somehow I doubt it.

[Drusilla lives!]

like the others they had their lapses in judgment and shouldn't be held accountable now for the ills of the entire industry at that time.

I think this is where we part philosophical company, since I'm pretty sure their lapses of judgement were, in fact, the ills of the industry.  After all, we don't judge a drunk driver by all the trips he made sober, nor do we judge a country by all the years it hasn't been at war.

Unless, of course, you believe that there were companies whose corporate goals were to overtly corrupt America's youth, I mean.  Which you might, I suppose, but somehow I doubt it.

I really don't understand the point you're trying to make here.  IMO by your reasoning they should all be guilty... but it appears you're singling out EC. 

One of my points is that if vulgarity started with EC comics (and IMO it didn't), it could have just as easily ended with them... no one had a gun to the heads of the other publishers to follow suit and produce the material that they did and what was worse... they had no moral message at all.  Unless of course that is the very thing you dislike the most about them? 

With that said, personally I may not agree with all the material they put out but I can forgive them for their transgressions (not that that means anything really)... can you? 

[John C]

I really don't understand the point you're trying to make here.  IMO by your reasoning they should all be guilty... but it appears you're singling out EC. 

I single EC out for the same reason that I would single out DC, had the discussion somehow turned to (gasp!) promoting homosexuality with superheroes.  They were the big dog that everybody else followed, intentionally or not.  They had the sales figures and the reach.

They also have the only owner who stood in front of the hearing to make things worse.

Note that this is NOT a judgement on the books' content or on the personalities, because I think I've made it clear that their only "sin," in my opinion, was letting their books be sold on the same rack as Supermouse or the equivalent kiddie material.

This is a judgement purely on position and business decisions in that they should have (to survive, I mean) accepted the spotlight as role model and made it work.

With that said, personally I may not agree with all the material they put out but I can forgive them for their transgressions (not that that means anything really)... can you? 

No, I can't, because Gaines refused to see it as a transgression.  He defended his company the way you might defend your parents on the playground, rather than protecting his company the way an adult should.

As I said, you don't get out of a speeding ticket by pointing out that you could've killed people, had you only wanted to.  You also don't complain that other people speed all the time without getting a ticket.  You explain why you were speeding (if you have a reason) and promise that it won't happen again.

You can argue that there were worse offenders than EC, and surely there were.  But they were lesser operations, mostly, who didn't care about the product and didn't have the prominence of EC, so they simply don't count, just like we don't care about Toby's superhero line.  Because of this, Gaines could have used the opportunity to come out on top, but instead pointed the country's fear and hatred squarely at his own product.

He could have shown the moral code of his stories.  He could have offered to keep the gore off the covers.  He could have offered to find alternate distribution for adult-oriented comics.  He could have kept his mouth shut.  But no, he explained that a severed head was, in fact, in good taste to him.

I understand Yoc's objections to my theory, but I have to point out that the Committee didn't provide any guidance into the Comics Code, instead suggesting that the industry self-censor.  Had Gaines played the game correctly, he could have easily gotten a "dual" Code, with adult books treated differently in censorship and sales.  Instead, he tried to play Larry Flynt (in prototype) and say everything's fine and everybody's just being too darn prissy.  (Other economic difficulties may have followed, but that's not at issue, here, I don't think.)