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The Death of Pre-Code Comics and Why It Happened, 1940–1955
by David J. Hogan
Explore the rise and fall of pre-Code comics with 500 covers revealing America's cultural shifts, censorship, and controversy.
From 1940 to 1955, American society and culture underwent dramatic changes, including the introduction of the Comics Code in October 1954, which heavily impacted comic books.
The Code aimed to moderate comic content in response to public opinion, including such topics as juvenile delinquency, wartime sentiment, teenage sex, drugs, violent crime, and more.
While compliance was technically voluntary, most publishers followed its strict rules. Those who didn't faced ruin when wholesalers and distributors refused to handle noncompliant comics, returning them unopened to publishers, who soon self-destructed.
Comic Book Apocalypse! explores this downfall through 500 examples of pre-Code cover art, highlighting why some deemed the Code necessary.
The book also examines who decided what content was acceptable, demonstrating how pre-Code comics reflect the larger story of 1950s America.
"The result is not only a lavish appreciation of pre-Code comics, but an endlessly fascinating deep dive into wartime and postwar culture." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
This information about Comic Book Apocalypse! was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
David J. Hogan has collected and thought about comic books since 1965. Following experience as an entertainment journalist in Los Angeles, he settled in Chicago, where he worked in the book business as an executive editor and publisher. His articles have appeared in magazines as diverse as Comic Book Creator, Moviegoer, Aviation History, Filmfax, Collectible Automobile, and Cinefantastique. Comic Book Apocalypse is his 11th book. He lives in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
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