I agree that discussion makes the thread interesting. For me, the question of intent with these is an interesting one. I do agree that it's far fetched for most of these to think they were intentionally suggestive.

However, as I said before, in some cases I do think it was intentional. We know that some of the old guard in the good ol boys network were... I don't want to say pervy, that's not even right. But some of them were drawing to amuse themselves and others. I'm thinking about Wally Wood here, who was renowned for doing stuff like when he sent the art for The Cat #1 to Marie Severin with the Cat drawn completely naked throughout the entire book, forcing her to touch up the entire comic to fix it.

He wasn't alone. So I do think it's very possible — even likely — that some of these artists were intentionally doing suggestive cover designs as a gag, either to entertain themselves, to entertain their fellow artists, or to see what they could sneak by their editors.

And then there's the curious case of Lois Lane and Supergirl in Adventure...

As I said before, I am 100% sure the suggestive covers in the ealry 70's on these two books were intentional. If you see just one of them, you might think it's an accident. But it was month after month after month. And these covers aren't just bondage, or even sexy bondage covers — they frequently have suggestive composition, with spread eagled characters who often have things aimed at their crotch.

The ones on Adventure started slightly earlier - with a cover date of November, 1971. I don't think this is a coincidence. In the fall of 1971, the comics code authority updated their rules, allowing for things like anti-heroes (hello, Punisher and Ghost Rider) and horror comics (werewolves, vampires, and zombies suddenly everywhere!). I think the more suggestive covers had to be in part an editorial shift to take advantage of these laxer rules.

What's interesting, though, is that Adventure (Joe Orlando) and Lois Lane (E. Nelson Bridwell/Dorothy Woolfolk) had different editors. However, if you look at the most suggestive covers from both titles, they are all by the same artist - Bob Oksner.

So was Oksner going rogue here? Or was he drawing these at someone's direction?

Here are just a few examples - there are several more, including one already posted here of Supergirl throwing a very phallic cannon:

I think all the covers were 100% intentional. Why would the artist draw the items in the picture if not for intention? Just like why would the writer write the words if not for their meaning? BTW, everyone on this forum is leaps and bounds better at words than me. So, to my understanding, Fredric Wertham was just some pseudo shrink that had the same agenda as the moral majority at the time. His ‘research’ was cherry picked, as said before, and he claimed falsely that correlation equated to causation by saying that most kids in group homes read comics and look how messed up their lives are, but all of us on this forum read these comics and (I hope) we’re not going out and imitating what we see. The same is said about violent video games today or explicit music. Read about Tipper Gore and Dolores Tucker, who of all people wanted to appoint herself as the judge of what’s appropriate content for music. I think it’s all ridiculous. That said, I don’t think kids should be exposed to crazy stuff, but if some gets through (like these covers) then I don’t think kids will realize what’s happening until later in life, much like I (we?) have.

Exactly. All of these cover images, as well as double-entrendres in the stories themselves, whether intentional or not, usually fly over the heads of most pre-teens and often even teenagers (e.g., I used to have that issued of DC Comic Presents, which I pulled off the spinner rack at the age of about 13; it was only when I looked at it again as a middle-aged adult that it evoked a chuckle from me).

True, but the kind of sexual imagery that comics (and lots of other consumer products besides) have employed to attract male customers in the past tended to be pretty in your face and hard to miss. In the case of comic covers, it was a big pair of breasts here, a scantily-clad female warrior there...a little light (or not so light) bondage perhaps? But that's not the same thing as the more veiled sexual imagery that it's being suggested are present in the majority of covers that have been posted in this thread.

One point:   Wertham helped create, or better yet, contribute to the environment that led to the Code; but had no involvement with its founding.  That was all DC, Marvel, and Archie, mainly in an attempt to drive off competition, while placate the criticisms raised in the Kefauver hearings and from the Catholic League of Decency.  The government had already decided it wasn't worth pursuing and that they were on shaky legal grounds, had any of the publishers had the kryptonite rocks to challenge regulation in court (and the money, because it would have been a long fight). The Code was geared more at guys like EC, Lev Gleason and Harvey to shut down their profitable horror and crime comics, which were outselling the Code publishers' more juvenile books.  Those companies barely changed from the books they were already doing.  Harvey turned its focus on their children's comics and made a fortune doing it. Lev Gleason went under.  EC tried to work with the Code, briefly, said to hell with it and turned Mad into a magazine and went for a broader audience.

I don't see how you can categorically say that. Especially if you're saying it is 100% of the time. Sure, we can speculate, but there's zero evidence to back that idea up.




Why not? This is conjectural evidence at best. It's not confirmation of intent in any way.




Again, this is entirely conjectural. Yeah, he could've chosen the White House or the Lincoln Memorial, but he could've equally chosen the Washington Monument, without any sexual or phallic intent in his mind. As Sigmund Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."




And you might be right. Maybe Russ Andru really did mean for the giant obelisk to represent Suoerman's erect penis. And maybe he didn't. You can choose to believe that that's the case, but without any evidence, it's still just pure speculation.




No, you cannot say that. That's just your opinion. You can't state either of those things as 100% fact, unless you have proof. And you don't.




Well, it's not total BS, because children should be protected from sexual content that isn't suitable for their age group. Whether there really was all that much to be worried about in pre-code comics is another matter, but you can't argue with the sentiment.

Also, let's not forget that Wertham wasn't just concerned with sex. It was also the inappropriate levels of violence and gore in pre-code horror comics that he was worried about. And frankly, having read quite a lot of pre-code horror over the years, I do think that some of the violence and gore in certain comics was inappropriate for minors. Not the majority of horror comics, I'll grant you, but definitely some of them.