Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 12:00:27 -0500 From: [g--l--n] at [falcon.bgsu.edu] (Metroplex) Subject: FTP 517 ==== FIT TO PRINT by cathrine yronwode for the week of January 16, 1995 THIS IS FIT TO PRINT NUMBER 517: Rich Ahrens just sent me something he ran across on the internet, namely a posting by Jon Berger, who noted, "I ran across the following while browsing through the California [legal] Codes on the World Wide Web (at URL http:/ /www.law.indiana.edu/codes/ca/codes.html, for anyone who's interested). As far as I know, it's a real, actual, enforceable law. I swear I'm not making this up." The law reads as follows: pax version 1.2 CALIFORNIA CODES BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS CODE SECTION 16603 16603. Every person who, as a condition to a sale or consignment of any magazine, book, or other publication requires that the purchaser or consignee purchase or receive for sale any horror comic book, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprison-ment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both. This section is not intended to prohibit an agreement requiring a person to pur-chase or accept on consignment a mini-mum number of copies of a single edition or issue of a magazine or of a particular book or other particular publication. As used in this section "person" includes a corporation, partnership, or other association. As used in this section "horror comic book" means any book or booklet in which an account of the commission or attempted commission of the crime of arson, assault with caustic chemicals, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, kidnapping, mayhem, murder, rape, robbery, theft, or voluntary manslaughter is set forth by means of a series of five or more drawings or photographs in sequence, which are accompanied by either narrative writing or words represented as spoken by a pictured character, whether such narrative words appear in balloons, captions or on or immediately adjacent to the photograph or drawing. CAUSTIC CHEMICALS: I am really fascinated by the law's specificity. It does not say that a distributor will be fined or imprisoned for forcing a retailer to accept consignments or purchases of science fiction comics or romance comics or super hero comics-only horror comics are named. The implication is that at some time in the past, when this law was drafted and approved, wholesalers were requiring reluctant shop keepers to display horror comics on their racks against their better judgement. This sounds like a lot of bunk, in today's market, but i expect that when this law was passed, probably during the 1950s hysteria surrounding the dire influence crime comics were having on the youth of our fair nation, store owners who felt themselves under attack by local citizens' groups had tried some simple buck-passing ("My distributor made me do it!") and this was seen as a way to close that loophole. ("Henceforward, you have no excuse. If you sell horror comics it's because you are depraved, wicked, utterly repugnant scum and we'll know it.") The second oddity about this law is that, unlike most descriptions of comics written by outsiders, it uses the proper terms current in the industry. Balloons are balloons, not "bubbles." Captions are captions, not "boxes." I get the impression from this that either some politician did his homework or that a turncoat within the comics field advised the lawmakers. Finally, i am amused by the strangely baroque inclusion of the crime of "assault with caustic chemicals." I'm sure several crime comics of the era featured the old lye-in-the-face routine, but the only one that i can readily recall is "Murder, Mor-phine and Me" from Jack Cole's 1947 True Crime comics. Unless someone else can turn up a few more "assault with caustic chemicals" storylines from the 1940s and early 50s, i will cheerfully assume that the winsome creator of the loveable Plastic Man inspired that particular piece of overkill on the part of our legislators. ==== Fit to Print appears in print each week in Comics Buyers Guide and is available via e-mail. Tell your friends! To subscribe to Fit to Print via e-mail send a request with the words "Subscribe FtP" in the subject header and your address in the body of the message to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] You will be added to the list and receive the next available issue. Backissues are available. FTP to nspace.cts.com and look in the Comics/About Comics/Comics News/Fit to Print directory. Responses are welcome and should be directed to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] Fit to Print is Copyright 1994 Cathrine Yronwode. All rights reserved.