The lead story The Devil's Doorway in House of Mystery #182 (Sept-Oct 1969) has some serious daddy issues all through the tale. Not suprising as it was written by Pre-CCA and EC Comics veteran Jack Oleck with art aided and abetted by Alex Toth, who is clearly a master of both sub-textual panel layouts and scary Freudian imagery!
In the story a little girl desperately seeking her father's approval uses a really phallic statue of the demon Belial to open a mirror portal to play in a tunnel that leads to supernatural nether regions. Eventually Daddy becomes aware of what is going on in the house unbeknown to family and friends and attempts to put a stop to his child's corruption. In the end, Daddy achieves a decidedly Pyrrhic victory over the demon. He throws the "statue" into the tunnel and banishes the demon but in the process he loses his daughter forever.
Hey, it's Comics Code Approved!
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Seduction of the Innocent
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Beat the Devil!
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A lot of bloggers (especially you) post tons of material that got past the CCA. I have to wonder:
ReplyDeleteA) What kind of stuff did they actually catch and reject?
B) Who were these folks? Rubes who couldn't see subtext if it poked them with a salami? Accomplices who let stuff through with a wink and a nod if it was done subtly? Or (unlikely given your posts) paranoids who rejected reams of material but somehow didn't quite catch the last 0.01% of SOTI material?
I'm of the opinion that if any subtlety was used at all it got through. The CCA was often self-regulated also, and you know how well that works.
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