SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At Sacramento native Lecho Lopez's comic book store in town recently, his 5-year-old nephew read his first word aloud: “bad.” It was from a graphic novel.
It was ironic that it was his first word because Lopez believes comics have brought a lot of positivity into his life. That's why he supports repealing a 1949 city ordinance that banned the distribution of many comic books to children and teenagers. Today this is not observed.
“It's a stupid law,” Lopez, who has a red and black Superman logo tattooed on his forearm, said in an interview at his JLA Comics store. “A lot of good things come out of comics.”
A City Council committee voted unanimously this week to cancel and declare the third week of September “Sacramento Comics Week.” It now goes to the full council for a vote. The ban applies to comics that detail crimes and depict illegal acts such as arson, murder or rape.
In the mid-20th century, when comic books were on the rise, concerns spread about their impact on children, with some arguing that they could lead to illiteracy or encourage violent crime. The industry decided to regulate itself, and local governments from Los Angeles County to Lafayette, Louisiana, enacted bans to protect some comics from young people. Although some cities, such as Sacramento, still have these laws in place, they are rarely, if ever, enforced.
Now advocates for repealing the Sacramento law say it is necessary to reflect the value of comics and help guard against the current wave of book bans.
Local artist pushes for cancellation
Comic book writer Eben Burgoon, who started the petition to overturn Sacramento's ban, said comics “have a really valuable ability to speak truth to power.”
“These outdated laws create such a threat that bad actors may go out of their way to compromise this environment,” he said at a Tuesday hearing held by the City Council Legislation Committee.
Sacramento is a great place to spend a week celebrating comics, Burgoon said. The city has a “wonderful” comics community, he said, and every year the local art museum hosts the comics convention CrockerCon.
Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, said there is “no compelling reason” to enact a book ban like Sacramento's, saying it would be “contrary to modern First Amendment standards.”
History of the comic book ban
The comic book censorship movement decades ago was not an aberration in U.S. history, said Jeff Trexler, interim director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights to protect the free speech rights of people who read or create comics.
New York, for example, created a commission in the 1920s to review films to determine whether they should be licensed for public viewing based on whether they were “obscene” or “blasphemous” and likely to “corrupt morals” or “incite crime,” according to state records.
“Every time there is a new medium or a new way of distributing a medium, there is outrage and an attempt to suppress it,” Trexler said.
In 1959, the California Supreme Court ruled that Los Angeles County's policy prohibiting the sale of so-called “crime” comics to minors was unconstitutional because it was too broad. Sacramento's suspension likely won't pass muster for the same reason, Trexler said.
According to Christopher Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Florida, there hasn't been much recent research on whether there is a link between comic books and aggressive behavior. But, he said, similar studies of television and video games found no association with “clinically significant changes in youth aggression or violent behavior.”
Comic book lovers talk about their benefits
Flipping through comics such as EC Comics' “Epitaphs from the Abyss” and the DC/Marvel collaboration “Batman/Deadpool,” Lopez showed an Associated Press reporter images of characters smashing a car windshield, punching someone in the face and attacking Batman with bows and arrows—the kinds of scenes that could be regulated if the Sacramento ban were enacted.
But comics with storylines that include violence can contain positive messages, says Benjamin Morse, a professor of media studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“Spider-Man is a very mature concept,” said Morse, who became an X-Men fan as a child and then worked at Marvel for 10 years. “This is a child who lost his parents, his uncle died as a result of violence, and he vows to be held accountable.”
Lopez's mother bought him his first comic, “Ultimate Spider-Man #1,” when he was about 9 years old, he said. But it was “Kingdom Come,” the DC Justice League comic that changed his life at a young age with its “hyper-realistic” art that was unlike anything he had ever seen before, he said.
He said his interest in comics helped him avoid gang involvement while growing up. They also improved his reading skills as a person with dyslexia.
“The only thing I was really able to read that helped me retain the information was comic books because you had a visual aid to help you explain what was going on in the book,” Lopez said.
And comics have much more to offer, Burgoon said at a hearing this week.
“It produces imaginative thinkers,” he said. “It doesn't lead to mass crime. It doesn't harm society.”
