Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/83

Rh Ine., The Golden Willew Press, Aven Periodicals, Inc., Ace Magazines, Orbit Publieations, Inc., Superior Comics, Consolidated Magazines, Inc.

Mr. . What is your present membership in this association?

Mr. . We have about a dozen iembers, onky three of which are publishers, several distributors, some of the printers, and en- gravers.

I say that our experience in continuing this organization has been a study tn frustration. When I came into the picture some 6 or 7 years ago, we had one-third of the industry. Since that time there have been defections from that very substantially so that teday unfortu- nately our association represents a very insignificant, small fraction of the industry, thoze few dichards who still believe that by some miracle the organization of their original premise, which was a pro- prim of self-regulation of comes, might yet come true.

Unfortunately it has not happened.

Mr. . You suv there were defevttons. Do you have any who left becanse they were net abiding by the code?

Mr. . There were several resignations which were directly traceable to the fact that 1, as a person of some responsibility m this, refused to approve certain magazines and these people felt they could not live under what they regarded as excessive, kind of narrow, restrictions.

Mr. . You were enforcing the code, in other words?

Mr. . I tried to enforce it on a very practical level.

Mr. . How many publishers were involved?

Mr. . In the defection?

Mr. . Yes.

Mr. . I know of two publishers who left for that very specific reason. Others left without giving reasons. I can only guess what the motivation may have been.

Mr. . Which were the two that had difficulty with respect to the code?

Mr. . One was the Educational Comics. It is now Enter- tamment Comics, the Gaines Publishing.

The other was something called the Avon, and there,-again, with the proliferation of corporations and names those names cever a variety of companies, [ presume.

Mr. . How do you operate, or how does the association operate now as contrasted with the past? Do you screen all the magazines or comics which bear your seal of approval?

Mr. . Originally when I was approached, the concept was to set up a counterpart of the motion-picture production code. We had what I sti) think were vood ideas. We got together a commuit- tee of educators, We had the superintendent of schools here in New York; we had the State librarian, some others, as an advisory com- uuitee to sit In seminars with publishers and educators to raise the language content levels, aud so on.

We actually had a procedure. Some people we hired weve actaully reading the comics in the boards; that is, the raw state of the paied up Iind of thing before it gets to the printer.

WhenI guess it is more than 8 years now, perhaps a little longer the defections became so bad we could not afford to continue that kind of precensorship arrangement and that has been discarded. Today