Reflections PART THREE/ Two Industries, One Code, Same Arrested Development

"Behind every great fortune is a crime."

THE FILIPINO MAINSTREAM COMICS INDUSTRY: 1963 to 1968

Prior to the arrival in 1968 of the Pinoy Bomba comic, 1962 saw the closure of Don Ramon’s ACE Publications due to a widely publicized (but now downplayed) worker’s strike. But in the next few years, new comics companies such as Atlas and Graphic Arts Services, Inc. (GASI) AND a later revived ACE Publications would come to the fore, all owned by Don Ramon and managed by his right hand man, the Father of Filipino comics, Tony Velasquez. Obviously, the strike did not affect the comics publishing operations of Don Ramon who still lorded over the industry.

True, there were other comics publishers at the time, but they were not as big as Don Ramon’s operation. Significantly, these publishers were given no choice but to join Don Ramon’s APEPCOM and be controlled/censored by its “Golden Code.” It was mandatory. These publishers also had to rely on, or contend with, Don Ramon’s humongous distribution network of dealers and sub-agents in order to sell their comics. In effect, a truly free and fair market of independent and competing comics publishing companies was non-existent. They probably got some profit for their respective operations but certainly not as big or substantial as Don Ramon’s. Because of this they continued to remain relatively small and some, not lasting long enough.

And just who were these other comics publishers that no one remembers today and not even mentioned or given proper space in Don Ramon’s “History of Komiks in the Philippines and other countries”?

“In the Philippines, there are several big names associated with komiks publishing. They are: Ramon Roces (Liwayway Publications), Mrs. Beatriz Guballa (Bulaklak Publications), D. Benipayo (Benipayo Press), G. Miranda (G. Miranda & Sons), E. Enriquez (Philippine Book Company), C. Picache (Bookman), Ner Siongco (Goldstar Publications), Filemon Campaner (Pioneer Publications), Glicerio M. Ramos (G.M.R. Publications), Amado Araneta (Makabayan Publications) and J. Pinili (PR Publications).” (Source: E.P. Patane, “Komiks: A Growing, Profitable, Publishing Venture”, The Asia Magazine, October 20, 1963)

As of 1963, the above in addition to some new ones which came up later like CRAF and PSG (two companies started by comics creators themselves after the closure of ACE) comprised the mainstream comics industry in the Philippines. All were APEPCOM members, and hence, all were controlled by Don Ramon.

It is said that after the closure of ACE in 1962 due to the worker’s strike, Don Ramon wanted to “retire” from comics publishing and pass on the reins to his two daughters: Carmen and Elena by forming Atlas and GASI in the late 60s. Some however, consider this view to be unsupported by the factual milieu and circumstances obtaining during the period.

To elaborate: in order to avoid liability for the striking ACE worker’s claims (and many other possible creditors), it is a common maneuver for companies to close shop or “lock out.” Even if you win in the labor courts, it would be very difficult executing the favorable judgment. Oftimes, you could not locate anymore the now closed company much less its properties which were already presumably “transferred” to new corporate entities. It would entail additional time and money just to locate them and annul their fraudulent transfers in court; time and money which the striking workers did not have. Don Ramon after all, still had Liwayway Publishing and a host of other business interests to his name to keep him occupied.

So in all probability, Don Ramon (and Tony Velasquez) brilliantly waded it out, closed shop, laid low by “retiring”, and creating in the late 1960s not one but TWO comics publishing companies where ACE’s properties were presumably transferred and its operations continued: Atlas and GASI, comics publishing companies which were actually managed by Damian Velasquez and his brother, Tony Velasquez.

Since ownership of these two companies were given by Don Ramon to his two lovely daughters, it was consequently made to appear albeit, in name only, that these were now two distinct and independent operations from ACE. The striking workers could not therefore immediately proceed against these two companies without incurring additional cost. So much so that when these workers began to disperse and resignedly disappear at the futility of it all, Don Ramon came back with a resuscitated ACE Publications in the late 1960s. Some retirement.

Even during this so-called “retirement”, Don Ramon was believed to be working behind the scenes. He still had control of, and was making money from, the entire mainstream comics industry during ACE’S hiatus through his huge comics distribution network of loyal dealer agents and sub-agents that carried Liwayway magazine and the other comics titles of competing publishers. Also, Don Ramon still controlled comics publishing policy through the APEPCOM which was being guided by his “Golden Code”. Competing mainstream comics publishers who were APEPCOM members had no choice but to tow the line.

Don Ramon’s comics titles had a higher circulation than all the other mainstream comics combined and naturally, his titles got more public display, recognition and patronage. Remember that by this time, distribution through makeshift “comics parlours”; that is, of sidewalk dealers specializing only in the sale and rental of foreign and local comics titles, was prevalent and Don Ramon’s titles comprised almost the entire mainstream comics industry; they dominated the comics parlours. It is thus safe to say that only Don Ramon’s ACE Publications was truly booming from the 1950s onto 1968. All the other publishers who were APEPCOM members had to settle for a smaller piece of the pie. To illustrate, if the annual profit of the entire industry was one and a half million pesos as of 1963, the bulk of that went to ACE Publications.

But as reported elsewhere there were other developments going on in the comics business of the 1960s, especially from the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s when Ferdinand Marcos was elected twice as President of the Republic, first in 1965 where he defeated President Diosdado Macapagal and the second in 1969 where he ran for re-election under a controversial election campaign marred by widespread vote-buying, bribery, and overall manipulation of the vote counting process. By the early 1970s, a Marcos rigged Constitutional Convention was set up in the hopes of prolonging Marcos’ stay in power but even that fizzled out to make way for the declaration of martial law in September, 1972.


PIVOTAL YEARS OF THE MAINSTREAM FILIPINO COMICS INDUSTRY: 1965 to 1968

The politics and societal developments of this era (1965 to 1972) is not to be belittled either. Its impact on the collective Filipino consciousness and psyche influenced and spread even to the medium of expression/communication called Filipino comics. How did such political turmoil affect the content and editorial direction of local comics publishing at the time? Answer: Sex and Politics. Topics that were taboo to the mainstream comics industry who concentrated on sedate, watered down, and harmless “escapist” comics stories brought about by Don Ramon and his 1950s APEPCOM Code, were explored and challenged nonetheless by still unknown and now forgotten, pioneer comics publishers. Sex came into the picture because of the sexual revolution that arose during this period; a form of social protest against the prevailing status quo's conservative and puritanical notions about sex. Politics and information also entered local comics because of rising public consciousness and disenchantment with government and its leaders.

“In the late 60s and early 70s, bomba komiks-magasins ruled the day. Interspersed with vividly illustrated sex stories were photo reproductions of stills from smut films. It was also about this time that the public stirred in its consciousness of the potential of komiks-magasins as an influential opinion-maker. During the election campaigns of the period, komiks-magasins became arenas of political debate as well as vehicles for partisan propaganda.” (Source: Danny Mariano, “In the Name of the Masses”, TV Times Magazine, September 10-16, 1978 issue)

There is also the view that with all the political and societal turmoil going on in the mid to late 1960s, particularly during the time Don Ramon’s ACE was conspicuously absent from the market, that most of his loyal dealer agents and sub-agents weren’t getting their usual bulk of comics titles from Don Ramon for distribution. They became antsy. Don Ramon’s comics were their main bread and butter and in its absence, they had to look for an alternative source of revenue. The output of all the other new publishers weren’t enough to sustain their operations much less give them a decent and ongoing profit base as Don's Ramon's titles did. Moreover, some of these mainstream comics publishers like CRAF were developing alternative distribution routes in the provinces. So what is a comics dealer to do?

These confluence of events, the societal/cultural turmoil and the dealer’s search for a new source of income due to the absence of Don Ramon, led to the creation of the Pinoy Bomba comic in 1968.

As mentioned, history is still vague as to who were the enterprising and alternative publishers of the Pinoy Bomba comic. But the fact remains that in 1968, the bomba or Pinoy Erotic comic debuted and thrived in the newsstands at the time. That cannot be denied. And one doesn't accomplish that amazing feat unless one has also penetrated Don Ramon’s huge network of dealer agents and sub-agents. One could thus imagine a mad scramble by Don Ramon (and other mainstream APEPCOM comics publishers) to maintain a hold on the distribution network and control the market for Bomba comics.

Other than sex and politics treading new territory in the alternative publishing front, the Filipino mainstream komiks medium meanwhile morphed into something queer during this period. It became an extension of the showbiz news and gossip columns, promoting up and coming actors and actresses such as comedian Cachupoy, movie bad guy Martin Marfil, beauteous actress Amalia Fuentes, and a host of others, by featuring their image and likenesses in comics stories that practically served as scripts and storyboards for proposed films. Examples of these comics stories would be "Amalia ng Quiapo" (Amalia Fuentes), "Magic Bilao" (Cachupoy), and "Tagisan ng Agimat" (Bernard Bonin), all from CRAF's Redondo Komix. But then when two teen singer actress sensations came into the scene and pitted against each other by a manipulative movie press, there was born the Nora Vilma war. The komiks movie magazine was born.

Like the Pinoy Bomba komik, the komiks movie magazine employed for its covers, photographs and stills from movies of Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos, their then "love team" male partners: Tirso Cruz III, Edgar Mortiz, and their supporting cast of other teen actors and actresses of the period. Inside, we would be treated to entertainment news and gossip of the stars, their upcoming movies, and the black and white comics strip. Specifically, these kinds of komiks were targeted at the large lower income, tagalog movie going public: the "bakya" crowd. A niche' market if ever there was one and a coup of the mainstream Filipino comic at the time. But even this did not bode well for mainstream komiks in general:

“But komiks-magasins have been most thoroughly exploited by the drumbeaters of the local movie industry. It was not too long ago when most komiks-magasins were bitterly divided into highly partisan camps (for example Noranians vs. Vilmanians) rooting for their favorite stars. A komiks-magasin served as a venue for image-building (or image-breaking). Movie scribes, who maintained gossip columns in komiks-magasins (some of them still do), got embroiled in usually petty controversies, sometimes intentionally, over their particular clients. And the moviegoing, komiks-mgasin reading public lapped it up like bees to honey. That this trend has somewhat abated may signal a growing maturity among komiks-magasin readers.” (Source: Danny Mariano, “In the Name of the Masses”, TV Times Magazine, September 10-16, 1978 issue)


THE DECLINE OF THE FILIPINO MAINSTREAM COMICS INDUSTRY: 1968 to 1972

Pinoy Bomba comics were the biggest threat to the puritanical mainstream comics monopoly of Don Ramon. There was even a short-lived attempt to somewhat adopt its look and style during the early 1970s prior to martial law. This is where the Roces comics monopoly tried to use live-action black and white photos in place of hand-drawn panel illustrations in their comics sometimes called “photo-comics” which was prevalent at the time in Europe. It was Don Ramon’s way of competing against the black and white nude photos of the Pinoy Bomba comic. It did not succeed. Bomba comics was so successful that some mainstream comics artists and writers worked for these publishing houses in secret using aliases. It was even rumored that mainstream comics publishers (including Don Ramon) secretly put out bomba comics of their own using front men and dummies.

The political “opinion-making” komiks-magasin on the other hand, was being widely circulated and freely distributed in the countryside. Comics writers and artists (even comics publication houses) were commissioned by various politicians and organizations to make these “Info-Komiks” and it was a good alternative source of income that actually became a business for some.

Had martial law not set in, who knows what creative directions Filipino comics would have taken and evolved into from this introduction of new genres such as erotica, politics, and information dissemination? The diversity and success of the Japanese manga and French Bande Dessinee’ in fact, includes these genres in their repertoire.

It was also around this time of the late 1960s to early 1970s that local comics artists like Tony de Zuniga, Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala and Alex Niño began to work for the mainstream American comics industry, particularly with National Periodical Publications/DC. They were soon followed in later years by other local comics artists whose economic needs were not being met in the country at the time. Note that ALL of these migrating comics artists worked mainly for the local mainstream comics industry controlled by Don Ramon and at that time, Don Ramon’s comics industry was facing real competition, and losing money, from the alternative Pinoy Bomba comic in the newsstands.

On hindsight, if Don Ramon’s mainstream comics were facing stiff competition in the newsstands from the ubiquitous bomba comic, and was conversely losing money forcing his artists to do the more lucrative mainstream comics work in the U.S., it is NOT correct to say that this so-called “mass exodus” brought about the alleged death of Filipino comics in general or the conveniently vague “Golden Age of Filipino Comics” continuing to the late 60s and early 70s. Nothing could be farther than the truth.

Rather, it is more precise to say that the so-called “Golden Age” of the MAINSTREAM comics monopoly of Don Ramon was ending around this time, NOT the whole medium of Filipino comics per se. Many would like to think that Filipino comics at that time was being brought to another level by OTHER alternative publishers BEYOND the rigid strictures of the outdated APEPCOM Code. Those alternative publishers were those of the Pinoy bomba comic, Political comic, and Info-Komik.

But by some fluke accident of Philippine history, the total collapse of the Roces monopoly did not occur. It was interrupted. Not only did the monopoly survive, but the competing publishers of the Pinoy Bomba, Political, and Info comics were arrested as well. That fluke was the declaration of martial law in September, 1972, by President Ferdinand Marcos. But before we could elaborate on this further, let us look at the U.S. mainstream comics industry where similar to the Philippine scenario, American mainstream comics, also regulated by a similar Comics Code, was likewise losing ground in the newsstands. Different milieu, different players, but essentially the same story: the self-inflicted failure of dominant or monopolized mainstream comics publishers to meet ever changing societal taste and preferences that arrest their growth and development.


THE FURTHER DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN MAINSTREAM COMICS INDUSTRY: 1968 to 1975

In America as well, there was social unrest during the late 1960s brought on by the Vietnam war, the Civil Rights movement, the Feminist movement, and other protests that questioned the very structure of American society. The mainstream comics industry however, was still stuck with a 1954 Comics Code that did not acknowledge that the World was changing. Mainstream comic book standards still defined the target reader as a child, and there was no acknowledgment on the part of members of the CMAA (Comics Magazine Association of America, the trade organization charged with overseeing the U.S. Comics Code, and the equivalent of the Don Ramon’s APEPCOM) that the comics medium should move beyond the content suitable for an audience of ALL ages. Newsstand sales were dwindling and mainstream comics publishers, particularly National/DC and Marvel, were concerned about broadening their audience beyond children in order to improve newsstand sales.

For example, the 1954 Comics Code totally forbade any reference to drugs in a comics story. Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee considered otherwise when in the late 1960s he put out three issues of Amazing Spider-Man, i.e., nos. 96-98, containing a subplot dealing with the drug addiction of Harry Osborn, a supporting cast member of the title. The issues were put out without the Comics Code Authority’s seal of approval. Instead of being chastised, Marvel got high praise from the news media for being relevant and of informing the public (teenagers especially) about the dangers of drug addiction. This was later followed by National/DC’s highly acclaimed Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics series which tackled issues such as drug addiction, over population, racial prejudice, feminism, environmentalism, and judicial due process.

“Roy Thomas, then at Marvel, recalls that in 1970 the publishers were looking for new markets. “Super-heroes couldn’t do it all,” he said. And while Marvel could have published Mystery titles like those of DC under the old Code, Thomas noted: “We wanted to go further and felt the Code was holding us back.” (Source: Amy Kiste Nyberg, “Cracking the Code: The Liberalization of the Comics Code Authority”, an excerpt from her book: “Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code”, 1998 University Press of Mississippi, reprinted in “Comic Book Artist Collection, Volume 1, Two Morrows Publishing, 2000).

Code of Censorship liberalized too late with no new readers entering the market

These actions led to proposals by mainstream comics publishers National/DC and Marvel to amend or modify certain terminologies or wordings of the 1954 Comics Code. The liberalization would refer to the treatment and use of horror, crime, illicit sex, seduction, abortion, poverty, the generation gap, and political unrest as subject matters in mainstream comics. This was needed in order to attract more readers with mature tastes to U.S. mainstream comics. Unfortunately, DC and Marvel were voted down by other conservative CMMA member publishers such as Archie Comics, Harvey Comics, and Charlton Comics. The Comics Code thus remained unchanged.

But as a sort of compromise, realising that there was truth in the proposal of attracting new readers other than children in order to improve newsstand sales and save the comics market, “Guidelines” were issued by the CMAA in lieu of an amendment of the entire Code. These guidelines “interpreted” provisions of the Code which in effect allowed for the partial relaxation of old prohibitions. There were new guidelines on the use of narcotics in 1971, Guidelines allowing the use of Ghouls, vampires and werewolves in comics stories with the qualification that they should be “handled in the classic tradition such as Frankenstein, Dracula and other high caliber literary works read in schools throughout the world.”

“Roy Thomas: The fact that the moment the Code was changed, Stan told me to create a vampire super-villain, shows that we were indeed chomping at the bit. I’d had my “I, Werewolf” idea long before, too, and it soon became “Werewolf by Night”. Comics also became somewhat more graphic in their depiction of violence and sex, and occasionally the Code Authority issued memos interpreting the regulations. One such Memo was issued April 13, 1974, and clarified the definitions of “excessive bloodshed and gore” as well as warning publishers about their treatment of sex. Darvin wrote:

“Running or dripping blood, or pools of blood, are not permitted. A very small stain around a wound may be acceptable, but must be kept to a minimum. There must be no impression of gore in any areas of objection by governmental and private agencies concerned with children.” The memo also cautioned publishers that the topic of rape was forbidden, that the Code prohibited any illustration or dialogue that indicates a sexual act is actually taking place, and that homosexuality or any suggestion by illustration, dialogue or text was strictly forbidden.

Another memo, dealing with the topics of drug addiction, nudity and alcohol, was issued in 1978. The memo, written by Darvin, noted that stories showing or describing any kind of drugs, including marijuana, had to definitely state or show it being a harmful substance. Publishers were also violating Code standards of nudity by submitting art work that showed nude buttocks or “so insufficiently covered as to amount to nudity.” Darvin warned publishers that such representations were not allowed under state statutes that legally defined nudity. He also warned against showing the drinking of alcohol and instructed publishers to avoid gratuitous display of signs or scenes showing liquor, beer or wine.” (Source: Amy Kiste Nyberg, “Cracking the Code: The Liberalization of the Comics Code Authority”, Ibid.)

But this so-called relaxation of the conservative Comics Code was illusory. Despite the efforts of DC and Marvel to uplift the medium’s content in their respective pages during the late 1960s and early 1970s, overall newsstand sales of mainstream American comics continued to decline as their young readers of the 1950s and 1960s grew older looking for new mature reading fare. Consequently, the further relaxation of the Comics Code in later years came in too late. The continuity of readership was broken. Mainstream comics sold in the newsstands were still mainly targeted for the new generation of children and teenagers.

“Despite its softened stance, the 1971 Code represents a lost opportunity for the industry. The publishers were generally content with the status quo and unwilling to risk their economic health on experimentation that would challenge the public’s perception of the books. The Code’s reaffirmation of comic books as a medium intended for children effectively shut the door on the possibility of attracting a broader audience for comic books and restricted the artistic development of the medium.” (Source: Amy Kiste Nyberg, “Cracking the Code: The Liberalization of the Comics Code Authority”, Ibid.)

Dell, Gold Key/Whitman, Harvey and Charlton comics eventually closed shop in the 1970s. Of the child-friendly comics faithful to the Comics Code, only Archie remained and is operating to this day.

"Today (2000), Archie Comics' main demographic is 7 to 14-year olds, a little more than half being female, [publisher Michael] Silberkleit says. At its sales height, during WWII, Archie sold 6 million copies a month, many of them to soldiers who liked reading comics from home. Now the entire Archie line of comics - 32 titles - sells just fewer than 1 million copies a month." (From a Scripps Howard News Service story in the Denver CO Rocky Mountain News, August 2000)"(Source: http://www.christiancomicsinternational.org/quote_americas.html)

Dishonesty in the newsstands

DC and Marvel executives in the late 1960s and early 1970s wondered why their more experimental and socially relevant comics titles were not selling in the newsstands. In answer, Neal Adams advanced the view that there was some dishonesty being committed in that newsstand dealers, most of whom would become future mainstream comics collectors and comics convention organizers, would not return a significant number of certain copies back to the publisher. These dealers would just report them as unsold by way of a sworn ‘affidavit returns’ and then later sell the copies for a higher price to fellow comics enthusiasts and collectors. The comics publisher meanwhile would be given the wrong impression that its best titles weren’t selling, and then cancel them altogether. Ironically, these “dishonest” dealers would later form the “direct market” that would “save” the mainstream comics industry from the demise of newsstands. Neal Adams:

“They have a concept in the comic book business called affidavit returns. If you send 50 comic books to your local distributor, and he tells you that he didn’t sell 40 of them, he doesn’t have to rip off the covers or cut the title off and return it to you like he once had to; he has to sign a piece of paper that says he DESTROYED the 40 copies. It was the beginning of comic conventions and comics dealers in those days and the question you have to ask is, where did they get the book they sold?

The place they got them was out the back door of their local comics distributors who invariably had a table in that backroom that had Playboy magazines, Marvel Comics, DC Comics and other magazines.

In light of that, Strange Adventures “didn’t sell well enough”, so they cancelled it. I did the X-Men for 10 issues and they “didn’t sell well enough to continue,” so they cancelled it. Green Lantern/Green Arrow “didn’t sell well enough,” so they cancelled it. On the other hand, I have perhaps signed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of these comic books at conventions. On the other hand, the comics that I did covers for—Superman or Superboy—would rise 10 to 15% in sales just because I did the covers. That meant that the collectors weren’t rapacious enough to collect those simply because I just did the covers but the ones which I drew the insides.

That was a very strange phenomenon. The books that were stand-out and did really well didn’t have better sales than any of the other books; sometimes less. The reason? They were disappearing out of the back of the distributors’ warehouses. Why did they cancel the book? I think we may have some dishonest people in the magazine distribution business…or not.

Remember also…when sales weren’t doing well, apparently the numbers are lowered. When numbers go down and it’s a good book, in those days fan-dealers would dive in and buy as many copies from the distributors’ “cash table” as they could.

Mysteriously, the “apparent” sales would continue to drop. DC knew they had a “hot book”, but sales continued into the dumpster. Hell, when I went over to do work at Marvel, they told me “Deadman” was the only DC book they ever read at Marvel.

Carmine was baffled and remains baffled to this day, but, remember, Carmine was publisher in name only. He apparently didn’t ever understand how sales figures worked on “newsstand sales.”

For those of you who care, it works like this: After one month you are told what percentage of your books were returned. As each succeeding month goes by, your returns increase while (obviously) your sales go down. This goes on for a final figure at six months. (Some returns trickle in even then) If returns come in after six months and they’re valid, the distributor makes an accommodation. But six months is it. Your sales NEVER rise because sales are based on returns.

Carmine never quite understood sales and “returns”, and a lot of misinformation was disseminated at DC in those days, to the detriment of editorial and creative.

Personally, I made friends with accounting, record-keeping and production departments. After a while I knew more than the editors and sometimes I shared that information with some very confused and misinformed folk.

If you doubt my information, please remember Continuity Comics were on the newsstands for about three years and we are a “hands-on” publisher.” (Source: Jon B. Cooke, “A Quiet Pitched Battle from Day One: Talking to Neal Adams on his Hell-raising’ DC days”, Comic Book Artist Collection, Volume 2, TwoMorrows Publishing, 2002).

Dealing with the newsstand crisis by flooding the market

Faced with a Comics Code that stunted their creative growth, development, and maturity, DC and Marvel were getting the wrong information from dishonest newsstands that their experimental and best titles were not selling. Both mainstream comics publishers looked with envy at other publications that were selling in the millions in the newsstands. Specifically, they were looking at the black and white, newsstand magazine formats of MAD Magazine, WARREN Publications, and their imitators.

MAD Magazine, published by William M. Gaines of E.C. Comics, is actually a comic book but whose appearance was altered early on in the late 1950s into magazine format in order to avoid the censorship of the Comics Code Authority. Not being tied down by the Code, MAD consequently grew and developed creatively as a successful, if not oftimes controversial, social satire comic that attracted not only children but a devout adult following as well. Because of this, it had tremendous success in the newsstands even though it was in black and white and had frequent reprint issues.

Jim Warren, owner and publisher of WARREN PUBLICATIONS on the other hand, concentrated in the horror genre. Like MAD Magazine, it too published black and white horror comics in magazine format and was consequently not under the jurisdiction of the Comics Code Authority. WARREN was doing all the prohibited restrictions of the Comics Code against the horror genre and was employing the top illustrators and artists of the 1960s, some of whom were former E.C. Comics alumni of the 1950s such as Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Johnny Craig, Reed Crandall, George Evans, John Severin, Wally Wood, new bloods Neal Adams, Archie Goodwin, Jerry Grandenetti, Gray Morrow, Gene Colan, Russ Heath, Angelo Torres, Richard Corben, Bernie Wrightson, Sanjulian, Ken Kelly, Dan Adkins, Tom Sutton, and the great Alex Toth. It had a young and adult audience for its line and was selling in the millions in the newsstands. Its titles were: CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA. Jim Warren’s comics magazine publishing success would continue on to the 1970s with the entry of Spanish illustrators doing most of the interior black and white pages: Enrich (cover artist), Jose Gonzalez, Felix Mas, Jose Bea, Esteban Maroto, Rafael Aura Leon, Ramon Torrents, Jose Ortiz, and Luis Garcia Mozos, to name a few.

These top two black and white comics in magazine format, not constrained by a censor body, and having a huge young and adult market, and were selling in the millions in the newsstands, was the envy of Marvel and DC; especially Marvel who was exploring any and all means to increase its newsstand readership base by riding on trends such as the martial arts, underground comix, minorities, the feminist movement, social satire and the horror genre. Of the last two, Marvel produced a MAD imitation: CRAZY, and the latter, several black and white comics magazines such as Savage Sword of Conan, Savage Tales, Planet of the Apes, and others.

“Marvel also looked to what was working for other publishers. The Warren Publishing Company and its iconoclastic publisher, Jim Warren, had enjoyed years of modest success with black-and-white magazine format comics such as Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Stan hired Marv Wolfman, a former Warren editor, to create a line of similar titles for Marvel. Because they were published as magazines, the books were exempt from Comics Code Authority regulations on sex and violence. Although they never descended into outright nudity, titles such as The Savage Sword of Conan and Dracula Lives! Boasted tiltillation and bloodshed that far exceeded what would have been acceptable in the company’s four-color offerings. ‘We were experimenting with comics and the so-called Marvel formula that Stan had created in the early 1960s, and we were trying to take it to the next step,” says Wolfman. “The new fans coming in wanted something stronger and better. This was a new generation and they needed their own approach while maintaining the things that worked at Marvel.” (Source: Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, “Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book”, Ibid).

With the exception of Conan that lasted well into the 1980s, all of Marvel’s black-and-white comics magazines failed in the newsstand market. DC only produced two titles in this same arena in the early 1970s all by Jack Kirby, but they were discontinued immediately.

The main reason for the failure on these attempts was that in 1971, the new corporate owners of DC and Marvel were engaged in a newsstand war, of “flooding” the market with comics titles. They did not truly concentrate on the creative conceptualization and development of a comics title but on the all-out war for dominance of the newsstand’s limited rackspace.

The result of having too many comics titles in one newsstand ALL selling for a measly 20 to 40 cents, as against other magazines being sold in the same newsstand for more than a dollar, was that the newsdealer had little or no rack space to display and sell these REDUNDANT comic titles, i.e., The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey Super Stories, Marvel Team-up, etc. when it has several other and "different" single title magazines selling for more than a dollar and were bestsellers, i.e., TIME, Playboy, TV Guide, the National Enquirer, to name a few.

More often, boxes and bales of comics titles were sent back to the distributor unopened, undisplayed, and UNSOLD. True, both mainstream companies were experiencing problems with the Code authority, rising production costs, paper shortages, competition from other media and all that, but this was no excuse to flood the market. MAD and WARREN were ALSO experiencing the same problems and yet, they NEVER flooded the newsstand market. MAD stuck to its one magazine title and made a mint by reprinting the same black and white contents in paperback editions. WARREN on the other hand, stuck to its big three: CREEPY, EERIE and VAMPIRELLA. Their "few" black and white magazine-formatted comics continued to be the displayed in the newsstands, and consequently continued to sell in the hundreds of thousands as opposed to DC and Marvel's colored 50 to 80 comicbook titles.

“The comic book market was weakening due to rising production costs, paper shortages, and escalating competition from television and other media. And, despite their popularity, Marvel’s superheroes were not selling as well as they had only a few years before. The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel’s number one title sold 290,000 copies per month in 1972, compared with 370,000 monthly copies in 1968. Of the dozens of publishers who had tried to mine the comic-book business since the late 1930s, only six remained in operation. Marvel and DC, the leaders, were slugging it out for industry dominance. In a bid for the upper hand, Stan resorted to one of Martin Goodman’s classic ploys: he flooded the market. DC responded in kind. From 1975 to 1978, the two companies would release 100 new titles, more than two-thirds of which were axed within two years. They lobbed genre after genre at their ever-shrinking readership, hoping something would stick.” (Source: Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, “Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book”, Chicago Review Press, 2003 ed.)

"CBA: So the distributor made the decision to go 48 pages at 25 cents, Marvel follows suit for only one month...

Carmine Infantino: Then, Marvel switches around and goes to 20 cents, giving the distributor 50% off. When we went to 25 cents, we gave the distributor a 40% discount. Marvel goes in and cuts the price 20% and gives the distributor 50% off. Whoa! They were throwing our books back in our face! They were pushing Marvel's books so it really became a slaughter.

CBA: Were there any controls that held you at 25 cents?

Carmine Infantino: The price structure was set up by Wendell, Ingelsias and Chamberlin. Marvel had the 20 cent books and they took the lead in sales. Why they took the lead is the 50% discount so the distributors and wholesalers made more money with Marvel. So the distributors put out Marvel and couldn't have cared less about us. Eventually, we had to give 50% off because we were getting slaughtered. We had to drop to 20 cents. " (Source: Jon B. Cooke, "Director Commentsfrom Art Director to Publisher: The Infantino Interview", Comic Book Artist, Volume 1 TwoMorrows Publishing, 2000 ed.)

“Although Marvel’s overall business was growing slowly, individual title sales were slipping, meaning that the profit margin on any given book was getting slimmer. That led to cost-cutting measures, such as slashing page counts and reducing the physical size of pages commissioned from artists. At one point, Marvel instructed its artists to draw one story page per issue as a two page spread, thus lightening their paychecks by a page’s worth of compensation.” (Source: Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, “Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book”, Ibid).

"For example, Marvel published only one comic book starring Spider-Man several years ago. It sold, let us say, X no. of copies and may Y profits for a cost of 2 dollars. By adding a second title starring Spider-Man, Marvel thought it could sell X + X copies and make Y + Y profits for a cost of 2 + 2 dollars. What happened however, was that the 2 Spider-Man titles sold only 3/4X + 1/2X copies and made a rofit of only 3/4Y + 1/2Y. The cost was the full 2 + 2, though.

That's what we call diminishing returns, folksies. Rather than get a full X worth of sales and Y worth of profits from the new investment of 2 dollars, Marvel got a diminished return on its second investment and a reduced return on its original investment.

Similarly, when Marvel then added a third Spider-Man book, it was paying 2 + 2 + 2 dollars to do so but only getting something like 5/8 X + 3/8X + 1/4 X sales and only 5/8 Y + 3/8Y + 1/4 Y profits.

Marvel actually has 3 Spidey titles now when you count Marvel Team-Up which always features the Web-Spinner and each individually sells fewer copies per issue than what the original Spider-Man title sold in a one-book market. Granted, the combined total sales of the 3 books are higher than one book's sales ever were, aggregate return less rofits now that the one Spidey book did during its heydey in the late 1960s.

All of which brings us to less is more and its eminent desire for comic-books. What has happened to Marvel's three Spider-Man titles happens to a larger sense to the comic-book macrocosm.

All titles compete against each other and take readers away from each other. Moreover, because of the vagaries of the magazine market we discussed in previous columns, there is only a limited amount of space available on retail display racks--distributors estimate there is room for only about four of every 10 comics published today.

So the question then is why produce all those additional comics in the first place, comics that will never sell because they will never be seen? The old argument that you have to over-produce to sell notwithstanding, there is no reason to be glutting the market. Distributors say they can only distribute four of every 10, so why give them 10? Give them four because that's how many you know they can distribute." (Source: Joe Brancatelli, from his colum: "The Comic Books", CREEPY, Warren Publications, No. 86, February, 1977 issue)

The downside of these deliberate and poorly thought-out shenanigans was that the publishing side of DC and Marvel suffered. By 1974, both mainstream comics companies were not anymore earning substantial income from newsstand sales. Instead, income was mostly being derived from, and all corporate efforts redirected to, the licensing of their respective comics characters to other media such as toys, television, records, clothing, snack items, etc. Comics publishing consequently took a back seat to licensing. Licensing became the apple of DC and Marvel's corporate owners' eyes. With this reversal of priorities, it soon came to a point where the comics publishing aspect of the business would be totally ignored. The corporate bigwigs who inflicted the damage in the first place would claim in nonchalance: Newsstand sales isn't doing any good so why continue publishing? Indeed, WHERE else can one sell these mainstream comic books? Is there any other distribution network besides the newsstands that could cover their voluminous output? This sad turn of events would continue on to the early 1980s where American mainstream comics publishing would be given a second lease on life by the specialized and enclosed world of the‘direct market’ initiated by comics convention "fans".

This sad experience of "flooding" the comics market was not shared in the Philippines (and Japan) mainly because it had makeshift and ambulant comics specialty STALLS situated in the sidestreets called "comics parlours". These ubiquitous stalls and kiosks (banketas) did not carry anything else besides cheap "comicbooks" that were either for sale or for rent. Because they carried nothing but comic books, there was no serious competition for valuable rack space within the comics parlours. The U.S. would experience the same thing later in the 1980s with their more classy "direct market" and "comics specialty shops". As will be shown later, the business arrangement of the U.S. direct market between publisher and dealer is practically the same as that being practiced in the Philippines since the 1950s, and that is, some comics publishers directly sell their comics titles in bulk to comics dealer/agents at a discount. The dealers in turn sell or rent out these discounted comics for a profit in banketa comics parlours.

Turning our attention now, back to the Philippine comic scene in 1972...

This is getting too long, folks. Time-out. Let's reserve the best part in the next installment: THE SECOND RISE OF THE PHILIPPINE MAINSTREAM COMICS INDUSTRY: 1974 to 1989, Media Control under Martial Law, Monopolising the newsstands, Marvel's continued aping of comics with adult markets like Heavy Metal in the 1980s, the influence of the 1960s underground comix movement, and more factual surprises unearthed by yours truly, otherwise known as the guilty pleasure of today's globalized Filipino comics "art" community. :)

Reflections PART TWO/Reconsidering the Pinoy Bomba "Sex" Komiks

Ever since Don Ramon Roces' ACE Publications gave birth to mainstream Filipino comics in 1947, the choice of editorial content, subject matter, themes and illustrative look of almost all local comics have practically been the same.

With comics publishing companies other than ACE coming out after 1947, one would expect some diversity of approach and content (maybe even some creative controversy) in the comics marketplace but this was never the case such as what had happened in the U.S. in 1952 with the coming of the E.C. horror comic genre.

Rather, there was this somewhat rigid sameness and uniformity so characteristic of the conservative status quo of the 1950s that permeated local Filipino comics. The reason was that all the mainstream comics companies of the time were following an industry-wide "Comics Code" conceptualized and implemented throughout the industry by Don Ramon Roces.

As shown in the previous blog entry, the American Comics Code Authority was born in 1954 in order for the remaining American mainstream comics publishers (i.e., Dell, Atlas, National, Archie, etc.) to self-regulate and censor other comics publishers who did not share their editorial point of view. That point of view was in essence, the outlawing of the horror comic genre.

The local version of the American Comics Code in the 1950s was the APEPCOM code. APEPCOM stands for the "Association of Publishers and Editors of Philippine Comics-Magazines".

As disclosed in the book: "History of Komiks in the Philippines and Other Countries" published in the early 1980s by Islas Filipinas Publishing (another comics publishing outfit owned by the Roces family), industry leader ACE Publications codified in January, 1955, (a year after the U.S. Comics Code was implemented) the internal editorial policies of its four comics publications i.e., Pilipino, Hiwaga, Espesyal and Tagalog Klasiks. This set of codified rules was called within the company as the "Golden Code." The purpose of this editorial code was to self-regulate and self-censor ACE comics' editorial content.

This Code was allegedly based on the late President Manuel L. Quezon's Executive Order No. 217 and on the principles enunciated by the revolutionary hero Emilio Jacinto's "Dilim at Liwanag" (Darkness and Light).

How then did this 1955 internal company code spread to the other bourgeoning and competing comics publishing houses at the time? According to the version of one "History" book on local komiks, Don Ramon, through Tony Velasquez (the "Father" of Filipino Komiks) cordially "invited" all the other new comics publishers at the time to form an association: the APEPCOM. Once formed, ACE's "Golden Code" was imposed on all of them. The aforementioned Komiks History book states it in this wise:

"The Company however, felt that the observance of a komiks code should be for all komiks-magazines being published in the Philippines. The other komiks-magazine publishers were sounded out and they liked the idea. Thus was born the APEPCOM, acronym for ASSOCIATION OF PUBLISHERS AND EDITORS OF PHILIPPINE COMICS-MAGAZINES. Its first president was Antonio S. Velasquez.

Later on, APEPCOM joined hands with the Catholic Laymen's Committee for Decency so that its aims could be more effectively realized. The Committee, later renamed Knights of Columbus Good Press Committee, was co-chaired by Ernesto V. Lagdameo and Demetrio R. Santos with the following as members: Rev. George J. Willman, S.J.; Hon. Pastor Endencia, and Rt. Rev. Francisco Avendano." (Source: Cynthia Arevalo, et. al., "History of Komiks in the Philippines and Other Countries", Islas Filipinas Publishing Co., 1982 ed.)

If the above is to be believed, one could see just how powerful Don Ramon really was. He had the Catholic church behind his back who acted as his "big stick". With that kind of a resback, an up and coming competitor comics publisher had no choice but to join the APEPCOM by mere "invitation" and be controlled by Don Ramon's "Golden Code". Is it not any wonder then that most of the mainstream Filipino comics published during the 1950s onto the 1960s, were practically the same editorially, embracing a conservative, CATHOLIC point of view?

Is it not any wonder that most of the comics creators who were guided and "controlled" by this Code, had eventually developed an almost prudish, conservative, and Catholic point of view when writing and drawing their comics? Nudity was a big issue with these people. Violence was toned down. The world is black and white. Good always triumphed over evil. Evil must not be glamorized. Never ridicule the church...local comics, like its American mainstream counterpart, became sedate and "safe". But increasing and maintaining its readership with each passing year.

But this recounting by the dubious and one-sided Komiks History book is deliberately incomplete. Local comics in the 1950s other than Don Ramon's were following the trend in America towards crime comics. And according to more reliable news reports, this particular genre became very profitable and like the U.S. horror comic genre was becoming more adult, more risque, going beyond mere "kiddie" fare, and becoming controversial. Politicians began to take notice and like their U.S. counterparts proposed a ban on these publications.

“Quite naturally, an industry with so much impact on the younger generation is not without its critics. Specifically, a few years back when producing crime komiks really paid handsome dividends, City councilors proposed a ban on the sale of Crime komiks to children below 18. The top publishers got together however, to forestall the move by setting up a voluntary censorship board. Operating under the title of Association of Publishers and Editors of Comics Magazines, they adopted a code, similar to that of the United States and furnished a seal for “good comics reading”. Members who violate the Code or are guilty of publishing indiscretions are expelled.” (Source: E.P. Patane, “Komiks: A Growing, Profitable, Publishing Venture”, The Asia Magazine, October 20, 1963 issue)

This is where Don Ramon's "invitation" to other comics publishers came in. With the advent of the APEPCOM Code now in place, Don Ramon's control and censorship of local comics was complete.

Then along came the Pinoy Bomba (Sex) comic of 1968 and all hell broke loose.

It was a genre that really challenged not only the APEPCOM code, but most importantly, the underlying conservative catholic ideology behind it. If U.S. mainstream comics experienced the trauma of having been introduced to the senseless violence of a horror comic in the 1950s leading to negative public-wide discrimination towards the culture of comics reading, the Philippines later had the same equivalent through the introduction of SEX/EROTICA or alleged pornography in a Bomba comic, that ALMOST lead to a public-wide discrimination against all kinds of Filipino comicbooks, thanks again to the hysteria initiated by the Roceses' APEPCOM.

And if you think that the Pinoy Bomba comic is all sequential art like the erotic graphic novels of the Europeans such as the works of Milo Manara, Guido Crepax, and others, it is not. Rather, it is basically a combination of nude photos, articles on sex, and comic strip serials. For a more elaborate description we refer to the 1969 article of Jose F. Lacaba (a multi-awarded Filipino screenwriter, scholar, and Free Speech advocate) that appeared in the Philippine Free Press of that same year:

“What particularly bothers me about it is that it seems like a manifestation of rank discrimination. For what is the specific target of this decency crusade? Those little magazines capitalizing in sex, locally produced, that have recently swamped Manila’s sidewalks and stalls. They’re cheap, costing from 35 to 40 centavos therefore easily accessible; and have been known by such flip and vulgar titles as Pogi, Toro, Barako, Pil-Yeah, and what have you—they’re proliferating so fast I can’t keep track of them all. Their pages are replete with pictures of burlesque dancers and movie starlets in scanty costumes and provocative poses, comic strip serials dealing with such taboo topics as impotence and venereal diseases, tik-tik type crime stories, instructional articles on subjects such as masturbation, and cartoons this shade of green. Without exception these magazines are, no question about it, trash.

Pogi was the first of these magazines to appear, and when a friend of mine showed me its maiden issue my initial reaction was to call it the poor man’s Playboy. It lacked Playboy’s gloss and sophistication but shared the same crusading zeal about the beauty of sex and the necessity of having a healthy attitude toward it. The very title of Pogi was evidently inspired by Playboy’s. That first issue I found amusing; the whole thing was low camp; and its humor was very, very low (example: “I like my cigarettes king-size. Of course, I like my men the same way”).

The latest issues of Pogi I’ve seen are toned down, have fewer cheesecake photos and now for real vulgar humor you’ll have to go to its imitators. To anybody’s maiden aunt, I guess, Dyagan is the devil incarnate.

The chief objective to Pogi and its relatives seems to be that they are cheap, in both senses of the term, but specifically in the sense that they are inexpensive. This is where discrimination comes in. Anybody with more than 5 pesos is free to go to any thoroughly respectable bookshop and get a copy of Playboy, but the jeepney driver with 40 centavos to spare can’t go down the sidewalk to pick up Pogi without a horde of comstockians jumping on his neck.” (Source: Jose F. Lacaba, “Smite Smut they Say”, at www.philpost.com/1244pages/smitesmut1299.html, citing and reprinting from his magazine article that appeared in the Philippine Free Press in 1969).

From the above report, it would appear that the Pinoy Bomba comic was “tame” (and even poorly conceived) by today’s standards but had a well-meaning objective (i.e. promoting a healthy attitude towards sex through ADULT-EROTICA entertainment). But given the degree of “innocence” and naivete’ of Philippine society’s status quo at the time (especially the APEPCOM), the Bomba comic was seen as BASE PORNOGRAPHY and the reaction of the largely catholic “moral” crusaders bordered on overkill which only put more fat into the fire as chronicled in the 1983 book: “The History of Komiks in the Philippines and Other Countries” by Cynthia Arevalo, et. al. To wit:

“In the late 1960s, smut komiks appeared—no doubt influenced by the wave of permissiveness then pervading the West and emboldened by the near anarchic conditions obtaining in the country. Called “bomba” komiks—the “bomba” was euphemistically used for explicit sex graphics—the publications aroused the ire of concerned citizens and spurred the APEPCOM to move against them. The Association tried to make Manila City Hall to clamp down on the “bomba” komiks. It was a move doomed to fall from the very start; it was to be found out later that certain men close to the authorities were protecting, if not actually financing, the smut publications.” (Source: Cynthia Arevalo, et. al., “Pornography in Print” article from: The History of Komiks in the Philippines and other Countries, Ibid.)

The mid to late 1960s were indeed a time of change and societal turmoil as new thoughts and ideas in the arts, sociology, technology, economics, psychology, government, law, philosophy and religion, emerged to challenge the traditional thinking on these subjects by the status quo. This arose primarily because of the public-wide frustration, disappointment, and distrust of government and the authorities at the time. It was during this period, from 1965 to 1968, that Ferdinand E. Marcos was first elected President of the country. During Marcos’ watch, political warlords increased in number and were all over the countryside, the Philippine peso devaluated progressively, the country continued to import more and manufacture/export less, the Communist insurgency was spreading in the student protest sector, Labor strikes were everywhere, Marcos’ secret plan to invade Malaysia through the scandalous Jabidah massacre was exposed by Ninoy Aquino, the Plaza Miranda bombing, Marcos’ widespread bribery during the national Presidential elections, Marcos’ later affair with a Hollywood starlet: Dovey Beams, the oligopoly and monopolies of family corporations that still controlled the media and economy remained entrenched, these and many others, stoked the Filipino psyche to challenge the existing leadership, which included not only Marcos and his ilk in the political social and economic arena but also the institutionalized Catholic ideology as well through the proliferation of alternative “humanist” and “born-again hippie” philosophies. The local comics publishing front was no exception to these developments. And what better way to challenge institutionalized Catholicism and its support of the reigning elite, than through a cheap, Pinoy Bomba comic catered to majority of Filipinos who were STILL poor?

The Pinoy Bomba comic was actually a template for the introduction of a new alternative genre in Philippine comics that never really developed or matured: EROTICA. It was only given the sensationalized term “bomba” or “bomb” because in the catholic and conservative’s sheltered, repressed, and enclosed “lifestyle” mere nudity is enough to excite their puritan senses.

The EROTICA comics genre has developed and is in fact part of the mainstream in Europe and Japan whose comics industries never experienced the kind of “wholesome”, moralist censorship backlash that Filipinos have, and are still experiencing, in our Third World Country partly run by the Catholic church headquartered in the Vatican.

Some opine that there is a difference between Erotica and Pornography. To some, erotica is the depiction of human sensuality (love) and sexuality with high art aspirations whereas pornography is the depiction of sexuality solely for eliciting sexual arousal, impure thoughts and solely for commercial gain. Despite such difference however, the fact still remains that under the kind of conservative, moralist philosophy still prevailing in our country, the two are considered as one and the same and should be CENSORED; in fact banned from public sight.

Who decides if the comic is obscene or pornographic? To rephrase that, WHO decides if the comic should not be read by others who do not share one’s values and beliefs towards sex? Certainly not the consumer who votes by not patronizing the product, but the CENSOR who altogether prohibits the comics creator from even thinking about it and bans its distribution if ever it gets published. Is this MORALLY right? Is it MORAL for somebody else to suspend at any point in time, one’s freedom of choice and of expression? If one chooses to BAN a person’s choice of reading pornographic literature that is totally devoid of any scientific, cultural, literary or artistic merit, has there been any scientific or empirical data positively showing that such kind of censorship and social control, reduces the incidence of sex crimes and other ills in society? Does this kind of censorship promote the development, sophistication and maturity of a comics reading public?

The so-called religious moralists in our society seem to think so and they propose extreme measures in banning this hard-to-define, amorphous, ever-changing term called “pornography”. But the fact still remains that there is no statistical or scientific study positively showing that pornography indeed causes widespread deviant social behavior. Significantly in the early 70s at the height of the sexual revolution, a scientific study sponsored by the U.S. government was conducted to find out if pornographic literature led to criminal or deviant behavior. The results were NEGATIVE. More details on this could be viewed from the movie documentary on the making of “Deep Throat”, a controversial and early 1970s LOW BUDGET, x-rated film considered by the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest and most profitable film ever made.

There is further empirical evidence showing that the total abolition of censorship limits rather than promotes, the spread of pornographic literature. This was the experience of Denmark in 1967 when it abolished censorship of pornographic literature as exemplified by Jose F. Lacaba:

“That the attraction of pornography diminishes the moment it ceases to be forbidden is shown by the experience of Denmark. Two years ago (1967) the Danish Parliament abolished all censorship of anything written. The result: bookshops and newsstands were suddenly swamped by a deluge of new pornographic books (one publishing house came out with a “Porno series”), books so explicit and detailed in their descriptions of sexual practices as to make Mrs. Grundy turn in her grave and never stop turning. But did the expected buyers come running to the stores? That they did not. In fact, buyers grew fewer. “Four to six months before the law was changed, “griped one publisher “you would distribute 20,000 to 25,000 copies of a new pornographic title. Now only about half of that number are printed, and a third of them come back. I suppose we only print for onanists, and that’s not youth, but mostly people from 45 to 65.” Said another publisher: “There really is a very poor market in Denmark for erotic literature, now that it is no longer forbidden fruit.” The government found the results of its experiment so encouraging it decided to abolish all censorship of movies and pictures.” (Source: Jose F. Lacaba, “Smite Smut they Say”, Ibid.)

Japan too, has restrictions against pornography but Japanese comics creators have been innovative and clever in “going around” the law. Instead of depicting the human organ, they only erase or “white out” the organ or use visual substitutes such as a banana, cucumber, sword, baseball bat, melon, basketball, or employ visual innuendos between the panels. But because the sexual act was not graphically explicit in its depiction, this only served to fuel even more the reading public’s imagination and hence boost the sales of Japanese erotica comics. Quoting philosopher Bertrand Russell, Jose F. Lacaba once more offers a possible explanation:

“Frank pornography would do less harm if it were open and unashamed than it does when it is rendered interesting by secrecy and stealth.” The present campaign against smutty comics will only lead them underground and make them doubly attractive, the way sex itself becomes more fascinating when it is invested with the dark mysteries of taboo. The taboo may succeed in becoming a law, but the law will only enhance the desirability of what’s forbidden. Russel again: “Nine tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.” (Source: Jose F. Lacaba, "Smite Smut they Say", Ibid)

The Pinoy Bomba comic really had it in from the beginning. Like the U.S. Horror comic genre popularized in 1952 by E.C. Comics, it too suffered from public backlash from the country’s catholic “moralist” crusaders who were essentially the mainstream comics publishers controlled by the APEPCOM Code of Don Ramon. But unlike the U.S. horror comic genre which has evolved and matured through the works of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Steve Niles, to name a few, the Pinoy Bomba comic never really matured or developed in the hands of truly creative, and innovative comics creators. This was in large part due to the fact that it has remained in the underground for several years, a much maligned outcast, attracting mostly inferior creators creating sub-par work that only increased ever more the public’s low perception of the genre.

Yet, despite this the paradox of the Pinoy Bomba comic is that it was the ONLY alternative comic genre that collectively OUTSOLD the mainstream comics in the late 1960s, early 1970s, and maybe even in the 1980s decade. Little wonder then why the mainstream komiks publishers sought the help of the government to help stamp out this growing threat to their business. A classic case of collective monopoly action.

“If the neo-puritans really want to strike at the root of the immorality in this country, the place to look for it is not in the pages of the poor man’s Playboy, nor in those of the real Playboy. If they want to restore decency to our society, they should go to where the real indecencies in our midst are. True smut is not in the photographs of nudes, but in the reality of social injustice, in the oppression and exploitation of man by man, in the degrading poverty that afflicts more than 90 percent of our population, the poverty that leads to crime and revolution.

xxx xxx xxx

Censors kill what they cannot comprehend; being unable to recognize the hierarchy of taste, appalled by the taste of the proletariat below him and bewildered by the taste of the cognoscenti above him, he demands that everything be on his level, he would impose his taste by banning the taste of those above and below. He cannot stand the crap manufactured by those he considers his inferiors, nor the act that emanates from those whose superiority he is dimly aware of and unconsciously resents. That is why we end up with a paradox—that the crap must be allowed to exist if the act is to be preserved.” (Source: Jose F. Lacaba, ‘Smite Smut they Say”, Ibid.)

Despite government assistance however, the crusade against the Pinoy Bomba comic failed. Thus:

“The Association (APEPCOM) tried to make Manila City Hall to clamp down on the “bomba” komiks. It was a move doomed to fail from the very start; it was found out later that certain men close to the authorities were protecting, if not actually financing, the smut publications. The APEPCOM was still battling the “bomba” komiks when martial law was proclaimed in 1972. The smut publishers were immediately arrested by the military, thus ending an ugly chapter in the history of Philippine komiks.” (Source: Cynthia Arevalo, et. al., The History of Komiks from the Philippines and other Countries, Ibid.)

What this rather one-sided History book conveniently omitted to state was that in addition to the arrest of the smut publishers, there was an almost one year ban on every publication from seeing print; especially the mainstream comics of Don Ramon. Other mainstream comics publishers closed shop because of the declaration of Martial Law in September, 1972, others sold their companies to Don Ramon, until only Don Ramon was practically left standing.

The lesson thus far is that the main factor that brought a significant decline in both U.S. and Philippine mainstream comics industries is HUMAN intervention that can best be described as monopolistic. The weapon of choice for such monopolistic action? Censorship and Control of the entire industry.

Next: In Part Three we examine how despite the loss of their main distribution channel, the newsstands, U.S. mainstream comics led by Marvel and DC was saved by the “direct market” comics specialty stores founded by comics fans, and how this new distribution network was destroyed by the same monopolistic tendencies of Marvel and DC. Conversely, we will also see how during the 1970s, the Roces comics monopoly lorded it over everyone amidst a repressive political regime, how it flooded the market to stamp out competition after the 1986 EDSA revolution, and how this maneuver ultimately led to its decline in the 1990s. Till then, whatever you do, to whomever you do it to, always remember to use protection. : )

Reflections on the Comparative Histories of American and Filipino mainstream comics industries: PART ONE

The views expressed here are in relation to this blog's previous December 20, 2006 post: "Comparative Historical Overview of the American and Filipino mainstream comics industries: 1950 to 2006". This particular entry is a culled collection of exerpts from blogs, articles, and books on the historical state of these two countries' mainstream comics industries.

I've gotten some pretty interesting comments regarding this post especially from college students and one or two faculty members from the academe. I deliberately omitted to accompany this post with my usual commentary in the hope that by just presenting the bare facts as observed and reported in these excerpts, one would readily observe some interesting parallels between these two countries' industries. Most of the comments I got jibed with my personal observations, others were off-the-cuff. Anyway, this is how I interpret the collected facts:

In the early 1950s, the American mainstream comics industry, which sold comics at 10 cents, was thriving at 600 million copies a year. Yet, by 1968, the industry was down to about $6 million dollars in gross annual sales. This was a time when American mainstream comics was selling at 12 cents.

What happened?

American writers such as Gerard Jones, Jordan Raphael, and Tom Spurgeon opine that by the mid-50s, comics sales were being affected by the rise of television and rising production cost. They do not however, cite any convincing data to support this bare claim. There is one significant historical event though, in the mid-1950s particularly, that greatly and detrimentally affected the U.S. mainstream comics industry. There is moreover, available empirical data to show that this event, more than anything, is what caused a sharp, progressive decline in industry-wide comics sales.

We are talking about the public burning, banning and contempt for comicbooks brought about by U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver's 1954 sub-committee investigation on juvenile delinquency. It was in this televisd committee investigation that the infamous NYC pyschologist, Dr. Fredric Wertham, author of the controversial "Seduction of the Innocent" testified that American comics were the major cause of juvenile delinquency.

From 1952 to 1954, U.S. mainstream comics was dominated by Horror and Crime comics, genres which had then outsold and outmoded the superhero genre. At that time, Horror and Crime comics though widely read by children and young adults, were trying to be relevant and explore new themes in art and subject matter not seen in other competing media despite the sensationalism, garishness and melodrama that permeated its contents. Many observe that this new genre was a step up from the adventuresome, yet child-like innocent fun and frolic previously provided by the American superhero fantasy of the 1940s. With the exception of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, all the other superhero comics titles (and they were plenty) began to fall on the wayside, making way for the new, and a little more adult (at that time), genre of Horror and Crime.

It was the particular genre of Horror though, that really brought in the industry-wide 600 million annual copy sales. The U.S. Senate sub-committee investigation of comic books as a probable cause for juvenile delinquency and the testimony therein of Dr. Wertham would have quietly and naturally died down, if not for the testimony "volunteered" by the visionary comics publisher who started the entire Horror comics trend in 1952 and who risked exploring mature and sometimes edgy adult themes in his horror, crime, and science fiction comics. That publisher was none other than the late, great William M. Gaines of E.C. Comics. His famous (or infamous) comics titles were "Tales from the Crypt", "Vault of Horror", "Haunt of Fear", "Crypt of Terror", "Crime Suspenstories", "Shock Suspenstories", and "Two-Fisted Tales". When his Horror comics were discontinued, Gaines went on to publish MAD as a successful black and white humor/satire Magazine outlasting, outliving, and outselling his old horror comics line.

As told by Gerard Jones in his 2005 Book, "Men of Tomorrow" and by EC Editor Al Feldstein in the "Tales from the Crypt Season 1 Television series, documentary DVD disc", Gaines was so incensed at Dr. Wertham's accusation that he later volunteered to testify before the televised Senate sub-committee hearings and refute Dr. Wertham's accusation and "defend" his horror comics line on grounds of free speech and expression. Rare footage of Gaines' televised opening statement before the Senate Committee can be viewed at the same DVD documentary disc. Unfortunately, Gaines wasn't trained, much less polemically prepared for the Senate backlash thrown his way that day which later resulted in the public-wide lynching and burning of horror and crime comics.

This public outcry led to a spill-over effect whereby ANY genre of U.S. comic was publicly perceived as a corruptor of the American youth and reviled as substandard reading fare for illiterates. Pretty soon, a quarter of mainstream comics publishers closed shop, others tried to persevere and overall comics sales plummeted.

"In the early 1950s, annual comic book sales totalled 600 million copies, by 1956 that number had fallen to 150 million. Comics were no longer a mass medium." (Source: Jordan Rapahel and Tom Spurgeon, "Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book", Chicago Review Press, 2003 ed.)

To help stave off this public relations disaster nearing the total eradication of the medium and a comics reading culture, the remaining mainstream comics publishers such as DELL, Charlton, Harvey, Gold Key, Archie, Walt Disney, Atlas, and National/DC, ostracized Gaines by forming the COMICS CODE AUTHORITY thus resulting in industry-wide "self-regulation". Those who did not follow the Code and carry its seal of approval, met sanctions foremost of which is that of magazine and news dealers refusing to distribute their unapproved comics line.

In effect, U.S. mainstream comics began to CENSOR themselves; getting rid of the "horror", the "terror", the "weird", the "fear", in the comics business, prohibiting in essence the exploration of more adult and mature themes previously pioneered by Gaines' E.C. Horror Comics.

By and large, the Comics Code reflected a 1950s CONSERVATIVE taste followed by the U.S. mainstream comics industry (that is, with a few notable exceptions creeping up now and then such as the Spiderman drug issues of the late 1960s, the acclaimed 1970s Green Lantern and Green Arrow series, Alan Moore's 1980s Swamp Thing, Watchmen, Frank Miller's Dark Knight, and some of DC/Vertigo's titles such as Neil Gaiman's celebrated "Sandman" series).

Despite the imposition of the Comics Code however, overall mainstream industry-wide sales progressively fell up to the late1960s. And though the "Silver Age" began in the late 1950s with the revival or reinvention of the superhero genre at DC and Marvel which spiked up these respective comics houses' sales charts (i.e., DC with revamps of the Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League, the tv "Batman" show and Marvel's "modern" Superhero line), overall industry-wide earnings of mainstream U.S. comics shrank to $6 million a year by 1968.

In the Philippines however, the REVERSE was true in that ever since the postwar period from 1947 to 1963, local mainstream comics industry sales grew to $390,000 every fortnight. This translates to $1.5 Million a year EXCLUDING SUBSTANTIAL ADVERTISING REVENUE.

The average Filipino comic then (the large bulk of which was dominated by Don Ramon Roces' ACE Publications line) was at 25 centavos or U.S. SIX AND A HALF CENTS which is less than an American dime and whose interior pages were in BLACK and WHITE! At this time, the great bulk of local mainstream comics was being published by Don Ramon Roces, and they sold more than all the daily newspapers at the time combined. Don Ramon's local comics were a true MASS MEDIUM in 1963 Philippines, population 29 million, with 4 million fortnightly komiks readers. Why was this so?

Well for one thing, the Philippines from 1947 to 1963 had no similar event of a public outcry against comics brought on by a Senate sub-committee Hearing investigating comics as a prime cause of juvenile delinquency. Most unlike the American mainstream comics, the Filipino comics scene of that period was exploring and developing more mature, adult-themed comics genres, albeit in sensational, melodramatic styles which was the style and fashion of the time. The foremost example of this was the serialized komiks-nobelas or comics novels which were mostly soap operas or ROMANTICIZED DRAMA. These were read not only by children but by adults as well.

"The usual diet is humour, romance, adventure and as a variation of this theme, the thriller. There is a significant difference between the American and Philippine variety, in that script writers and illustrators for komiks use local themes and build indigeneous heroes, heroines, villains and jesters. This is one reason why komiks are so popular. It also explains why komiks provide an unending source of themes for local movie makers." (Source: "KOMIKS: A growing, profitable, publishing venture", The Asia Magazine, October 20, 1963 issue).

Another reason for the growing success of the Filipino comic was that it was UBIQUITOUS; they were practically everywhere, readily accessible, and conveniently priced within the reach of many Filipinos majority of whom were lower income and were still recovering and rebuilding from the great devastation brought about by World War 2, aggravated further by continuing feudal politics and a growing communist Huk insurgency. Television was not as prevalent in the Philippines in 1963 either whose prohibitive cost limited unit ownership to the few socio-economic elite of the time.

Yes, the interior pages of Filipino comics were mostly in black and white mixed in one page or two with one color: RED. There is a reason for this. Not only is it more costly and expensive to print in FULL color where you had to import more ink, use more color plates and incur additional labor costs, but that the frequency of comics publishing, which was at a faster fortnightly rate than the U.S.' monthly frequency for one comic title, did NOT allow one to have extra time to still do the coloring on all the interior pages without unduly compromising the TIMELY and cost-efficient distribution of the entire operation. The printing equipment available in the Philippines at the time, did not even allow for such a regular and industry-wide "colored" standard. But in black and white you can have the job done quickly and competently with some measure of assured profit to spare.

Of significant note is that unlike the American comic, local comics had advertising targeted to adults within its pages which brought in more money to the publishing house. We are talking here of advertising for products such as pomade, local cigarettes, local softdrinks, bus services, etc. In the American mainstream comic you had advertising that was largely targeted to children such as amusement parks, candies, toy rifles, dolls, and model toys.

It is therefore not too immodest to state that mainstream Filipino comics at this time was more mature content-wise than its American counterpart. What it couldn't accomplish technically, it tried and strove to make up for in substance for its largely lower socio-economic class readership.

Also, where the mature or "liberal" U.S. comics of crime and horror were being phased out of the newstands, and rack space was still shared with other print publications such as magazines and newspapers, the Philippines in 1963 was already way ahead with "comics parlors" that is, newstands and kiosks that ONLY specialized in selling American and Filipino mainstream comics.

Again you could say that prior to 1963, the Philippines was the first (probably in the whole world) to market printed comics through makeshift COMICS SPECIALTY SHOPS situated in the streets. Savor this 1963 report from the Asia Magazine's Bureau Chief, E.P. Patane:

"The real problem is not finding new readers but the mechanics of reaching them. There is plenty of potential in the country's 7,000 islands. How to get to readers from coast to coast, town to town, and village to village is the vital question.

One solution is the komiks parlour, which started on an experimental basis in Manila and has now assumed an institutional status in every big city and town in the Philippines. The komiks parlours offer a comprehensive library of old and new publications and for five centavos a komik addict can leaf through a single copy in comfort. " (Source: "KOMIKS: A growing, profitable, publishing venture", by E.P. Patane, Bureau Chief, The Asia Magazine, October 20, 1963 issue)

This development continued well into the 1980s where makeshift comics specialty stores not only sold but even RENTED OUT their copies for on-the-spot readers thus increasing the pass-on rate (and advertising income) of the medium. No wonder local comics were the most preferred medium in the PIA survey of 1989. You could say that these Filipino comics specialty stores are the equivalent of today's Japanese manga specialty shops.

Business-wise however, and unlike their American counterpart who now earned more income through the licensing of their comics characters and stories to other media, local mainstream comics depended mostly on sales and advertising for revenue. Though there were local comics that were licensed out to movies, this was never fully developed or exploited to other media unlike in Japan who really thrived on this system in the 1970s.

Considering therefore that the Filipino mainstream comics (most copies of which were published by Don Ramon Roces) was thriving in the Philippines from the 1950s to 1963, contrary to its American counterpart abroad, one should then ask whether this trend continued. And in reply we answer in the negative.

Yes, the Philippines did have an equivalent to the Senate Committee Investigation hearings which caused a significant reduction in the readership of mainstream Filipino comics at the time, especially to the conservatively adult and mainstream komiks empire of Don Ramon Roces. We are referring to the rise of the notorious, much maligned, largely misunderstood BOMBA "SEX" KOMIKS of 1968.

NEXT: Part Two of our little trip down memory lane.

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PKB recommends: "Comic book educational video" on youtube.com.

THE KOMIKS LOVAPALOOZA EVENT

Can you believe it? First, it was the Komiks Congress now there's another one.

Not to be outdone by the "traditional" komiks personalities of yesteryear, today's "globalized" comics creators of the American and Japanese "inspired" variety have momentarily joined hands and decided to put up a Yes, you read it here first: a FILIPINO KOMIKS LOVAPALOOZA EVENT.

Yesiree. Those wacky guys at the "indie" globalized front are indeed joining the "komiks congress" bandwagon. Like biscuits who are brown outside but really white inside, who outwardly profess their "love" for Filipino Komiks yet do something else entirely, these characters have finally come up with a foolproof marketing plan.

Anyway, these guys (yes, women are minority in this group) have concocted this new "event" to once and for all "revive" the local komiks industry. How, you may ask? And the mind-boggling, high concept, answer is a public display of "LOVE" for Filipino Komiks.

Yes, you read right. All you need is "love" in order to revive a dead (or sleeping) industry. That is why all those Pinoy Komiks enthusiasts and collector/speculators who have with them copies of genuine, honest to goodness "Filipino Komiks" whether newsprint or xerox, original comics art pages or pambalot sa tinapa, to gather round the Baywalk at Roxas Boulevard, Manila and at the appointed date and hour, to SWOON, SERENADE, EMBRACE, KISS and MAKE LOVE to their beloved comics art pages for the longest period of time possible.

Its called the Filipino Komiks LOVAPALOOZA!

The longest, most passionate display of LOVE wins a year supply of photocopy paper. Yes, you could French Kiss your Komiks and even do tongue. Euphorically explore all positions possible under the sun with your precious Komiks pages beyond those conceived in the revered Kama Sutra. This once in a lifetime event may never happen again except next year. Already negotiations are being readied to make this another Guinness Book of World Records entry!

You could even belly-dance with your Komiks till the wee hours of the morning or just mess around while the sun sets along the baywalk area. Admission is free so long as you are able to bring a copy of your Pilipino komiks to be smooched and banged. There is no limit to the number of copies you could bring either so long as they are all kissed, tongued, licked and fellatioed.

The public-wide kissing event will be followed by a Pilipino Komiks underwear fashion show where top celebrities who are comics enthusiasts and actors who have appeared in Komiks inspired movie and television shows will strut the catwalk wearing nothing but their favorite comics pages as underwear! EEYEW. How do you suppose they get to read them first before you-know-what?

Can you just imagine all those NEO-COMICS being hentaied? Or those so-called "indies" wearing undies? Its going to be wild!

The event will be sponsored by RED BULL, VICTORIA COURT and WINSTON LODGE for those enthusiastic few who can't seem to get enough of the event and want to continue their celebration elsewhere.

Remember the date: APRIL 1, 2007 at the Baywalk, Roxas, Boulevard, Manila. Be there or be square! Make Mine Komiks! And a pox on those who say otherwise.