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Comics Code Administrators?

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John C:
This might be an off-the-wall question, and it's not high-priority, but does anybody have a list of the decision makers and actual censors behind the Comics Code Authority?

It's mostly a self-gratification thing.  I've been reading through the THUNDER Agents books (about which more, I'm sure, when I'm finished with the series), and a semi-minor character is named "Savanarola Smith," an ultrapatriot warhawk who, even if you agree with him, you kind of don't want to admit it because he seems like a jerk and only has serious credibility among weirdos (and a kind of personality I didn't think existed on '60s television, but fits the modern Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck models well).  The name sounded just a little TOO familiar, so I went hunting for the source.

Initially, I discarded the historical Savonarola as irrelevant, since the character isn't a priest.  I did, however, find Max Beerbohm's "'Savonarola' Brown" from "Seven Men" (1920, apparently printed with the name Smith a year prior), which...well, it's nothing special, but there are moments that distinctly remmind me of writiers like Douglas Adams and William Goldman.  It's on Google Books, if anybody's interested, but not useful to this discussion.

Looking back at our priest, I saw that Girolamo was a book-burner.  And in a comic with heavy involvement by someone with Wally Wood's career, that sounds a lot like a sly jab at a censor, somewhere, which implies the Comics Code.  Might there have been a Jerome on staff, perhaps, giving Wood a hard time?

As I said, minor thing.  It just happened to stick in my mind for a few days, and I got the bug to follow the trail for a bit.

JVJ (RIP):
I have no data for you, John,
but I love how your mind works. Good luck with your quest.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

John C:
I probably would have ignored it entirely as just a peculiar name the writer decided to use.  But later on in the run, the light dawned when an incident is reported at the corner (in Manhattan, mind you) of Keltner and Benson Streets.

I mean, if they're not above what we'd today call "shout-outs" to fans--and, of course, Wood also named the lead character after his creator--then many conspicuous names (and a Keltner Street would be extremely conspicuous in lower Manhattan), then presumably a lot of other names are there waiting to be found.

(There are also some rather interesting names in the letter columns, but again, I'll save that discussion for when I've finished the run so that I don't miss anybody.)

All right.  I'll see if I can find a contact for whatever's left of the Authority and cross fingers that they're willing to share the records.

Bob Hughes:
Sounds like you need a copy of Amy Kiste Nyberg's Seal of Approval- The History of the Comics Code. 1998 University Press of Mississippi. 

I got mine from Amazon, so I suspect it's still available.  Way better than I was expecting it to be.

John C:
Ooh.  Thanks, Bob.  I'll look into that ASAP, but it looks like a good find.

I did turn up (though possibly not current, since it's not in the Yellow Pages) is an address for the comic Magazine Association of America.  I may drop them a line, as well.

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