I disagree, Bob. The distributors would've had problems dealing with different approval ratings, then the retailers would've had problems keeping their end together. We weren't as lawsuit-happy then as we are today, of course, but woe be it to the newsstand owner who dares put the CCA-14 stuff on a rack six inches too low where it's confusable with the CCA-7 material.
The real problem, in my eyes, was in considering the CCA seal a mark of quality rather than one of...essentially a synthetic morality, in that books wouldn't be sold unless they carried the seal.
If you do sell them anyway, then you have your de facto multiple levels (sort of like the "For Mature Readers Only" tag that DC tried for a while), but you also let everybody feel in control. Readers can choose. Parents can make demands (like explicit-lyric CDs--people besides me still by CDs, right?). Towns can require ID checks. Shop owners can decide between height requirements or tacky "porn-hiding curtains" (or not carrying them at all, sure).
And again, I can't help but think that the situation might be improved just by having someone call an editor to say, "the villain seems rather stereotypically gay. You might get angry calls." In-house, you get too much intellectual in-breeding to see when your really clever idea is actually just an offensive inside joke.
(For what it's worth, in today's world where creators actually know the names and faces of many fans, I've wondered if a community-driven content rating might be useful. But getting information where it needs to be securely in an industry that's terrified of online piracy...might be a difficult aspect. However, imagine, for example, not only having a "13+" age rating, but having a website where the reviewer can say it's because we're forced to look at Sue Storm in her underwear, Archie fantasizes about decapitating Reggie, or Superman says "crap.")
