"Wild Bill Hickok" coloring/censorship questions

[Snard]

As has been posted in other topic categories, I'm currently scanning/editing a bunch of Avon books from JVJ. One title is "Wild Bill Hickok", and while doing the later issues, I've noticed a peculiarity on certain stories: a number of frames have no color at all. At first I thought this might be a printing defect, but I ruled that out since there are often a mix of colored and noncolored frames on the same page, so it's clear to me that this was done intentionally.

Additionally, there seem to be numerous cases of "censorship" of text in the word balloons, where there are obvious gaps in the text. In some cases, the word balloons are completely empty!

The first examples of this I've uploaded are issues 25 and 26, which should be in the download section by the time you see this posting. Comments and discussion would be most welcome.

[Yoc]

Sure sounds like a case of the CCA showing their muscle.  And boy, it sure does look odd doesn't it?
Heck, they couldn't even use the title on this story -
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/preview/index.php?did=18246&page=18

I've seen where weapons were removed and even word balloons black but never partially removing colour.

Thanks for pointing these out Snard.

[John C]

Wow.  Very odd.

Especially interesting, to me, is the lower right on the second page, where I don't think the original dialogue was typeset.  The original text seems more irregular and either higher or larger than what's now there.

Also, at the top of the fourth page, I'm not entirely sure...it could be a coincidence of a faux-lighting effect, but it looks a lot like an entire character was removed.

In comparison, the assorted empty balloons seem insignificant.

[Yoc]

What I loved was the very loose lettering in the first story of WB #25.  Very fitting for the story IMO.
I recall seeing other examples of the code removing knives so characters were being stabbed by 'sharp fingers'.  hehehe

[Snard]

What I loved was the very loose lettering in the first story of WB #25.  Very fitting for the story IMO.
I recall seeing other examples of the code removing knives so characters were being stabbed by 'sharp fingers'.  hehehe

I feel kind of silly now, after checking the GCD entries for these books. There are a number of notes & pointers about the editing/censorship, including the fact that these stories are reprints from earlier issues. Unfortunately, the stories in #25 were originally printed in Wild Bill Hickok #12, which we don't have. However... the story "The Flaming Fingers of Danger" in WBH #26 was taken from Geronimo #4, with the original title "The Flaming Fingers of Death", so you can compare & contrast the two versions. Most of the edits were to cover up skin & underwear of the female characters, and one frame which I can best characterize as "breast reduction surgery"

[Yoc]

Thanks for letting us know Snard.
I added your findings to the listing.

[Poztron]

My thoughts on this, which I added in abbreviated form as a comment on one of the comics' download page, is that Avon probably didn't have a well-oiled procedure to deal with CCA-demanded changes and a bunch of these changes probably were implemented in the crudest way at the printers at the last moment. The panels with the most things removed from them also had the color removed, rather than have phantom figures (in color) without the black line art.

My hunch is that Avon was already deciding to get out of the comics biz (hence all the reprints of older stories) and just didn't give a hoot about whether the censored comics looked decent or not. They may also have been getting ground up in the same big-time distribution bankruptcy that pulled under so many other publishers around that time. A real low point in comics history: now documented for us all to see!!