Comics

The comic strip has diversified greatly as a genre from its original focus of innocent humor to include “war comics,” “adventure comics,” “cowboy comics,” and those dealing with politics, space exploration, and social questions. Thus the generic name comic (recorded from ca. 1889) is now a misnomer. The language has changed, in concert with that of popular culture, Western society at large, and to match the topic in question. Up to the 1960s the language of comics was fairly sanitized, but since then there has been an explo- sion of taboo terms. This has been more obvious in British comics than in the American variety, most of which are certified “Approved by the Comic Codes Authority.” Instituted in 1954, the Code had the same basic aims and restrictions of the Hollywood Production Code (1930), the section on Dialogue insisting that “Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.”

Traditionally, the language of comics was decent and proper, in keeping with the social environment, well described by George Orwell in 1940 in his classic essay “Boys’ Weeklies”: “Everything is safe, solid and unquestionable” (1958, 131). In the British tradition the settings were commonly boarding schools or football teams, so that the most extreme breach of verbal decorum was exclamations such as “Crumbs!,” “Heck!” or “What the …” Orwell notes the “stylized cries of pain ‘Oooogh!,’ ‘Grooo!’ and ‘Yaroo!,’” also commenting: “The slang (‘Go and eat coke [coal]!,’ ‘What the thump!,’ ‘You frabjous ass!,’ etc., etc.) has never been altered, so that the boys are now using slang which is at least thirty years out of date” (1958, 120). He quotes an instance of the “extraordinary, artificial, repetitive style” from the Gem: “Arthur Augustus sat up dizzily. He grabbed his handkerchief and pressed it to his damaged nose…. ‘Bai Jove! This is a go, deah boy!’ gurgled Arthur Augustus. I have been thwown into quite a fluttah! Oogh! The wottahs! The wuffians! The feahful outsidahs! Wow!’ etc. etc. etc.” (1958, 120).

Insulting ethnic stereotypes and labels were de rigueur . As Orwell commented: “In the Gem of 1939, Frenchmen are still Froggies and Italians are still Dagoes. If a Spaniard appears, he is still a ‘dago’ or ‘greaser’ who rolls cigarettes and stabs people in the back” (1958, 128, 137). “Sex is completely taboo,” Orwell observed, adding knowingly, “especially in the form in which it actually arises in public schools” (1958, 121). He was referring to homosexuality, notoriously rife in English public schools in what was known as “the fagging system.” “Religion is also taboo; in the whole thirty years’ issue of the Gem and Magnet , the word ‘God’ probably does not occur, except in ‘God Save the King.’”

Since World War II there have been enormous changes, from monumentally handsome heroes like Superman, Batman, and Captain America to grotesque and cynical antiheroes like Bart Simpson and Andy Capp, with a consequent change of idiom. In the late 1960s in United States there emerged underground comics dealing with social and political subjects, such as sex, drugs, rock and roll, and protests against the Vietnam War. The alternative spelling “comix” was used (as in Zap Comix , 1968) to distinguish them from mainstream comics and possibly to emphasize “X” for “X-rated.” There was an increasing degree of black humor and a visual style of graphic ugliness. Reacting against the restrictions of the Comics Code and Dr. Frederic Wertham’s highly influential study The Seduction of the Innocent (1954), there emerged parodic numbers like Dr. Wirtham’s Comix with full-frontal nudity and Wimmen’s Comix , with stories like “Tits and Clits” and “Twisted Sisters.”

The major development from about 1980 in Britain was the similar growth of “adult” or “mature” comics such as Viz, Crisis, Brain Damage , and Gas . These have demolished most of the older taboos. The character of “Paul Wicker the tall vicar” (from Viz ) has been described as a “malevolent, hard-drinking cleric who abuses his Bible class, holds ‘Fuck the Pope’ rummage sales, and tries to bribe an investigating bishop, who responds: ‘Never mind the bullshit Whicker, I’ve been hearing some complaints about you’” (D.J. Taylor 1990, 22). Two samples from Crisis (no. 46, June 22, 1990) show the descent into a sewer of low invective. “Sinergy” [sic] shows some explicit sex, followed by this tirade from a betrayed black woman: “Bloody ugly bitch! Cow! Whore! How could he do it with such an empty-head, no-brain slut? A bimbo … I can feel the violence coming on!” An episode from “For a Few Troubles More” (set in contemporary Ireland) plumbs the depths of the local idiom: “it was like hooer’s piss,” “sod off y’undead bastard!,” “Ah piss off, y’oul witch!,” “Ferfrigsake mate! she’s a face on her like a well-skelped [slapped] arse!,” and a coy euphemism, “Oh fug!” Viz now carries the warning “Not for sale to children,” includes all the four-letter words, a “profanisaurus” of obscene vocabulary, and a homophobic spoof, “Robin Hood and Richard LittleJohn,” featuring “Queerwood Forest” signposted as “Public Cottaging Area” and “Strictly No Heterosexuality Allowed” (no. 114, May 2002).

The language of comics has changed fundamentally from the artificial idiom of dated euphemism to the argot of various savage underworlds and satirical parodies. Although comics are increasingly analyzed by some modern scholars, it is notable that within three years of Mickey Mouse being launched by Disney in 1928, the derogatory use of Mickey Mouse as an epithet to dismiss a person or thing as lacking value, authenticity, and seriousness was starting to gain currency.