Sacramento, California– One recent day at Sacramento native Lecho Lopez’s comic shop in the city, his 5-year-old nephew read his first word out loud: “Bad.” It was from a graphic novel.
There was an irony in this being his first word, since Lopez takes credit for it Picture books With many positive things in his life. That’s why he supports repealing a 1949 city law that prohibits the distribution of many picture books to children and teens. It is not implemented today.
“It’s a ridiculous law,” said Lopez, who has red and black tattoos. Superman Logo on his forearm, in an interview at his store JLA Comics. “A lot of good things come from comic books.”
A City Council committee voted unanimously this week to advance the repeal and designate the third week of September as “Sacramento Comic Book Week.” It now heads to the full Council for a vote. The ban applies to comic books that prominently depict a description of a crime and show images of illegal acts such as arson, murder or rape.
In the mid-20th century, with the advent of comic books, concerns spread about their effect on children, with some arguing that they might lead to illiteracy or inspire violent crimes. The industry decided to regulate itself, and local governments — from Los Angeles County to Lafayette, Louisiana — issued bans to protect some young comics. While some cities like Sacramento still have these laws on the books, they are rarely enforced.
Now, proponents of repealing Sacramento’s law say it’s essential that it reflects the value of comics and helps protect against… The modern wave of book bans.
Comic book author Eben Burgoon, who started a petition to overturn the Sacramento ban, said comics “have this really valuable ability to speak truth to power.”
“These outdated laws kind of pose this risk where bad actors can work hard to make this medium vulnerable,” he said at a City Council Law and Legislation Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Burgon said Sacramento is a great place to dedicate a week to celebrating comics. The city has a “wonderful” comic book community, he said, and hosts the Crocker Universe Comic Book Expo at a local art museum every year.
Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, said there was “no good reason” to impose a ban like Sacramento’s on the books, saying it “contradicts modern First Amendment standards.”
The decades-old movement to censor comics was not an aberration in U.S. history, said Jeff Trexler, interim director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights to protect the free speech rights of people who read or make comics.
New York, for example, established a commission in the 1920s dedicated to reviewing films to determine whether they should be licensed for public viewing, based on whether they were “obscene” or “sacrilegious” and could “corrupt morals” or “incite crime,” according to state archives.
“Every time there is a new medium or a new way to distribute a medium, there is outrage and an attempt to suppress it,” Trexler said.
The California Supreme Court ruled in 1959 that a Los Angeles County policy prohibiting the sale of so-called “crime” comic books to minors was unconstitutional because it was too broad. Trexler said Sacramento’s ban may not be popular for the same reason.
There’s not a lot of recent research on whether there’s a link between comic books and violent behavior, said Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University in Florida. But he said similar research on television and video games has not shown a link to “clinically relevant changes in youth aggression or violent behavior.”
Browse comics like “Epitaphs from the Abyss” produced by EC Comics, DC’s, marvel In collaboration with “Batman/Deadpool,” Lopez showed an Associated Press reporter images of characters smashing a car’s windshield, slapping someone in the face, and attacking Batman with bows and arrows — the kinds of scenes that could be staged if Sacramento’s ban were enforced.
Benjamin Morse, a lecturer in media studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that comics containing violent events can contain positive messages.
“Spider-Man is a very mature concept,” said Morse, who became an X-Men fan as a child and later worked at Marvel for 10 years. “He is a child who lost his parents, his uncle died due to violence, and he vowed to be fundamentally responsible.”
Lopez’s mother bought him his first comic book, “Ultimate Spider-Man #1,” when he was about 9 years old, Lopez said. But he said it was “Kingdom Come,” a comic starring DC’s Justice League, that changed his life at a young age, with its “hyper-realistic” art that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before.
He said his interest in comic books helped him avoid involvement with gangs while growing up. They also improved his reading skills as a dyslexic.
“The only thing I could really read that helped me absorb information was picture books because you had a visual aid to help you explain what was going on in the book,” Lopez said.
A comic book can offer much more than that, Burgoon said at this week’s hearing.
“It creates creative thinkers,” he said. “It does not lead to widespread delinquency. It does not lead to societal harm.”