 As far as comic books are concerned, the reason we're seeing a resurgence in popularity is because we're coming out of the dark ages. This is Chichu. Welcome to my channel. Now, what I want to do in this video is sort of do a one-off video and reply to an email that came my way a few days ago actually, last five days or so. And the email was interesting, it was fun, and the questions were interesting, sort of asking me to share my opinion on a couple of topics regarding comic books, right? And comic books, since in my opinion comic books are sort of a reflection of our society as a whole. So as soon as I read this email and the two questions were asked, it sort of got the juices flowing, you know, you could go down so many different roads down this thing, right? So many rabbit holes regarding this, right? But I'm going to share my take after thinking about this for about three or four days, okay? So let me read you the email, okay? And what we're going to do is there's two questions being asked, or two choices being given for me to comment on, and I'm picking only one of them. So let's have a read through this, and we'll see where this takes us, I've taken some notes and stuff like this, okay? And we're going to call the person J because I don't know if it's okay to use people's first names, I never know this or last names and stuff like this. So we're going to call the person J, so this is J's email to me, like, hi Chih-Chou, I watch your YouTube channel for a couple of years now, regularly watching your comic book content. I'm a student studying at St. John Moores University in England, and I am currently in the process of creating a comic book based magazine, looking at different areas of comic book culture, including previews, reviews, and various stories about modern day issues, etc. I'm contacting you to see if you would like to partake in one of my stories. You have the choice of two subjects I will be writing about. Firstly, I am asking the question, are comic books too Americanized and patriotic, and I would love to get your perspective on this. The second story is about Netflix TV shows and blockbuster movies, and how they are launching comic books back into the limelight and making them popular again. I would greatly appreciate it if you would get back to me, please, and if you are interested, maybe you could make a YouTube video out of it, if so, that would be totally awesome. Thank you very much for your time, kind regards, J. And when I read this email I replied to Jay almost right away, I usually try to reply right away, if you send me emails and I haven't replied my apologies, if I don't get to an email it might just filter its way down and I might lose it. But I replied to Jay and we talked a little bit and stuff like this, and I was actually out of town so I just got back into town like just barely last night, today basically, they have a deadline on Monday, so I've done a little bit of research on this, looked up just a handful of things because I basically got into town today and I'm making this video and I got edited and uploaded within this day, right? So please, whatever I say, whatever I reply, you know I will try to provide references in the description of this video, but please check into it yourself because I haven't gone through multiple filtering cycles that I usually try to go through when I make videos and I write articles and stuff like this, okay? So there's two questions being asked. The first one is, are comic books too Americanized and patriotic? So that's one of the first questions, the first choice and if you've been following my comic book videos you'll know I've talked a little bit about this, I've thrown some hints and stuff like this and I would definitely like to delve deep into this, but I think it's not something that I want to go into right now and I know there's a lot of references that I would like to pull out and there's a time restraint, so I might address this later sometime for the comic book videos, but what I want to do is address the second one. The second question being this, the second story is about Netflix TV shows and blockbuster movies and how they are launching comic books back into the limonite and making them popular again, okay? So that's what I like to address right now and I've been watching, you know, comic book programs are coming on, series are coming on, watching, you know, starting to watch all of them, there's a lot that I've stopped watching, but the Netflix series definitely, I'm watching all of them, Daredevil was amazing, Daredevil 2 was amazing, Punisher was absolutely brilliant, the appearance of Punisher and how they portrayed him in Arrow was just totally psyched about the Punisher series coming out for sure, right? I love how Jones was fantastic, Luke Cage was pretty good, I like that, I love the music button and I can see what they were trying to do with the series, so hugely appreciated for the angle that they took it in and Iron Fist, it was good, the start off fantastic, start off with a bang and I think they were experimenting and whatnot, as far as I'm concerned it was a lesser of the four series, one of the reasons being is there was too many cuts during the fight scenes and stuff like this and there's discrepancies, it wasn't as filtered through as Daredevil, as edited, you know, taken out stuff that didn't make sense, that shouldn't have been there, you saw that in Luke Cage a little bit as well, right? But I loved all of them, will continue watching all of them, that's my two cents. As for the question regarding where the question is leading, for sure TV programs, TV shows have brought on comic books to a level where they're accessible to a lot of mainstream audiences, okay, and they've had a lot to do with, you know, comic books sales starting to pick up in the last few years, especially the movies when they start coming out with Iron Man and whatnot, right? I think they were still filtered, I think the series are brilliant, they portrayed comic books the monthlies much better than the movies do, 100%, right? But we've been seeing, you know, because of media, TV shows, movies and stuff like this, we've been seeing sales of comic books pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up. For the last, you know, it's been on a serious nice growth rate, I guess you want to call it for the last few years, right? So they've had a lot to do with it, but I don't think they're the main cause, I don't think they're the main cause of comic books becoming popular. They have a large part to play in it, but I'm sort of, it could address something regarding my opinion as to why comic books sales are picking up and a lot of people are coming back into comic books and I've been watching my comic book videos, you'll know, I've talked about this a fair bit and again throwing little hints here and there and whatnot, but for me, I think the reason I believe that comic book sales have kicked up huge and it's not, you know, I'm not necessarily talking about the boost, the bump, I guess, the movie bumps and the TV show bumps that the industry is seeing with the pickup of people reading comic books, but because I don't think those, the bumps, stay up on that level. For sure they introduce a certain number of people and drop off and there's a whole bunch of people still, you know, coming on in the industry and reading them, right? Reading the comic books and stuff, especially picking up trays, trays or picking up big time, right? But I think what's sustaining it, what's giving it the permanent growth that we're seeing right now where people are picking up comic books, reading them and going, wow, right? As long as they can find their way around the comic book store, right? It's very daunting, very difficult for someone without any knowledge to walk into a comic book store and go to the racks, the new release racks and pick up a comic book and read it. That's almost, you know, you'll be lucky if you pick up something that you're going to start reading, you're going to go, wow, that was fantastic and you're going to come back and continue to read that, right? A lot of people are doing trades, bookstores are picking, doing trades now and stuff like this, right? But I think what's sustaining people jumping on and not leaving, right? And bringing the collectors and whatnot, right? I think the main reason for that is, is because of the demise of the censorship that was happening in the industry through the comic code, okay? Now, for those of you who, I'm just going to give you a little quick little rundown of what the comics code is. It's basically something that was introduced that came into effect in 19, the Golden Age of Comics, towards the end of Golden Age of Comics in early 1950s where a book was written by a psychologist or psychiatrist or whoever it was, right? I forget his name and I've looked it up multiple times, I guess his name, I got it here, but it's Frederick Welheim and the book was called Seduction of the Innocence, okay? And he put out that book saying that comic books were polluting children's minds, right? And basically what ended up happening was, you know, there was hearings through the government and the government was threatening to step in and the industry itself, what they did was they set up a little committee, and a very little committee of like-minded people that were, that was basically an echo chamber, right? That started censoring comic books for certain things, okay? And what basically that happened, what the end result of that was, was a lot of discourse, a lot of conversation, a lot of creative outlet for artists and stuff like this was destroyed, was taken away. There were companies that went bankrupt because of this, right? And the comic codes, I'm going to delve a little bit into this, okay? I'm going to give you the reason why I think this is the case, that the main reason that we're seeing, you know, basically a comic book industry is being pulled out of its death really, because it had gone down to a level where, you know, there was a huge bump in the 90s where there was a huge bubble occurring and the mainstream media got involved and they hyped it up to a level where the whole thing completely collapsed and slowly it was trickling down to becoming an extremely, extremely niche little market where it would basically disappear within a decade or two, right? But now it's getting a boost where people see the future in comic books. It might not be exactly the form that it's in right now, but it's going to be brilliant, whatever it is, and this form will still be around 50 years from now. I know there's a lot of talk about, you know, comic book collecting is staying, is it going, stuff like that. Comic book collecting is not going to go away. It's just not, okay? It is a medium, it is a form of art, and as far as I know, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, there is no form of art that has ever disappeared, right? I can't think of any records. People used to say this about records, right? Records will disappear. Companies that are printing records are popping up all over the place and they're printing records for collectors, for aficionados, for music lovers because records provide you a certain sound that you cannot get off an mp3 or a wave file, right? Just like live concerts provide you a sound that you cannot get through anything else, right? Comic books provide you a certain form of art form, a certain form of information, a certain form of community, of sharing, of perspective that you cannot get in any other form, okay? So they're not going to go away, but the reason that we're seeing the boost, right? So I'm going off on a lot of tangents right now, right? But let me read you the question again, and the question is this. The second story is about Netflix TV shows and Blackbuster movies and how they are launching comic books back into the limelight and making them popular again. So for sure, the movies, the TV shows, have a pretty large role to play in bringing people, introducing people to comic books. By my opinion, it's the demise of the comic code authority, the demise of censorship, which is really giving comic books a boost, a new life, because we're at a time right now, we're in a renaissance of comics, we're in the second golden age of comics. And as far as the comic code goes, it came into effect in 1954, and it lasted for decades to a level where in the early 2000s, so in 2001, Marvel Comics decided not to follow the comic code, right? Not to submit to censorship, right? They still had their internal censorship, for sure, right? Because of the large company, but they did not submit to a secondary set of filters coming in where they couldn't share certain amount of information. And in 2010, Bungo Comics decided not to follow the comic code, and it was only in 2011 where DC Comics pulled out, right? Which is absolutely insane. So we're in 2017 right now, and the comic code came into effect in 1954, and it was just in 2011 that DC Comics decided not to submit to a secondary censorship filter, and it was 2001 for Marvel Comics. So that's, you know, 1954, 1956, 57, 58, 59, I'm sorry, 1954, 1964, 74, 84, 94, 2004, 50 years, right? 50 plus years for DC Comics and almost 50 years for Marvel Comics. They submitted the censorship. And if you want to know how hardcore the censorship was, then that was one of the main reasons. I mean, we had booths where they were selling comic books, you know, we could go really deep into this and we might analyze this later looking at numbers. But there was different reasons for different, you know, different times where comic books were getting huge boosts, right? But with the age of technology, right, with the age of the internet, if the comic book was still in effect, we would have seen the complete collapse of comic books, right? And for those of you who want to have an idea of how hardcore the censorship was, right, you know, I'll provide links. This is the comics code thing, and you can go to, I printed this thing up, there's a few pages, the comic code, Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America, Inc., adopted October 26, 1954, right? So these are some of the things that were prohibited, censored, right? There's a whole list of stuff, but no comic magazine should use the words horror or terror in its titles. Scenes dealing with or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and wolfism are prohibited, right? Crime shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice or to inspire others, right? Others with a desire to imitate criminals. Scenes of excessive violence and nudity, nudity in any form is prohibited as is incident or undo exposure. There's stuff about marriage here where you can't depict marriage and insanity, insanity, right? And again, if you've seen some of my videos, some of the readings and stuff like this, I, you know, the last video we did, one of the last videos we did, I think the second last one, about comic books where I showed you my savage sort of Conan magazines, right? We're looking at the covers, and at the same time we talked about Conan the Barbarian, which was in comic book format, so it had to abide by the comic code. And we talked about savage sort of Conan, take a look at the covers. And because it was in magazine format, large format, it didn't have to abide by the comic code. And while we're looking at the covers of savage sort of Conan, I was reading you a couple of essays by Roy Thomas, the person that was instrumental in bringing savage sort of Conan, the rights to savage sort of Conan, two Marvel comics that they could publish up, right? And Conan the Barbarian in comic book format is brilliant, of course, right? Fantastic with Barry Windsor-Smith art. But when you read that and then you read savage sort of Conan, it's got a different feel, because the savage sort of Conan is more true. It's not censored as much anyway, that the only censors are really through Marvel comics, it's not through a secondary censor that follows such insane things as criminals should not not be presented, so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation, right? That was part of the comic code. And what we did when we're looking at that video, we looked at the savage sort of Conan and we read Roy Thomas' first essay about how Marvel comics was able to acquire the rights to Conan, right? To print the comic books. And the second essay, which was extremely crucial, was how Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith were maneuvering themselves around the censorship that the comic book code was forcing on them, right? They were self-censoring and trying to slip in every little thing now and then, right? And while we were reading that, we found out that they couldn't show nudity, right? They couldn't show blood, right? We're talking savage sort of Conan, right? Barbarians, sword and sorcery. And one of the things which I found incredible which cracked me up, which I really intended to, that's one of the things I really tried to do with that video showing you the covers of savage sort of Conan. One of the things that you couldn't do according to the comic code, and I don't know if they showed us in any comic book, maybe they were able to slip some through the comic book, through the censors over the five decades, 50 years or so, right? But you were not allowed to show decapitation, right? We're talking sword and sorcery. One of the ways you can kill certain types of creatures of the night is to decapitate them, right? So you couldn't show decapitation on the covers of savage sort of Conan. We had at least two covers where Conan is holding heads of his foes, right? And that was incredible to me, right? And you have to keep in mind that the industry, the comic book industry is one of the most amazing mediums, artistically, politically, economically, just one of the most amazing genres to be in and to explore and to read this history if you want to get an idea of what was happening through society, right? As far as I know from everyone that I've talked to, I don't know one person I've never come across anyone that has been a comic book aficionado, comic book owner, an artist, a creator, a writer that agreed with the censorship, with the comics code. So for 50 plus years, this comics goes, this outside body that controlled the flow of information, right? To dictate what people were exposed to and any publisher that didn't abide by the comic code was extremely on the ground. They had minimal distribution because a lot of big industries, a lot of big corporations would not carry the comic books, right? In their stores, so they could sell them, right? So these gatekeepers, which were the censors, were only one such gatekeepers. From the comics, the people created the comics, the people, the artists sharing their stories, to the people consuming the comic books, there were multiple filters put in place. The censorship, the comic code was one. The distributors were another, right? And there used to be a lot more distributors now, we're down to sort of a monopoly with Diamond Comics that there was the distributors wars happening in the early 1990s and, you know, there was about, you know, two main distributors and there was like maybe, you know, 10, 10 to 15 secondary distributors, but when the distributor wars happened, they all folded and we're basically down to one distributor Diamond Comics and there is a couple of, there's another couple other people dabbing their toes into the field, right? Hopefully we'll get a little bit of competition. So there won't be only one gatekeeper as far as distributors concerned, right? Maybe the other distributors will not act as such huge gatekeepers as Diamond does, right? So we had, you know, for a number of years, we've had the comic book censorship, right? We've had the distributors acting as the gatekeepers. We've had some publishers censoring their own material and understandable, you know? The publisher has 100% right to dictate what their product is, right? You know, some people are more adult oriented, some people are more kid oriented, right? More G rated oriented and those are amazing comic books as well, right? I've loved many of them. Some of the greatest comic books ever written were geared towards G rated, right? And some of the greatest comic books ever written were R rated, right? And, you know, other types of gatekeepers were the comic books owners themselves, right? One of the books that we read during the comic book reading sessions was logo number one, the first African-American comic book series with this monthly title that came out. And unfortunately it only lasted two issues because of censorship, right? Because comic book stores, and this was a comic, we talk a little bit about this when we're doing the reading because, you know, Dell Comics released this comic book about a, it was a Western about a black African-American cowboy that, you know, just gets, he's at the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a fugitive and becomes a hero and stuff like this. And, you know, there's a lot of imagery in that comic. That comic is absolutely brilliant. One of the panels that we read, you know, I printed it and I was like, it seems very, but it's this one here, right? This one right here where, you know, you see cowboys on top of a bull that they've, you know, from their, I guess, I don't know if you called her or not, but the cattle that they have and the comment that's being said is, easy there fella, we're all branded one way or another, right? And the image in the background is black and there's a lot of silhouettes in this comic and it's a brilliant comic book, right? But what happened when this comic came out? A lot of stores decided not to carry it, right? And this was in the 1960s, right? They didn't like the idea of a black hero in a comic book. So what they did, they packaged it all up, sent it to Dell Comics. Dell Comics printed the second issue and the same thing happened. And no publisher can have one, you know, majority of the books coming out being sent back to them, right? And I read somewhere that only 15,000 copies of this ever made it onto the stands, right? Or were printed or were accessible to people, right? So, you know, that was another form of gatekeepers. So to answer the question, let me read this question again, because I am going off on tangents, but it's pretty important to appreciate how powerful censorship is and what the end result is, what comes about when censorship is removed from society, we're able to express ourselves freely, right? Is we get a renaissance, we get something incredible happening, right? So the question that I'm sort of trying to answer right now in a long-winded kind of way is Netflix shows and blockbuster movies is regarding how the Netflix shows and blockbuster movies are relaunching comic books into the limelight and making them popular again. And again, my reply would be they have a part to play in it, but I think the major part that the major reason for this is, because I don't think that's the cause and effect, it's just the resurgence of comic books, the love of comic books, of collecting, the increase in the number of comics being sold, the print runs and stuff like this. I don't think it's directly related or only related to the movies. I think in large part, in much larger part, is related to gatekeepers being eliminated from censorship being removed from creators, from artists producing their work, to people aficionados, me and you reading their works, there are less people that have a say in what's published. And I think that's what we're seeing right now. And this isn't only in the comic book realm. Let me give you one more example, but the absurdity of the censorship, and we must appreciate how absurd this was, the absurdity of the censorship went to the level where certain words could not be used. One of them was wolf, wolfmen, werewolves and stuff like this. And there's a story here about DC Comics where they ran into trouble with the comic code. And I'm just going to read you this little write up. And this is on Wiki as well. I'm just going to read you this little write up just to give you an idea how absurd the censorship was, how complete it was. And anything with that type of censorship is doomed to fail, doomed to fail. But as soon as those barriers are removed, you will see people light up again. You will see a resurgence, and that's I think what we're seeing happen. So this is how absurd the level of censorship was. Writer Marv Wolfman, Wolfman's name was briefly a point of contention between DC Comics and the CCA, the Comics Code Authority, CCA. In the supernatural mystery anthology House of Secrets 83, January 1970, the book's host introduces the story of the stuff that dreams are made of as one told to him by a wandering wolfman. So this is a certain way to create the publishers trying to maneuver themselves around the censorship. So January 1970, the book's host introduces the story, the stuff that dreams are made of, as one told to him by a wandering wolfman. All capitals, comics, lettering, made no distinction between wolfman and wolfman, capital letter with W. The CCA rejected the story and flagged the wolfman reference as a violation. Fellow writer Gary Conway explained to the CCA to the Comics Code Authority that the story's author was in fact named Wolfman, that's his last name, Marv Wolfman was one of the greatest creators in comic books, and asked whether it would still be in violation if they were clearly stated. The CCA agreed that it would not be as long as Wolfman received the writer's credit on the first page of the story. This led to DC beginning to credit creators in its supernatural mystery anthologies. So the censorship was so absolute that DC Comics had to explain that the writer's name was Wolfman, right? Wow, wow, wow, that's how absolute censorship can be. That's how the saying goes, power only wants power, or absolute power corrupts. And this is just taking a little tangents, but this is one of the reasons. One of the authors that I've read a lot of essays of, and one of the authors that I've watched a lot of lectures, one of philosophers, one of the greatest philosophers as far as I'm concerned of the 20th century was Robert Anton Wilson. And censorship, and this type of censorship has not only been prevalent in comic books, it's prevalent within our society right now. Gatekeepers try to maintain their power, always, or increase it. They seldom ever give up power, unless they're forced to give up power, which is one of the reasons where in the age of technology right now, technology has a lot to do with comic books, getting resurgence as well in popularity from fan-made shorts to people creating their own comics, sharing web comics, and talking about comics the way I'm doing right now is sharing their love of comics. That has a lot to do with it as well. But one of the reasons that censorship is so, so destructive, and so powerful to those who are the gatekeepers, and one of the places we're seeing this, going off the tangent, one of the places we're seeing this is through the internet, where we're seeing right now a lot of governments, corporations passing laws or lobbying governments or bribing governments to pass laws, to give them power to censor the internet because they are losing power. Just on every level, censorship has been prevalent within our society, comic books was just one of the first places where in this modern age of technology, civilization, we've seen censorship, it's been, we've seen it hit through music, we've seen it hit through movies of course, TV programs, we've seen it appearing in art, in every aspect of our lives there's been huge, huge discussion and debate on censorship. And I'd like to read you a sort of a comment that Robert Anton Wilson made regarding censorship, and that's my take on this as well. Okay, that right now we're in the in a renaissance period, we're seeing another golden age, we're seeing a resurgence of art, of free speech, of a freedom of expression popping up, where certain powers are trying to make sure that that doesn't become the norm, right, they're trying to prevent that. For us comic book lovers, creators, aficionados, for 50 years we're under the boot, as I guess Orwell put it, right, of authority, of censorship, we're just coming out of that. So what we're seeing right now, one of the main, as far as I'm concerned, the main reason that we're seeing a resurgence in the love of comics and appreciation of comics and on the investment aspect of it, the price is kicking up huge in comic books, right, is because the demise of censorship, right. And Robert Anton Wilson had something to say about this, not just about comic books, but about our society in general. And his comment was this, and he was specifically talking about expansion of consciousness, right, imagination. And I'm going to read you, I'm not going to read you the whole paragraph, because it might not resonate, might not make sense. But it's a piece taken from Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness, from Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, Final Secret of the Illuminati, right. So this is a piece from Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, Final Secrets of the Illuminati, right. And he's making comments regarding Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit of Consciousness. And Robert Anton Wilson came up with his own, I guess exercises, his own perspective on that as well. And a lot of other people have, will have as well, right. So there's just one perspective. But this little quote regards the censorship. And to answer the question, again, let me read you the question, those that I'm trying to provide my perspective on along with the perspective on must be read. And I think at some point maybe I'll make a little video of reading you all of the comic code of 1954. Okay, so let me read you this, the question that was sent my way. The second story is about Netflix's TV shows and blockbuster movies, and how they are launching comic books back into the limelight and making them popular. Again, my reply, right. My take is that just like Deadpool is, you know, has basically become the largest grossing R rated movie, just like the Punisher TV program is going to be R rated or whatever the rating is for the Netflix users, right. Just like Wolverine, the last old man Logan was R rated, and they're extremely popular. And they will continue to be and we will continue to see more mature stories coming on to the scene. May they be comic books, may they be books like The Walking Dead, not abiding by the comic code. I mean, I wonder the creators of The Walking Dead, one of the reasons they picked the title of The Walking Dead was because the comic code authority had banned The Walking Dead, right, or Walking Dead, right. So my take is the main reason that we're seeing a resurgence in comic book is because of the demise of censorship within the comic book medium, right. And artists and creators are able to share things that were prohibited before in this medium, in this medium that basically activates our left and right brain at the same time when we're looking at images and reading texts, right. Very few mediums will do that if any, right. So we're seeing the main cause is because of the demise of censorship and Robert Anton Wilson had something to say about this, right. And maybe at some point we'll read the comic book codes. But here's what Robert Anton Wilson said in Cosmic Trigger, Final Secret of the Illuminati. And let's read the whole paragraph. The suppression of scientific research in this area has had the unfortunate result of turning the outlaw drug culture back towards Fifth Circuit hedonics and pre-scientific tunnel realities, the occult rival, soapalism, pop orientalism. Without scientific discipline and mythology, methodology, few can successfully decode the often frightening but philosophically crucial Six-Circuit metaprogramming signals. And this is the relevant quote. Such scientists as do continue to study the subject, they're not published the results which are illegal and record ever wider tunnel realities only in private conversations like the scholars of the Inquisition era. Voltaire announced the age of reason two centuries too soon. We are still in the dark ages. As far as comic books are concerned, the reason we're seeing a resurgence in popularity is because we're coming out of the dark ages. That's it for now. I'll see you guys in the next video.