Killraven and the Comics Code
The cover of this issue of Amazing Adventures featuring Killraven provides a crucial element of SF comics’ impact on children: the Comics Code Authority (CCA) seal of approval. The Code was instituted in response to claims of immoral actions promoted in comic books affecting the development of children reading them. Despite the semi-frightening monster on the sample page, this issue has been approved by the Comics Code Authority. At this time, the fear of negative influence from comic books was so prolific that it was nearly impossible to successfully sell comic books that were not approved by the Authority. This meant that the comics medium as a whole was, for a time, almost exclusively directed towards––or at least created to be palatable to––children and young adults. Killraven is not necessarily a children’s comic––it has perilous situations and brief comic violence––but it is appropriate for children, and it’s got the seal to prove it. This is representative of the effect of the Authority’s influence: all comic books, for years, had to be at the very least appropriate for children, if not specifically targeted at them. In a genre that often was considered juvenile already, this led to comics being fundamental to the child’s experience of Science Fiction in the twentieth century.