Draft:Judgment Day (EC Comics)

Judgment Day (EC Comics)
Date	1953
Publisher	EC Comics
Creative team
Writer	Al Feldstein
Artist	Joe Orlando
Original publication
Published in	Weird Fantasy
Issues	18
Date of publication	April 1953

Gaines waged several battles with the Comics Code Authority to keep his magazines free from censorship. In one particular example noted by comics historian Digby Diehl, Gaines threatened Judge Charles Murphy, the Comics Code Administrator, with a lawsuit when Murphy ordered EC to alter the science-fiction story "Judgment Day", in Incredible Science Fiction #33 (February 1956). The story, by the writer Al Feldstein and artist Joe Orlando, was a reprint from the pre-Code Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953), inserted when the Code Authority had rejected an initial, original story, "An Eye for an Eye", drawn by Angelo Torres, but was itself also "objected to" because of "the central character being Black".

The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia, inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, with one having fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut determines that due to the robots' bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet until these problems are resolved. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing he is a Black man. Murphy demanded, without any authority in the Code, that the Black astronaut had to be removed.

As Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives:

This really made 'em go bananas in the Code czar's office. "Judge Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us", recalls [EC editor] Feldstein. "I went in there with this story and Murphy says, 'It can't be a Black man'. But ... but that's the whole point of the story!" Feldstein sputtered. When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line. "Listen", he told Murphy, "you've been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business". [Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy. "This is ridiculous!" he bellowed. "I'm going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I'll sue you". Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession. "All right. Just take off the beads of sweat". At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic. "Fuck you!" they shouted into the telephone in unison. Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.

Feldstein, interviewed for the book Tales of Terror: The EC Companion, reiterated his recollection of Murphy making the request:

So he said it can't be a Black [person]. So I said, "For God's sakes, Judge Murphy, that's the whole point of the Goddamn story!" So he said, "No, it can't be a Black". Bill [Gaines] just called him up [later] and raised the roof, and finally they said, "Well, you gotta take the perspiration off". I had the stars glistening in the perspiration on his Black skin. Bill said, "Fuck you", and he hung up.

References

Sources

• Diehl, Digby (1996). Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-14486-9.
• Von Bernewitz, Fred; Geissman, Grant (2000). Tales of Terror: The EC Companion. Timonium, Maryland, and Seattle, Washington: Gemstone Publishing and Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1-56097-403-1.