Editing Comics Code Authority (section)

=== Criticism and enforcement ===
Some publishers thrived under these restrictions, while others adapted by cancelling titles and focusing on code-approved content; still others went out of business. In practice, the negative effect of not having CCA approval was lack of distribution by the comic book wholesalers, who, as one historian observed, "served as the enforcement arm of the Comics Code Authority by agreeing to handle only those comics with the seal."<ref>{{cite web | url = http://cbldf.org/comics-code-history-the-seal-of-approval/ | title = Comics Code History: The Seal of Approval | first = Dr. Amy Kiste | last = Nyberg | publisher = [[Comic Book Legal Defense Fund]] | date = n.d. | access-date = January 17, 2013 | archive-date = October 1, 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111001032230/http://cbldf.org/comics-code-history-the-seal-of-approval/ | url-status = dead }}</ref>

Publisher [[William Gaines]] believed that clauses forbidding the words "crime", "horror", and "terror" in comic book titles had been deliberately aimed at his own best-selling titles ''[[Crime SuspenStories]]'', ''[[The Vault of Horror (comics)|The Vault of Horror]]'', and ''[[Tales from the Crypt (comics)|Tales from the Crypt]]''.<ref>Jacobs, F: "The Mad World of William M. Gaines", pages 112–114, Lyle Stuart, Inc, 1972</ref><ref>"An Interview With William M. Gaines", Comics Journal #83 pages 76–78, Fantagraphics, Inc, 1983</ref>

Wertham dismissed the code as an inadequate half-measure.<ref>{{cite news|work=[[The New York Times]]|date= February 5, 1955|title=Whip, Knife, Shown as 'Comics' Lures|first= Emma |last=Harrison|page= 17}}</ref> Comics analyst [[Scott McCloud]], on the other hand, later commented that it was as if, in drawing up the code, "the list of requirements a film needs to receive a G rating was doubled, and there were no other acceptable ratings!"<ref>{{cite book |last1=McCloud |first1=Scott |author-link1=Scott McCloud | title=Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form |year=2000 |publisher=Perennial |location=New York |isbn=0-06-095350-0 |oclc=44654496}}</ref>