The Press: The Dior (Horror) Look

The 20 million copies of horror comics sold on U.S. and Canadian newsstands every month will soon have a new “Dior Look.” Under the new voluntary Comic Book Code adopted by the industry to avoid state and community censorship (TIME, Nov. 8), heroines have been redrawn with less obvious curves and more obvious clothes. Comic Book Censor Charles F. Murphy, a former New York City magistrate, announced last week that his staff has already ordered revisions of 5,656 drawings, 25% involving the “reduction of feminine curves to more natural dimensions.” Other changes: witchlike villains with wiry hair and fanglike teeth have been converted into subtler harpies who would not cause a stir at a proper tea party; knives have been pulled out of corpses, pools of blood mopped up, and “unsuitable” and “objectionable” ads have been thrown out. Sample “objectionable”: bullwhips.