“FLICK” & “CLINT” Banned in Comics

“HOW ABOUT A FLICK TONIGHT, CYNTHIA?” “WELL…ALL RIGHT!” This panel from Joe Sinnott, “John Lennon,” The Beatles #1, Sep.-Nov, 1964, surely generated snickers from many readers of the comic, for an obvious reason.

It’s rumored that the Comics Code Authority once forbade the use of the words “FLICK” and “CLINT” because of the possibility the words could be misread if the letters L and I bled together on the page, but there is no mention of this in the Comics Code. Whether or not various comics publishers had their own in-house rule is debatable.

The problem was undeniably real, especially in the era before uniform lettering. I recently came across an old comic strip in which the L and the I in “FLICKING” happen to be so close together as to virtually render the cartoon into an accusation of metaphorical ass-fucking.

George Herriman, The Dingbat Family, 4 January 1916 (detail). “DON’T YOU KNOW Y’R FLICKING Y’R OLE DAD IN THE RAWR?” In George Herriman, Baron Bean: The Complete First Year (San Diego: IDW, 2012), 23.

Cliff Sterrett, Polly and Her Pals, 18 June 1916 (detail). Polly and Her Pals 1913-1937 (San Diego: IDW, 2010), 25.

“How Can You Forgive Me?” All True Romance #33, Farrell, February 1958. 

 

 

“Clint,” as either a first or last name, also appears in “Were-Tiger of Assam,” Adventures into the Unknown #25, November 1951; “A Rottin’ Trick,” Tales from the Crypt #29, April-May 1952; “The Empty Apple,” Real Clue Crime Stories, #9, November 1952; “Rock Bound Ghost,” The Thing #6, January 1953; “Doom in the Air,” The Thing #14, June 1954; “Uneasy Rider,” Ghostly Tales #81, August 1970.