Hey, want to hear about a really horrible and shameful period in American history? Read about what happened to the comic book industry in the 1950s. A quick summary: Psychologist Frederic Wertham, respected at the time, wrote a book about how comics caused juvenile delinquency, homosexuality, and probably made people Communist. So most of the industry got dragged before Congress, and were essentially told to clean up their act or the government would do it for them.
Hence, the Comics Code, a industry body which just coincidentally had rules that threw the most successful publisher at the time, EC Comics, under the bus, ruining every single successful title they had. In retrospect, the censorious jerks of America regret that happening, because it led directly to the birth of MAD Magazine and indirectly to the birth of Superdickery.
Anyway, ever since it was discovered the Code was antiquated and useless, publishers have been slowly dumping it. Marvel ditched it a decade ago, and today DC announced they were doing the same.
So, basically, the only limits on creativity are now the enormous, conservative conglomerates that own the two major publishers. Yay?
[ via the forward-thinkers at Geekosystem ]