Comic Books in the 50's

Hosted by the University of Buffalo's libraries, the Comic Books in the 50's exhibit is a collection of several hundred comic book covers from 1950-1959.

1) Selection Decisions
Interestingly, there's really no explanation for or description of the project itself at all. There is a very, very brief little essay about the mid-fifties senate hearings on comics, and the formation of the Comics Code Authority, with links to two the CCA's guidelines and a pledge to parents from Dell in the 50s, but other than this we're simply given a rudimentary (but not unhelpful) means to browse the images. The collection was compiled and maintained by Michael R. Lavin (last update was six years ago), and presumably the comics scanned are either his or the university library's. Really, the only known selection decision is that the covers fall within the right decade.

2) Metadata
For each cover we're given the series title, the issue number, the date, and the publisher. No additional information is given, and this full description is only visible on the search results screen, and not when viewing the cover itself.

3) Object Characteristics
The images are all roughly . They're screen resolution and often have visible digital artifacts from poor compression. They are quite large on the screen, however, and may even be appropriate for some basic scholarly assumptions.

4) Intended Audience
This collection must be intended for the casual browser, given the total lack of useful context or any extensive metadata. The covers are very fun to look through, and I have to assume that that was really the intent here. The multi-faceted approach to being able to filter and search through such a small collection is confusing, and does confuse the question of who would be using the site, but I think that this is mostly a labor of love, and given the essays provided, it's probably a small attempt to rescue the 50s comic covers from a lack of interest spurred by old acts of censorship.