Stan Lee Says, "YOU OLD MEN GET OFF MY VIDEOGAMES!!!"

In an open letter supporting the Video Games Voters Network, comic book grandmaster Stan Lee drew a parallel between censorship of comic books in the 1950s and new laws aimed at curbing videogame violence. Lee’s letter comes just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case of a California law, which would ban sales of violent video games to anyone under 18, levy fines against retailers for any infractions, and require a new violence rating code. The California law, which was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was declared unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit Court of appeal.s, but the 9th’s decision could be overturned by the Supreme Court. In his letter, which is printed in full on the VGVN site, Lee recalled the excesses of the anti-comic book movement in the 1950s: “My memory has always been lousy and it's not improving with age. But it's good enough to remember a time when the government was trying to do to comic books what some politicians now want to do with video games: censor them and prohibit their sales. It was a bad idea half a century ago and it's just as bad an idea now. Comic books, it was said, contributed to "juvenile delinquency."